Robert Boyle

Robert Boyle ( born January 25, 1626jul / February 4 1627greg in Lismore, .. .. † December 31 1691jul / January 10 1692greg in London) was a British naturalist. He was co-founder of the modern element concept of modern physics and chemistry, as well as based on detailed published experiments science generally. He put the eponymous relationship between pressure and volume of a gas ago.

• 3.1 Law of Boyle and Mariotte and other gas properties
• 3.2 Case law
• 3.3 Element concept and Analytical Chemistry, Natural Philosophy
• 3.4 The term of the corpuscle

Life

Robert Boyle was the 14th child of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork ( Great Earl of Cork) ( 1566-1643 ) was born in Lismore Castle in County Waterford in southern Ireland. At eight, he was sent to Eton College. The age of twelve he went to Geneva, then to Florence. First, he learned law, philosophy, mathematics, ancient languages ​​, medicine and theology. He was interested in the natural sciences. During the Revolution in England, he briefly lost all the money. In Italy he studied works of Galileo Galilei, who died in 1642 at Florence. After the death of his father he lived after 1644 in his country house in Stalbridge. There he wrote his book Ethics. Already in 1648 must have also done research on chemical areas Boyle. 1655 he settled in Oxford, in 1668 in London. Because Boyle was wealthy, he had to pursue any livelihood, but could devote himself entirely to scientific studies.

Robert Boyle died on the night of December 31, 1691 in London, one week after the death of his sister. On his grave stone he should have been called the " father of chemistry and uncle of the Earl of Cork ". He was buried in the grounds of the church of St. Martin's -in- the-Fields, which was later destroyed, so that today there is no trace of his tomb. At the funeral in January 1692 Isaac Newton was present.

Personal

Boyle was tall and slender. He had no robust physical constitution, but suffered from his poor health. From the age of 62 years he was forced to withdraw from public life increasingly. He was never married and lived from 1668 with one of his sisters together. Robert Boyle was a brother of the Irish statesman Roger Boyle ( 1621-1679 ).

Research communities

Boyle was a member of the group "Invisible College " at Oxford, from which emerged the Royal Society in London. He was a founding member and 1680 president of this society.

Legacy

After the death of Boyle's correspondence between Isaac Newton and John Locke was a mysterious legacy Boyles, which they described as "red earth". On January 21, 1692 Newton wrote to Locke and asked for the return of his "Two Notable Corruptions ". What it was in this case, it can be concluded from the answer Locke, a part of Boyle's "red earth" and their production recipe is said to have included. After receiving Newton wrote: "This receipt I take to be that thing for the sake nominal real Mr. B. produced the repeal of the Act of Parliament against Multipliers " ( Newton was referring to a law of King Henry IV, which the transmutation of metals into gold or silver banned ). On August 2, 1692 Newton wrote a letter to Locke, where he "red earth" used the term. The published correspondence is clear that Newton has never tries with the "red earth" gold that he has but a year later, dared to take a self- test in August 1693 and taken something from the "red earth", which he then in the next few weeks an emotional breakdown brought about ( cf. Isaac Newton Correspondence, III: 215 f; Dewhurst, John Locke, physician and philosopher ).

Achievments

Law of Boyle and Mariotte and other gas properties

Galileo Galilei had already attempted to measure the weight of air. Otto von Guericke had already pumped out air from indoors. Riccioli suspected that the column of air above the earth around 75 km in the height ranges, and Blaise Pascal suggested that the air pressure on high towers and mountains less than on Earth should be.

Robert Boyle improved along with Robert Hooke, the air pump, and after its completion in 1659 he began a series of experiments on the properties of air. In 1660 Boyle made ​​his major tests to determine the air pressure, which he published in New Experiments, Physico -Mechanical, touching the Spring of the Air. Boyle completed a one-sided sealed tube with water and put the tube with the opening down into a barrier liquid (water, mercury). A few air bubbles were present in the pipe. So he took the arrangement under a glass bell and sucked with an air pump the air out. The filling height of the barrier fluid decreased in the tube, because the trapped air bubbles are stretched in the tube. Boyle walked from the experimental arrangement in which he used a U- shaped bent glass tube with unequal length legs. He first filled mercury in the tube, then water. Because of the higher specific gravity of mercury, the water column was depressed. With this arrangement, he was able to determine the specific gravity of mercury in relation to water, the factor was about 13.54.

Boyle then took the U-shaped pipe for air pressure by he closed the short leg with wax and mercury einfüllte into the pipe. With a glued calibrated strip of paper so he could determine the air pressure. With the air pump he now reduced air pressure and showed that air pressure and volume are always inversely proportional. This result Boyle published 1662. 1676 Edme Mariotte discovered independently of Boyle the connection again. Named after both as a law of Boyle -Mariotte relation for ideal gases is:

It is a special case of the general gas law.

In his experiments showed Boyle that sound can not propagate in a vacuum.

Case law

When he produced a vacuum using his pump Robert Boyle was able to confirm the 1659 drawn up by Galileo Galilei law that all bodies fall at the same speed to the ground when one can neglect air resistance (see free fall).

Element concept and Analytical Chemistry, Natural Philosophy

In 1661 Boyle published his second book, The Sceptical Chemist ( The skeptical chemist). Boyle mentions in his book that he was not proficient in German, so that given in his work, no German literature on the theory of elements ( eg Joachim Jungius ) were. In The Sceptical Chymist Boyle stressed the requirement of Francis Bacon, applied in the natural sciences thorough experimental methods ( empiricism ). The observations would have evaluated and not theories should be made.

Boyle made ​​the study of the properties of the substances to a scientific task. He beheld therefore in chemistry for the first time an independent science. He is also considered the founder of analytical chemistry, the word analysis (resolution) he coined. He has indicators ( litmus, violet ) are used. He used these indicators for the detection of acids and bases in salts. Presumably he discovered in his distillations acetone ( by heating lead acetate ) and methanol ( prepared by heating wood), because no elemental analysis had been developed yet, later researchers are regarded as the discoverer. Boyle also took a first vacuum distillation.

In sections 3 and 6 of his book, important questions are being asked about the element concept. Who has broken gold into its elements? Who has broken glass into its elements? Were these substances may not folding elements?

Distilled Boyle wood, so he got the wood vinegar, then a detectable acid. If wood but distilled over corals, he receives another non-acidic distillate ( some methanol (wood alcohol ) ). What were the reasons for the emergence of different substances?

Boyle recognized by weighing that in metal calcification ( strong heating of a metal with fire and air, thereby arise metal oxides) the weight of the salt-like substance compared to the pure metal increased. This finding argued against the later arisen phlogiston theory.

For Boyle chemistry was the science of the composition of substances, and he contributed to the current understanding of the chemical elements than the ( chemical) indecomposable building blocks of matter at. Then he recognized the difference between mixture and compound, he could make considerable progress in the determination of constituents, a process that he called analysis (at the current term, cf under cation separation process, detection reaction ). It can therefore be considered as co-founder of analytical chemistry. This wet chemical analysis technique, he also exerted on ore samples.

1660, he was able to show that a mouse dies in a closed chamber in which a candle burns in the same moment as the candle goes out. The responsible for this oxygen ( lack ) you only came in 1770 on the track.

The experimental disciplines Boyle refused going back to Empedocles doctrine of the four elements - earth, air, fire and water - from, as well as the doctrine of Paracelsus on the three principles (salt, sulfur, mercury). Thus, it was also known as a natural philosopher called Boyle with the pioneer of modern chemistry, even if he still pursued alchemical aspirations of the conversion element itself.

Boyle was a deeply religious man; he was of the opinion that science and faith are not mutually exclusive.

The term of the corpuscle

Bolye developed a conception according to which there were a large number of very small particles, which are combined in various ways and a shape formed, which he called corpuscles corpuscles. The comprehensive theory, he mentioned corpuscularian theory, of their simplicity while universality he went out, so that one must entertain no fears that they would ever be replaced by another physical hypothesis.

Writings (selection )

• New experiments physico- mechanicall, touching the spring of the air and its effects. Oxford 1660 (online).
• The Sceptical Chymist. 1661. (Online), dt The skeptical chemist, ISBN 3-8171-3229-8.
• Certain Physiological Essays. 1661 -. 5 Essays
• A Defence of the Doctrine Touching the Spring and Weight of the Air Oxford 1662 (online).
• Experiments Touching Colours. 1664th (online).
• New Experiments and Observations Touching Cold or at Experimental History of Cold, Begun. London 1665 (online).
• Hydrostatical paradoxical, made out by new experiments ... 1666. (Online).
• Boyle Papers University of London