Robert Boyle (25.01.1627-30.12.1691) was an English chemist, physicist and philosopher and a Fellow of the Royal Society (1663). He was born in Lismore (Ireland). From 1654 he lived in Oxford, where he engaged in research in physics and chemistry. In 1668 he moved to London.
His work in physics concerned molecular physics, the study of optical and electrical phenomena, hydrostatics, acoustics, heat and mechanics. In 1660 he improved Guericke's air pump, carried out a number of experiments with it (he demonstrated the elasticity of air, determined its specific weight, measured the degree of rarefaction and so on) and discovered new physical facts, which he set out in his work “New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air” (1660). He showed that warm water can boil when the surrounding air is rarefied and, contrary to the opinion then held, proved that the rise of a liquid in narrow tubes is not connected with atmospheric pressure. In 1661 he discovered the law of the change in the volume of air with a change of pressure, which E. Mariotte also established (1676) independently of him (the Boyle — Mariotte law). For his experiments he designed a barometer and introduced (1662—63) the name “barometer”.
He carried out the first studies of the elasticity of solids, suggested that white light is composite and that electrification by influence is possible, regarded heat as the motion of molecules, and was a supporter of the atomistic hypothesis, holding that all bodies consist of smaller, completely identical particles. In 1663 he discovered the coloured rings in thin films, later named Newton's rings.
Boyle's services to chemistry were considerable. In 1661 he formulated the concept of a chemical element and introduced the experimental method into chemistry, thereby laying the beginning of the establishment of chemistry as a science.