by Jane Allyson

Created on: July 19, 2008

The British physicist and chemist Robert Boyle was an important intellectual of his time and is credited as being one of the founders of modern chemistry. He is also credited with defining the theory known as "Boyle's Law" for which he remains most famous.

This states that if the volume of a gas becomes less, the pressure will increase proportionally. Explaining all gases were made of tiny particles, Boyle attempted to build a universal 'corpuscular theory' of chemistry. He was able to give meaning to the concept of "elements" as well as giving us the litmus test.

Initially educated at Eton and then sent to Geneva to be tutored privately, Boyle travelled extensively throughout Europe at the very tender age of 12, before settling down to private tutorage in Geneva. His studies included French, Latin, rhetoric, religion and most importantly, the study of mathematics.

He returned from Europe with a thirst for scientific knowledge and a conviction that there was still much to be explained about nature that could be broken down into a simple set of mathematical rule that explained a mechanistic theory of matter.

In 1660, with 11 other prominent people, Boyle founded the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge.

During the middle of the 1600's Boyle made an important move to Oxford. He hired an assistant, an Englishman called Robert Hooke. With Hooke's mechanical talents acting as a foil to Boyle's own researches into air (the properties of gases), they produced the vacuum chamber or air-pump.

Boyle and Hooke were pioneers of their time. Instead of declaring their discovery and using Aristotelian rules of logic and philosophy to argue or substantiate their claims, they insisted on making direct observations from nature and recording a conclusion from what they had seen.

Boyles law: PV=k, where k is constant and the temperature is constant

Boyle was one of the first prominent scientists to perform controlled experiments. He published his work as a reference for others, detailing procedure, the type of apparatus he used and the observations he derived from the experiment. His works were diverse and became a lifelong commitment. He covered many topics ranging from philosophy, medicine and religion, He also wrote The Sceptical Chymist in 1661, in which he attacked Aristotle's theory of four elements. This was an essential part of the modern theory of chemical elements.

The statement that "at constant temperature, the pressure of a gas varies inversely

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