Who was Robert Boyle?Robert Boyle (1627-91) was perhaps the most influential British natural philosopher of the late-seventeenth century. He published over 40 books on many aspects of science, and on religion. He was particularly significant for the detailed experimental treatises that he published from 1660 onwards. Boyle was a founding member of the Royal Society, and was the doyen of that body in its formative years. He had close links with such leading natural philosophers of his day as Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton and John Wallis. See: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), vol. 7, pp. 100-8. |
