Robert Boyle Essay -- essays research papers

Robert Boyle (1627-1691)Robert Boyle was born at Lismore Castle, Munster on 25 January 1627, the ordinal child and seventh son of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork. Robert Boyle was educated mainly by tutors and himself. He had no formal university education but read wide and made contact with many of the most important natural philosophers of his day, two at home and abroad. He had independent means which enabled him to have his deliver laboratory and to support religious charities. He was active in the unseeyn College, an informal body devoted to the new doctrine which in 1663 became the purplish Society, of which he was a Council member. He moved to Oxford in 1654, where he muckle up a laboratory with Robert Hooke as his assistant There he did most of his experimental achievement until 1668 when he went to live in capital of the United Kingdom with his sister Lady Ranelagh.He was made an honorary Doctor of medication of Oxford in 1688. In his autobiographical account (Works , vol. 1, pp. xxixxvi) he reflects on his noble birth that being born heir to a big(p) family is but a glittering kind of slavery and is always an handicap to the completeledge of many retired truths, that cannot be attained without familiarity with meaner persons. He indeed demonstrable a keen interest in the throw of artisans because they tend to know more than anyone else closely the materials of their trades. He makes a general remark about religious beliefs that though we cannot always give a reason for what we regard, we should ever be able to give a reason why we believe it, which is surely a precept that guided his attitude to natural philosophy as well. Boyle was a prolific writer and experimenter on most scientific subjects that were attracting interest at the time. He investigated some alchemical substance claims about which he was largely skeptical in his published works. He was a devoutly religious man but wrote mainly about practical and estimable religious ma tters rather than engaging in theological controversy. He argued for the gross profit of different religious beliefs, and spent a good deal of notes on propagating the gospel in New England and the Orient, sponsoring translations of the Bible into foreign languages. He published many experimental reports and did original work on chemical indicators, human blood, color, fire, medicine, and hydrostatics. With Hooke he developed Guerickes air pump, which he need... ...paratus. He never claimed to have got very far in providing firm empirical evidence for complex corpuscular explanations but he remained optimistic. It has recently been argued, partly on the basis of Boyles unpublished notes, that his interest in chemistry has been greatly underestimated by earlier scholars. It is well known that he essay to confirm many of the alchemists experimental claims but he is also verbalise to have believed in the existence of the Philosophers Stone and to have pass judgment some alchem ical explanations. It has even been suggested, rather obscurely, that he saw alchemy as connecting the material world with the spiritual world. (Principe, 1994). In his published work he clearly accepts the possibility of the transmutation of metals but that is because a corpuscular explanation would be readily available. He respects the alchemists experimental work because he strongly approves of the experimental investigation of the natural world and he thinks that the nobler of the alchemists have made important empirical discoveries. His published comments on their theories, their look for for the Philosophers Stone, and their penchant for secrecy are usually critical.