WEBVTT - Robert Boyle 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:13.960 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:18.560 Frye and I'm Crazy v Wilson. Robert Boyle came up 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.840 in our recent episode on modern Inventions that are actually 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.320 old because I mentioned an old thing and said Robert 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:27.400 Boyle didn't start messing around with that. For a while. 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:30.560 That made me want to do an episode on him, 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:33.879 but then I ended up doing the heart lib episode 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:37.720 first because that gives extra context to the kind of 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:40.760 situation that was going on in England at the time 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:44.680 regarding science and science clicks. And now here we are, 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:47.959 at last, are ready for the Robert Boyle of it all. 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:54.240 Boyle is sometimes called the father of modern chemistry. There 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.000 are other scientists that get called that, though, like Antoine 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:01.120 Lavoisier that we've talked about before. Boyle is frequently described 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.560 as the first modern chemist, which is closer to accurate. 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.080 But his work encompassed a lot more than that, including 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:12.360 being a founding member of the Royal Society. He also 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:14.800 wrote a lot of religious tracts and he was a 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:17.800 product of his time. So you're ready because that means 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.280 some of his ideas were just flat out super yucky. 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:25.080 Robert Boyle was born January twenty fifth, sixteen twenty seven, 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:29.040 in County Waterford, Ireland. He was born in the family home, 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:33.319 which was Lismore Castle. His father was Richard Boyle, first 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:37.800 Earl of Cork, who purchased that home again being a castle, 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:40.320 from Sir Walter Raleigh in the first years of the 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:45.920 sixteen hundreds. Richard is credited with repairing, renovating, and revitalizing 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:50.840 the twelfth century property that had fallen into disrepair. Robert 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:55.640 was the fourteenth of Richard Boyle's fifteen children, which he 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:59.720 had over the course of two marriages. Robert's mother was Catherine, 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:05.080 daughter of Ireland's Secretary of State. When Robert was born, 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.560 his father wrote in his diary quote, my wife, God 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.600 ever be praised, was about three of the clock in 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:15.080 the afternoon of this day, and the sign in Gemini 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:20.240 Libra safely delivered of her seventh son at Lismore. God 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:23.960 bless him for his name is Robert Boyle. Robert was 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.120 christened a week later at Lismore's Chapel, and there was 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.400 a huge party to celebrate. Yeah, I didn't include it 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:33.960 in these notes, but I did read a very kind 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:39.280 of charming and illustrative note in some of Robert's writing 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:42.640 about his family dynamic and how his brothers were treated 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:45.000 versus him, because he was the last son, and he 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.720 was saying, you know, even though the oldest son might 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:51.520 inherit all of the property, the youngest son gets all 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:53.919 of the love. And that certainly seemed to play out 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.760 for them. Yeah, that huge party that they had to 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:01.440 celebrate his christening was one of men large social events 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.880 that happened at the castle when Robert was young. The 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:08.919 Boyle family, due to their status, was constantly busy with guests, 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:13.600 arranging marriages for their men and children, etc. But Robert, 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.480 who was called Robin by his family, and his siblings 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:19.440 also got a lot of time outdoors and they ate 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:23.840 what he described as a quote coarse but cleanly diet. 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:27.720 The luxuries that they experienced were not a constant, but 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:30.520 they were saved for special occasions, and this kind of 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.000 approach to their upbringing was all intended to make sure 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:38.400 that the children were hearty and resilient. Robert's mother died 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:41.720 of tuberculosis when he was three or four. Different sources 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:44.040 report both of those ages, but basically when he was 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.840 still very young. His father, the Earl, was present in 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:50.680 his children's lives, but it seems as though most of 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:53.600 the time that they had was spent with tutors and 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:57.400 nannies and other staff. At the age of five, Robert 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:01.360 was assigned his own personal valet. But though there had 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.720 been a very big focus on this idea of country 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:07.720 living that would ensure that Robert and the other kids 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:09.840 in the family grew up to be healthy and strong. 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.320 As Robert matured into adulthood, he actually had a lot 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:15.960 of health issues, and he's often described as having been 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:19.920 pretty frail. Among other things, he developed kidney stones at 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:23.160 a very young age. Usually that's something that would onset 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:24.600 later in life, but he got them when he was 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:29.159 still a child. He also had very bad vision from 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:31.640 the time he was quite young, and so a lot 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:34.400 of time was spent trying to preserve what vision he had. 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:38.160 Robert started attending Eton College at the age of eight, 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.719 and he was a good student, so dedicated to learning 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.800 that teachers had to stop him from reading so much 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:49.039 in the hopes of not further damaging his eyesight. He 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.520 was at Eton for three years and then was taught 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:56.040 privately at the family's Stawbridge estate in Dorset, England, first 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.839 with the Reverend William Douche and then with a French 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:03.279 tutor named Isaac Marcom. When Robert was twelve, he and 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:06.960 his older brother Francis, who was sixteen, began a tour 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.520 of Europe that was customary for adolescent boys of wealth. 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:15.240 This was a multi year affair and the boys were 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:19.720 accompanied by Marcom, so their education continued during their travels. 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.040 They were mostly based in Switzerland. They stayed at a 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:25.400 home in Geneva, and then they would make trips out 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:29.960 to other places from there. Robert was abroad for almost 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.480 six years for this tour, but his brother Francis had 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:37.039 to return home earlier in sixteen forty two, as the 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:42.680 ongoing conflict between Catholics and Protestants escalated in Ireland. Richard 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.000 Boyle was English by birth. This was really an English 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.600 family that had moved to Ireland. The family were Protestants 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.400 and by that point Francis would have been nineteen, so 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:55.200 he would have needed to defend the family's holdings in 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:59.640 the event of an attack. There's a whole context here 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:04.120 of like the English colonization of Ireland, yes, which we 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:06.400 have talked about before. So I was like, I don't 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:08.840 know that we need to retread all that. We don't 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.719 need to re explain the whole thing again. My understanding 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.240 too is that even though his brother Francis went back, 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:18.560 they their home was never attacked, he never actually had 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:21.560 to do any of that defense that they were worried about. 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:26.880 But in addition to furthering his education, including the acquisition 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:30.320 of a very high degree of French language proficiency, you'll 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:32.520 read a lot of accounts that basically say that Robert 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:34.719 Boyle was so fluent in French that French people thought 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:38.240 he was French. There was also a very significant event 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.320 that happened during this time in Boyle's life where he 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.480 was taking his years abroad. He wrote about it later 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.239 when he was twenty one. At that point he penned 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:52.080 a third person autobiography titled An Account of Filleratus during 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.240 his minority. We're going to talk a little bit more 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.880 about this third person conceit of this biography on Friday. 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.200 In it, Boyle described a stormy night in Geneva that 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:06.239 happened when he was thirteen and how it changed his life. 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:11.560 He wrote, quote and Phileridus is his stand in name, 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:13.240 like the name he gives to the character who is 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:18.360 obviously him quote. But during Philaridus's residence at Geneva, there 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.400 happened to him an accident which he always used to 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:25.640 mention as the considerablest of his whole life. To frame 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.360 a right apprehension of this, you must understand that though 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:32.000 his inclinations were ever virtuous, and his life free from 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:36.080 scandal and inoffensive, yet had the piety he was master 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:41.040 of already so diverted him from aspiring unto more. That Christ, 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.000 who long had lain asleep in his conscience, as he 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.280 once did in the ship, must now as then be 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:50.800 waked by a storm. For at a time which, being 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:54.040 the very heat of summer, promised nothing less about the 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.200 dead of night that adds most terror to such accidents, 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:01.520 Philardus was suddenly waked in affright with such loud claps 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.840 of thunder, which are oftentimes very terrible in those hot 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:08.160 climbs and seasons, that he thought the earth would owe 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:12.000 an ague to the air. The long continuance of that 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:15.280 dismal tempest, where the winds were so loud as almost 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.120 drowned the noise of the very thunder, and the shower 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:21.880 so hideous as almost quenched the lightning ere it could 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:26.120 reach his eyes, confirmed feloratus in his apprehensions of the 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:31.280 day of judgments being at hand. Whereupon the consideration of 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:35.319 his unpreparedness to welcome it, and the hideousness of being 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:39.240 surprised by it in an unfit condition, made him resolve 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:43.200 and vow that if his fears were that night disappointed, 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.880 all his further additions to his life should be more 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:52.360 religiously and watchfully employed. The morning came, and a serener, 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:57.119 cloudless sky returned when he ratified his determination so solemnly 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:02.079 that from that day he dated his converse renewing. Now 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:06.000 he was past changer the vow he had made, so 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:09.400 the storm scared him so badly that he pledged to 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:13.240 become an ardent Christian. A lot of people have moments 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.480 like this in their lives. Something happens, you feel like 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:20.079 you're committing yourself to something up for a lot of 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:24.360 get me through this, yeah, whether it's whether it's religion 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:26.320 or something else. Like for a lot of folks, though, 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:29.000 that kind of fades away. But Boyle stuck to that 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:32.120 promise for the rest of his life, while he was 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:37.280 already interested in science before this event. His newfound religiousness 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:40.400 shifted his approach to science as it grew up. He 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:44.040 pursued science always as a means to show the marvels 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.600 of the natural world as the work of God. One 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.040 of the ideas that Boyle wrote about over the years 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.760 was this concept that the universe is a huge machine. 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.839 Everything in it functions as a component of it, down 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:01.520 to minute particles that are different perentiated by shape and motion. 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.840 In his religious worldview, this was a mechanism that had 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:10.400 been carefully designed by a higher power. Coming up, we 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:13.520 will talk about Boyle's life after his tour of Europe, 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:15.920 but first we will hear from the sponsors that keep 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:29.000 the show going. At the age of seventeen, Robert Boyle 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:33.600 finished his travels, but he did not return to Ireland. Instead, 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:35.800 he went to London and he stayed with his sister 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.120 Catherine for four and a half months. From there he 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.760 moved on to Dorset, England, where he had a family 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:44.520 estate that was the manner of Stalbridge that he had 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:49.120 inherited upon his father's death in sixteen forty three. While 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.199 there was a great deal of turmoil in play at 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:56.200 this time that impacted the aristocracy in regards to their landholdings. 0:10:56.640 --> 0:11:01.560 Boyle's property was safe. Other people in similar situations were 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:06.560 having their estates seized by the parliamentarians. But Boyle's sister Catherine, 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.160 who had become Viscountess Randlaw when she married Arthur Jones, 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.880 had good relationships with members of the parliamentarians, which had 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:18.600 helped ensure that Robert would get and keep his inherited land. 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.280 Boyle wrote of this advantageous relationship this way, quote he 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.680 reaped also a collateral advantage by it, which was that 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.400 a sister in law of Lady Randlaw, who was with 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:31.760 them in the house and was wife of one of 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:35.079 the principal members of the then House of Commons, brought 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:38.199 him into the acquaintance and friendship of some great men 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:42.000 of that party, which was then growing and soon after victorious, 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.960 by whose means he got early protection for his English 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:51.560 and Irish estates. At Stalbridge, Boyle started his life's work 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:57.000 in earnest studying science and theology in parallel. In his autobiography, 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:00.000 he wrote that quote he applied himself with great figures 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:04.680 to his studies of various kinds, particularly those of natural 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:08.040 philosophy and chemistry. He had already spent a lot of 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:11.400 time studying ancient languages so that he could study religious 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:14.920 texts in their original languages. This is also when he 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:19.120 started writing seriously about religion and ethics, and he wrote 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:23.440 the autobiography that we've already mentioned. He also started a 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:28.559 series of scientific experiments, and when Boyle first got to Stalbridge, 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:32.360 he wrote his sister a very long letter. He includes 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:36.120 it in that autobiography, and that letter concluded, quote, my 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:40.160 stay here, god willing, shall not be long, this country 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:45.440 being generally infected with three epidemical diseases besides that old 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:48.960 liger sickness, the troop flux, namely the plague which now 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.480 begins to revive again at Bristol and Jovel six miles off, 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:57.040 fits of the committee, and consumption of the purse to 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.880 which so violent expulsives. I is so potent and a 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.080 attractive as a letter from you were, but added it 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:07.439 would both extremely sweeten this day and accelerate the departure 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:11.800 of your most affectionate brother and humble servant. So he 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:15.320 basically thought England was not cool. But his time at 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.360 Stallbridge was not short as he had hoped. He ended 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:22.000 up living there more than a decade. In sixteen forty seven, 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:25.320 Robert Boyle became acquainted with the Heartlibs circle, which we 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:28.760 covered just recently, and it was through the chemists in 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.000 the group that Boyle started to think about doing his 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:35.280 own chemistry experiments. He wrote of this quote. His acquaintance 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:39.200 with mister Samuel Hartlib began very early, and he included 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.640 several letters that he wrote Heartlib in this autobiography to 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:47.040 illustrate their ongoing relationship. The two men bonded over both 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.959 science and religion, and Boyle referenced writing of Heartlib's friend 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:54.679 and collaborator John Durry on that subject. In May of 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:59.120 sixteen forty seven, Boyle wrote a letter to Dorry encouraging 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:03.400 his efforts to bring Lutherans and Calvinists together, stating quote, 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:07.000 it is strange that men should rather be quarreling for 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:10.880 a few trifling opinions wherein they dissent, than to embrace 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.640 one another for those many fundamental truths wherein they agree. 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.480 And it is in this letter to Heartlib that Boyle 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:22.240 mentioned that the information he had received from Heartlib gave 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:25.000 him something to do at Stalbridge, where he was kind 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:29.200 of lonely and bored. Quote as for me, during my 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.160 confinement to this melancholy solitude, I often divert myself at 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:38.040 leisure moments in trying such experiments as the unfurnishedness of 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:41.560 the place and the present distractedness of my mind will 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:45.880 permit me, which when once my vacant intervals of time, 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:48.680 will give me leave to block paper with and make 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.720 some short discourses and reflections upon you may with all 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.200 the services you shall be pleased to command their author 0:14:55.400 --> 0:15:01.400 confidently expect from your most affectionate friend and humble servant. Yeah. So, 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.320 just in case that's unclear, He's like, thank you so 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:06.360 much for those materials you sent me. That's going to 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:09.240 help me in the experiments I want to try, and 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:11.160 whatever I find out, I'm going to send back to 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:13.760 you for circulation in the circle. So yeah, he was like, 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.240 this is very convenient. With my big empty house, I 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:19.200 have lots of space for doing experiments. I'm bored and 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:26.280 I can do activities. Another person that became highly influential 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:30.800 in Boyle's intellectual life also entered it during the Stalbridge years. 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:36.160 That was physician Nathaniel Highmore. Hi Moore was educated at Oxford, 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:38.040 and at one point he had cared for members of 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:40.760 the royal family. He wasn't the regular royal surgeon. It 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.800 was like an instance where at least one member of 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:46.000 the family had gotten quite ill when they were traveling, 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:49.440 and he happened to be the nearby doctor. By the 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:52.640 time Boyle met him, Himore had set up a private 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.880 practice in Sherburne, a little more than seven miles west 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.200 of Stallbridge. Him Moore was a leader in the medical 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.160 field in a now me In particular, he is often 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:06.400 described as an anatomy pioneer. He is credited with being 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:10.080 the first person to describe in writing the maxillary sinus 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:13.880 and the part of testicular anatomy that separates the testicles. 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:17.880 Highmore and Boyle became very fast friends, so much so 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.280 that when Highmore published his book The History of Generation 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:25.040 in sixteen fifty one, he dedicated it to Robert Boyle, 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:28.760 writing to the Honorable Mister Robert Boyle, son to the 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:32.440 right Honorable the Earl of Cork, my much honored friend, 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.200 Noble Sir, Where virtue shall be found in conjunction with 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.200 nobility and such black the last and worst times, it 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:43.280 no less invites and amazes the eyes and hearers of 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:47.520 beholders than some new star or blazing comet. But with 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.640 the difference, the one is cause of their fear, the 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.600 other gives life to their hopes and joy. You have, sir, 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:58.240 so enriched your tender years with such choice principles of 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.680 the best sort and even, and to admiration, manage them 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:05.080 to the greatest advantage, that you stand both a pattern 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:09.280 and a wonder to our nobility and gentry. Along with 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.760 the land he had inherited in England, Boyle also had 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:16.000 land in Ireland. During the two years that ran from 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.679 sixteen fifty two to sixteen fifty four, he was frequently 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:23.200 in Ireland, but that didn't slow down his scientific work. 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.080 He had also begun years earlier to attend get togethers 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:29.199 of the group of men who wo had come to 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.359 be known as the Invisible College. That's a name Boyle 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:36.760 is credited with coining. Through these meetings and the relationships 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.760 he developed, it became well known that Boyle was working 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:43.840 in a number of areas, but especially chemistry, and that 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:48.080 he was recording a lot of information in his home lab. Yeah, 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:52.199 he definitely garnered a lot of respect through this, and 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.560 you'll often even see him described as the center of 0:17:55.600 --> 0:18:00.240 the Invisible College. In sixteen fifty four, Boyle had rush 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.000 returned from Ireland to Stallbridge, and he was at that 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:07.639 point invited to join the University of Oxford. Doctor John Wilkins, 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:11.080 who was an Anglican clergyman, a natural philosopher and the 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:14.199 warden of Wadham College at Oxford, had offered him a 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.679 position there, and for Boyle, who had been working on 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.280 his own out in the country, London had started to 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:24.479 look really quite appealing, so in sixteen fifty five he 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:28.280 left Dorset. The move to Oxford put Boyle in close 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:32.199 proximity to many intellectuals, and he soon fell in with 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.600 a group of them that includes very familiar names. Among 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.879 them were John Locke and Christopher Wren. The men started 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:43.200 meeting at Boyle's home and dubbed themselves the Experimental Philosophy Club. 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.280 And Boyle's scientific work also got a huge boost in 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:49.760 this move because he was able to set up a 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:53.399 laboratory in High Street and fill it with a full staff. 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.280 This enabled Boyle to do more experiments and to publish 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:00.320 a lot of information, and his lab became came a 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:04.240 hub of new discoveries that propelled the entire European scientific 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:08.119 community forward. One of the members of Boyle's staff was 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:12.600 his assistant Robert Hook. Boyle had shared information with Hook 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.360 about an air pump that had been developed in Germany 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:20.120 in sixteen fifty four for creating a vacuum for scientific experimentation, 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:25.120 but the German design wasn't ideal and it had performance issues. 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:28.880 Hook solved these problems with his own version of the pump, 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.800 which he developed in sixteen fifty nine. The Hook model 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.800 worked consistently and opened the door for an array of experiments. 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.560 He worked on projects that examined the functions of vacuums, 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:44.560 air pressure, and combustion, as well as others. In sixteen 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:48.080 sixty Boyle published his new writing based on this work, 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:52.520 New Experiments Physico Mechanical Touching the Spring of the Air 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:56.119 and its Effects. A second edition was published in sixteen 0:19:56.200 --> 0:20:00.359 sixty two with additional notes, and In this work, Boyle 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:04.679 described the inverse relationship between the pressure and volume of 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:09.040 a gas at a constant temperature. He described this only 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:11.600 as a hypothesis that was based on data that he 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:16.040 collected from an experiment, but that idea would eventually be 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:21.159 recognized as Boyle's law today, Boyle's original description is a 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:25.920 little difficult to recognize as that law of inverse relationship 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:30.880 that students are taught about today. This kind of interesting 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:33.399 way that he described it was discussed at length in 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.400 this nineteen ninety nine paper by John B. West, which 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:40.000 was published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. West writes 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:44.000 this of Boyle's work, quote, the original presentation of what 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:48.280 we know as Boyle's law has several interesting features, and 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:52.119 then West outlines these interesting features, the first being that 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.760 Boyle was using a very long J shaped tube was 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:58.720 two and a half meters long, which made the whole 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:04.560 experiment of trying to measure gas and volume a little 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:09.160 bit tricky. Additionally, the numbers that Boyle recorded look really 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:13.680 nutty to modernize, because his calculations led to some wild fractions. 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:17.600 You'll see things listed as a number with ten thirteenths 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:21.320 of something and eighteen twenty thirds. Because while the concept 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:24.440 of decimals to represent fractions less than the number one 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:28.080 had been used in Europe already during the seventeenth century, 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:32.000 they weren't common and they weren't standard practice. Fractions were 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:34.200 really the style of the day when it came to notation. 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.159 And the other odd thing that West notes is that 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:39.800 the two numbers that needed to be compared to see 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:43.760 that relationship between pressure and volume were included in Boyle's 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:47.560 writing in two different tables, so a reader trying to 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.879 understand and grasp the concept have to look back and 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:54.920 forth between them, which is just not very efficient. And again, 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:57.879 it was a hypothesis. It wasn't like he was saying 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:01.119 this was a for sure thing. But this concept was 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:05.640 described by Boyle as an experiment and his observations. As 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:07.639 we said a moment ago, it only later came to 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:10.359 be known as Boyle's law. And we have to note 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:12.960 too that Boyle and Hook get credit for this, but 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:17.080 they were not the only scientists trying to understand the 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:22.240 property of air and gases. Several other scientists arrived at 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:27.000 similar conclusions around the same time, including English physician Henry Power, 0:22:27.400 --> 0:22:32.600 English mathematician Richard Townley, and French physicist Edme Mariott. So 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:35.520 while Boyle is often called the first modern chemist, his 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:39.719 most significant and enduring contribution to science is also something 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:42.440 that is a physics concept. I feel like I learned 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:45.720 Boyle's law in physics before it ever came up in chemistry. 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:49.479 I think I did too. We'll talk about the founding 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:52.400 of the Royal Society and beyond, but first we'll take 0:22:52.440 --> 0:23:04.800 a quick sponsor break. The same year that the first 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:09.280 edition of New Experiments Physico Mechanical was published, the Royal 0:23:09.359 --> 0:23:13.199 Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge was founded on 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:16.919 November twenty eighth at Gresham College when Boyle and eleven 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:19.760 other men in his circle met after a lecture given 0:23:19.760 --> 0:23:22.920 by Christopher Wren. Ren was also one of the founders. 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:27.600 This official founding brought together a few separate but overlapping 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:31.520 kind of casual circles of natural philosophers. By the way, 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:34.560 the word natural philosopher just means scientists. They just didn't 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:37.440 have the word scientists yet. And all of these men 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:40.160 had started meeting as far back as the sixteen forties, 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:42.679 because a big part of what brought them together was 0:23:42.720 --> 0:23:45.720 the writing of Sir Francis Bacon, who had put forth 0:23:45.720 --> 0:23:49.200 the idea of the scientific method, and this concept of 0:23:49.840 --> 0:23:54.320 establishing a set of rules for conducting experiments and collating 0:23:54.440 --> 0:23:57.600 data and making things all work in a way that 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:01.840 everyone in the field could understand. So with the founding 0:24:01.920 --> 0:24:05.400 of this formal group. It was possible to then set 0:24:05.480 --> 0:24:09.160 scheduled meetings and also to seek a royal charter, and 0:24:09.200 --> 0:24:11.880 that meant that they would have a right to publish. 0:24:12.280 --> 0:24:16.600 Robert Hook's book Micrographia was one of the group's earliest publications. 0:24:17.200 --> 0:24:21.600 In sixteen sixty five, the periodical Philosophical Transactions of the 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:24.920 Royal Society was launched that, of course, continues to date. 0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:28.600 I have used it a lot in research. It is 0:24:28.640 --> 0:24:31.240 the world's first scientific journal, and that means it is 0:24:31.280 --> 0:24:36.600 also the longest running. Boyle's next book was The Skeptical Chemist, 0:24:36.880 --> 0:24:40.159 which was published in sixteen sixty one. The full title 0:24:40.160 --> 0:24:44.720 of that is The Skeptical Chemist or Chemico Physical Doubts 0:24:44.760 --> 0:24:51.880 and Paradoxes touching the Spagyrists' principles, commonly called hypostatical as 0:24:51.920 --> 0:24:55.080 they are wont to be proposed and defended by the 0:24:55.200 --> 0:25:00.000