FATHER OF CHEMISTRY

Robert Boyle (1627-1691), ‘The Father of Chemistry’, was the most influential scientist ever born in Ireland. His influence on chemistry has been likened to that of Copernicus (1473-1543) on cosmology, who proposed that the sun and not the earth lies at the centre of the solar system. Apart from chemistry Boyle made many other contributions to science.

Robert Boyle was born in Lismore, Co. Waterford, the youngest son of Richard Boyle, First Earl of Cork, and his second wife Katherine Fenton. Richard accumulated a great fortune in Ireland and enjoyed a high social standing. Robert displayed a quiet scholarly disposition and was his father’s favourite son.

After early education at home, Robert was sent for a while to Eton College in England. Then at the age of 11 he was sent, with a tutor, on a grand tour of Europe which lasted for 6 years. Apart from conventional studies on the tour, Robert was also exposed to some vulgar ways of the world. For example, he attracted the amorous attentions of a couple of Friars, but he staunchly resisted the ‘preposterous courtship’ of those ‘gowned sodomites’.
During his tour of Europe, the young Boyle experienced an awesome thunderstorm which had the effect of a religious conversion experience. Boyle thought he was going to die and felt very ill-prepared to meet his Maker. Surviving the storm, he resolved to keep his spiritual side well serviced so that he would not be caught unawares again.
Boyle returned to Dorset in England in 1644 and embarked on a writing career, largely of pious and moralistic material in the beginning. In 1649 he set up a scientific laboratory, and he began to write accounts of his scientific work, promulgating the use of experiment and the scientific method.

In 1655 Boyle moved to Oxford where he joined a group of natural philosophers that foreshadowed the Royal Society, founded in 1660. Robert Hooke (1635-1703) entered Boyle’s employ at this time and helped him in his experiments. They built the air-pump used to create vacuums and with which Boyle carried out many trials to elucidate the nature and importance of air.
Boyle demonstrated the necessity of air for combustion, for animal breathing, and for the transmission of sound. Prior to moving from Oxford to London in 1688, he published much influential work, including New Experiments Physio-Mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects (1660) and The Sceptical Chymist (1661). In The Spring of The
Right: Robert Boyle

Air he described the inverse relationship between the volume of a gas and its pressure – now known as Boyle’s Law.
Medieval science was dominated by the ideas of Aristotle (384-322 BC). Aristotle proposed that matter was composed of 4 elements – earth, air, fire, and water - which in varying proportions constituted all things. Paracelsus (1493-1531), an adept in alchemy, proposed that various combinations of three controlling elements (mercury, sulphur, salt) accounted for the various properties of matter.