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Robert Boyle (1627-1691)

Scientific contributions to: Chemistry, Physics
Known for: Boyle’s Law, Study of physical properties of gases, Study of the concept of an element

Preeminent figure of 17th-century intellectual culture, Robert Boyle was best known as a natural philosopher, particularly in the field of chemistry, but his scientific work covered many areas including hydrostatics, physics, medicine, earth sciences, natural history, and alchemy.

Boyle’s scientific work is characterized by its reliance on experiment and observation and its reluctance to formulate generalized theories. He advocated a “mechanical philosophy” that saw the universe as a huge machine or clock in which all natural phenomena were accountable purely by mechanical, clockwork motion. His contributions to chemistry were based on a mechanical “corpuscularian hypothesis” - a brand of atomism which claimed that everything was composed of minute (but not indivisible) particles of a single universal matter and that these particles were only differentiable by their shape and motion.

Among his most influential writings were The Sceptical Chymist (1661), which assailed the then-current Aristotelian and especially Paracelsian notions about the composition of matter and methods of chemical analysis, and the “Origine of Formes and Qualities” (1666), which used chemical phenomena to support the corpuscularian hypothesis.

Boyle also maintained a lifelong pursuit of transmutational alchemy, endeavouring to discover the secret of transmuting base metals into gold and to contact individuals believed to possess alchemical secrets. Overall, Boyle argued so strongly for the need of applying the principles and methods of chemistry to the study of the natural world and to medicine that he later gained the appellation of the “father of chemistry”.

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Article: From “Boyle, Robert”, Encyclopædia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD | Picture: Portret of Robert Boyle. Author: Johann Kerseboom, c. 1689

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