Boyle, Robert

1995/08/02 Azkune Mendia, Iñaki - Elhuyar Fundazioa | Kaltzada, Pili - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Biografiak

(1627-1691)

British physicist and chemist was born on 25 January 1627 at the Lismore Castle in Ireland, in Waterford County. He is the fourteenth son of Count Corck, and from a very young age he excelled in science.

He was sent to the school of Ethon in 1635 and toured Europe between 1639 and 1644. At the age of fourteen in Italy he studied the works of Galileo, recently deceased. He was a good religious Anglican during his life for having entered fear in a storm when he was in genoa.

Returning home in 1645, Francis Bacon met with the savers to discuss fashion experimentation. When Charles II became king in 1663, the flavors society founded the famous organization "Royal Society".

In 1657, knowing Guericke's essays, he tried to make a vacuum pump. With the help of Robert Hooke he achieved the goal and introduced objects of different weight into a tube after making the vacuum.

In 1662 he showed that the compressibility of the air was inversely proportional to the pressure applied to it. This is what is known as the law of Boyle-Mariotte. The main conclusion was that, being compressible, the air should be composed of small particles dispersed in the vacuum. In compression, therefore, these particles were joined. Atomism began to take strength after two thousand years after Democritus expressed it.

Boyle also worked on alchemy. He believed in the transmutation of gold and in 1689 he asked the government to remove the law prohibiting the manufacture of gold. With the gold that was created the government believed that it should take advantage of it and that the scientist had to push to make gold. However, in 1661 Boyle converted alchemy into chemistry with the publication of the book Sceptical Chemist. He abandoned the Greek theory that the elements were composed of mystical substances. For Boyle the element was a material substance identifiable by analytical methods. The element was a substance or could not be distributed in two other simpler.

In 1680 he isolated the phosphorous element of the urine, but Brand advanced to five or ten years because the discovery was silent.

Religious fondness grew with the passage of time in Boyle. He wrote religious essays and paid gas to send some missionaries to the East.

In 1680 he was appointed president of the "Royal Society" but resigned his post for disagreement with the oath system.

He died in London on 30 December 1691.