Robert Boyle Quotes

Those distinct substances, which concretes generally either afford, or are made up of, may, without very much inconvenience, be called the elements or principles of them.

Genius' was a word loosely used by expatriot Americans in Paris and Rome, between the Versailles Peace treaty and the Depression, to cover all varieties of artistic, literary and musical experimentalism. A useful and readable history of the literary Thirties is Geniuses Together by Kay Boyle-Joyce, Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Pound, Eliot and the rest. They all became famous figures but too many of them developed defects of character-ambition, meanness, boastfulness, cowardice or inhumanity-that defrauded their early genius. Experimentalism is a quality alien to genius. It implies doubt, hope, uncertainty, the need for group reassurance; whereas genius works alone, in confidence of a foreknown result. Experiments are useful as a demonstration of how not to write, paint or compose if one's interest lies in durable rather than fashionable results; but since far more self-styled artists are interested in frissons á la mode rather than in truth, it is foolish to protest. Experimentalism means variation on the theme of other people's uncertainties.

In a weak moment I promised to be strong

Epicurus... supposes not only all mixt bodies, but all others to be produced by the various and casual occursions of atoms, moving themselves to and fro by an internal principle in the immense or rather infinite vacuum.

It is my intent to beget a good understanding between the chymists and the mechanical philosophers who have hitherto been too little acquainted with one another's learning.

sweetest of nature, and very likely promises of exotic sexual favors to convince Boyle to let anyone

Gilbert (1540–1603) published his great book on the magnet in 1600. Harvey (1578–1657) discovered the circulation of the blood, and published his discovery in 1628. Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) discovered spermatozoa, though another man, Stephen Hamm, had discovered them, apparently, a few months earlier; Leeuwenhoek also discovered protozoa or unicellular organisms, and even bacteria. Robert Boyle (1627–91) was, as children were taught when I was young, 'the father of chemistry and son of the Earl of Cork'; he is now chiefly remembered on account of 'Boyle's Law', that in a given quantity of gas at a given temperature, pressure is inversely proportional to volume.

Shut up, shut up, she ordered herself, but nerves overwhelmed her. “You have a wonderful operation. Meara showed me around. And you’re right. Alastar has spirit, and a strong will, but he’s not mean. Not innately. He’s just mad and unsettled, finding himself in a strange place, with people and horses he’s not used to. Now he has something to prove, especially to Boyle.

I didn’t “teach” Ron Hansen or Stephen Wright or T. Coraghessan Boyle or Susan Taylor Chehak or Allan Gurganus or Gail Harper or Kent Haruf or Robert Chibka or Douglas Unger how to write, but I hope I may have encouraged them and saved them a little time. I did nothing more for them than Kurt Vonnegut did for me, but in my case Mr. Vonnegut—and Mr. Yount and Mr. Williams—did quite a lot. I’m talking about technical blunders, the perpetration of sheer boredom, point-of-view problems, the different qualities of first-person and third-person voice, the deadening effect of exposition in dialogue, the crippling limitations of the present tense, the intrusions upon narrative momentum caused by puerile and pointless experimentation—and on and on.

The phaenomena afforded by trades, are a part of the history of nature, and therefore may both challenge the naturalist's curiosity and add to his knowledge, Nor will it suffice to justify learned men in the neglect and contempt of this part of natural history, that the men, from whom it must be learned, are illiterate mechanicks... is indeed childish, and too unworthy of a philosopher, to be worthy of an honest answer.

Every elementary chemistry text must discuss the concept of a chemical element. Almost always, when that notion is introduced, its origin is attributed to the seventeenth-century chemist, Robert Boyle, in whose Sceptical Chymist the attentive reader will find a definition of ‘element’ quite close to that in use today. Reference to Boyle’s contribution helps to make the neophyte aware that chemistry did not begin with the sulfa drugs; in addition, it tells him that one of the scientist’s traditional tasks is to invent concepts of this sort. As a part of the pedagogic arsenal that makes a man a scientist, the attribution is immensely successful. Nevertheless, it illustrates once more the pattern of historical mistakes that misleads both students and laymen about the nature of the scientific enterprise. According to Boyle, who was quite right, his “definition” of an element was no more than a paraphrase of a traditional chemical concept; Boyle offered it only in order to argue that no such thing as a chemical element exists; as history, the textbook version of Boyle’s contribution is quite mistaken.3

Robert Frost at Eighty" I think there are poems greater and stranger than any I have known. I would like to find them. They are not on the greying paper of old books or chanted on obscure lips. They are not in the language of mermaids or the sharp-tongued adjectives of vanishing. They run like torn threads along paving stones. They are cracked as the skull of an old man. They stir in the mirror at fifty, at eighty. My ear keeps trying to hear them but the seafront is cold. The tide moves in. They migrate like crows at a cricket ground. They knock at the door when I am out. I have done with craft. How can I front ghosts with cleverness, the slick glide of paradox and rhyme that transforms prejudice to brittle gems of seeming wisdom? Though I bury all I own or hold close though my skin outlives the trees though the lines fall shattering the stone I cannot catch them. They have the lilting accent of a house I saw but never entered. They are the sounds a child hears – the water, the afternoon, the sky. I watch them now trickling through the open mirror. Sometimes, but almost never we touch what we desire.

Many people today acquiesce in the widespread myth, devised in the late 19th century, of an epic battle between ‘scientists’ and ‘religionists’. Despite de unfortunate fact that some members of both parties perpetuate the myth by their actions today, this ‘conflict’ model has been rejected by every modern historian of science; it does not portray the historical situation. During the 16th and 17th centuries and during the Middle Ages, there was not a camp of ‘scientists’ struggling to break free of the repression of ‘religionists’; such separate camps simply did not exist as such. Popular tales of repression and conflict are at best oversimplified or exaggerated, and at worst folkloristic fabrications. Rather, the investigators of nature were themselves religious people, and many ecclesiastics were themselves investigators of nature. The connection between theological and scientific study rested in part upon the idea of the Two Books. Enunciated by St. Augustine and other early Christian writers, the concept states that God reveals Himself to human beings in two different ways – by inspiring the sacred writers to pen the Book of Scripture, and by creating the world, the Book of Nature. The world around us, no less than the Bible, is a divine message intended to be read; the perceptive reader can learn much about the Creator by studying the creation. This idea, deeply ingrained in orthodox Christianity, means that the study of the world can itself be a religious act. Robert Boyle, for example, considered his scientific inquiries to be a type of religious devotion (and thus particularly appropriate to do on Sundays) that heightens the natural philosopher’s knowledge and awareness of God through the contemplation of His creation. He described the natural philosopher as a ‘priest of nature’ whose duty it was to expound and interpret the messages written in the Book of Nature, and to gather together and give voice to all creation’s silent praise of its Creator.

Robert Boyle, the English scientist largely responsible for the creation of the modern discipline of chemistry, interviewed miners in the 1670s in an attempt to discover whether the men had met with any “subterraneous demons . . . in what shape and manner they appear; what they portend and what they do.

His primitive fault was only a dotage on play, yet the excessive love of that goes seldom unattended with a train of criminal retainers; for fondness of gaming is the seducingest lure to ill company, and that the subtlest pander to the worst excesses.

A blind man will suffer himself to be led, though by a dog, or a child.

He was careful to instruct him in such an affable, kind, and gentle way, that he easily prevailed with him to consider studying, not so much as a duty of obedience to his superiors, but as the way to purchase for himself a most delightsom and invaluable good. In effect, he soon created in Philaretus so strong a passion to acquire knowledge, that what time he could spare from a scholar's task, which his retentive memory made him not find uneasy, he would usually employ so greedily in reading, that his master would sometimes be necessitated to force him out to play, on which, and upon study, he looked, as if their natures were inverted.

Being told by way of aggravation, that he had eaten half a dozen plumbs, Nay truly, sister, (answers he simply to her) I have eaten half a score. So perfect an enemy was he to a lie, that he had rather accuse himself of another fault, than be suspected to be guilty of that.

And then for English verses, he said, they could not be certain of lasting applause, the changes of our language being so great and sudden, that the rarest poems within few years will pass for obsolete; and therefore he used to liken the writers in English verse to ladies, that have their pictures drawn with the clothes now worn, which, though at present never so rich, and never so much in fashion, within a few years hence will make them look like anticks.

When he turned toward the stables, Alastar butted Boyle hard with his head. “Alastar! Sorry,” she said immediately, and bit down hard on the gurgle of laughter that wanted to escape. “Don’t be rude,” she told the horse, and leaning over to his ear added, “even if it’s funny.

cousin, or something.’ Vivien raised an eyebrow as she passed back Henderson’s glass. ‘Even people who’ve lived here their whole lives can’t get back into the area,’ she explained. ‘So people are sure to ask where you’ve come from.’ ‘The Boche are short of translators,’ Luc said. ‘It’s remarkably lucky that you turned out to speak such excellent German.’ Henderson knew that the presumption of using his family name was likely to stick in Luc Boyle’s throat and the couple clearly sensed that there was more to Henderson than met the eye, but they were ecstatic at the safe return of their grandchildren and apparently happy to let the matter slide. At least, for the time being. * Marc woke on a bare mattress in a musty room with sunlight shining through a crack in the roof and a puddle in the far corner. A burp sent acid surging up his throat and for a horrible instant he thought he was going to puke over his blanket. His head thudded as he looked around and saw PT’s boots on the floor beside him. Marc remembered the wine and a bumpy midnight ride in the back of the truck, but had no recollection of the building in which he’d awoken. If anything, the holey-roofed bedroom was a high point of the cottage. Green stalactites of mildew hung from the ceiling in the cramped hallway and damp seemed to be consuming the building

Not needlessly to confound the herald with the historian, and begin a relation by a pedigree, I shall content myself to inform you [only gives, thankfully, his mother and father].

Robert Boyle (1626-1691) had defined an element as a substance which could not be decomposed, but which could enter into combination with other elements giving compounds capable of decomposition into these original elements.

Glasgow did have the occasional statue of a scientist or whatever, but it was largely mass murderers. Field Marshal Lord Roberts, the plinth said, hero of the Indian Rebellion of 1858.This was Britain, and if you killed enough foreigners, they let you ride a metal horse into the future.

Most early scientists were compelled to study the natural world because of their Christian worldview. In Science and the Modern World, British mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead concludes that modern science developed primarily from “the medieval insistence on the rationality of God.” Modern science did not develop in a vacuum, but from forces largely propelled by Christianity. Not surprisingly, most early scientists were theists, including pioneers such as Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Johannes Kepler (1571– 1630), Blaise Pascal (1623–62), Robert Boyle (1627–91), Isaac Newton (1642–1727), and Louis Pasteur (1822–95). For many of them, belief in God was the prime motivation for their investigation of the natural world. Bacon believed the natural world was full of mysteries God intended for us to explore. Kepler described his motivation for science: “The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God, and which he revealed to us in the language of mathematics.

Robert Boyle.

Perhaps the best-known example of social-constructivist history of science is the 1985 book Leviathan and the Air-Pump by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer. Shapin and Schaffer's book focused on an important controversy from the mid-seventeenth century, the nasty dispute between scientist Robert Boyle and irascible philosopher Thomas Hobbes

Mather wrote of all humans having a White soul the same year John Locke declared all unblemished minds to be White. Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton had already popularized light as White. Michelangelo had already painted the original Adam and God as both being White in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel. And for all these White men, Whiteness symbolized beauty, a

It is highly dishonourable for a reasonable soul, living in so divinely a built mansion as the body she resides in, to be totally unacquainted with its exquisite structure.” — Robert Boyle, 1690

Descartes’s books found eager readers in England, including the father of modern chemistry, Robert Boyle, and a shy, rather retiring teacher at Cambridge named Henry More.

Some things don’t happen as fast as you like.” Boyle turned her hand over in his, then gave in and pressed it to his cheek. “It doesn’t mean they won’t happen.

The revealed truths, if they be burdens to reason, are but such burdens as feathers are to a hawk, which, instead of hindering his flight by their weight, enable him to soar toward heaven and take a larger prospect, than if he had no feathers, he could possibly do.

The most amazing part,” Katherine said, “is that as soon as we humans begin to harness our true power, we will have enormous control over our world. We will be able to design reality rather than merely react to it.” Langdon lowered his gaze. “That sounds . . . dangerous.” Katherine looked startled . . . and impressed. “Yes, exactly! If thoughts affect the world, then we must be very careful how we think. Destructive thoughts have influence, too, and we all know it’s far easier to destroy than it is to create.” Langdon thought of all the lore about needing to protect the ancient wisdom from the unworthy and share it only with the enlightened. He thought of the Invisible College, and the great scientist Isaac Newton’s request to Robert Boyle to keep “high silence” about their secret research. It cannot be communicated, Newton wrote in 1676, without immense damage to the world. “There’s an interesting twist here,” Katherine said. “The great irony is that all the religions of the world, for centuries, have been urging their followers to embrace the concepts of faith and belief. Now science, which for centuries has derided religion as superstition, must admit that its next big frontier is quite literally the science of faith and belief . . . the power of focused conviction and intention. The same science that eroded our faith in the miraculous is now building a bridge back across the chasm it created.” Langdon considered her words for a long time. Slowly he raised his eyes again to the Apotheosis. “I have a question,” he said, looking back at Katherine. “Even if I could accept, just for an instant, that I have the power to change physical matter with my mind, and literally manifest all that I desire . . . I’m afraid I see nothing in my life to make me believe I have such power.” She shrugged. “Then you’re not looking hard enough.” “Come on, I want a real answer. That’s the answer of a priest. I want the answer of a scientist.” “You want a real answer? Here it is. If I hand you a violin and say you have the capability to use it to make incredible music, I am not lying. You do have the capability, but you’ll need enormous amounts of practice to manifest it. This is no different from learning to use your mind, Robert. Well-directed thought is a learned skill. To manifest an intention requires laserlike focus, full sensory visualization, and a profound belief. We have proven this in a lab. And just like playing a violin, there are people who exhibit greater natural ability than others. Look to history. Look to the stories of those enlightened minds who performed miraculous feats.

Like Edwards, many of the best Renaissance thinkers were blessed with a jack-of-all-trades erudition. When he wasn’t revolutionizing astronomy, Copernicus practiced medicine and law. Johannes Kepler based his theory of planetary motion on the ebb and flow of musical harmony. Better known in his day as a lawyer, statesman, writer, and courtier, Francis Bacon helped to pioneer the scientific method. A theologian named Robert Boyle laid the foundations of modern chemistry. Leonardo da Vinci, the poster boy for polymaths, was a gifted painter, sculptor, musician, anatomist, and writer, as well as a startlingly prolific inventor.

The connection between theological and scientific study rested in part upon the idea of the Two Books. Enunciated by St. Augustine and other early Christian writers, the concept states that God reveals Himself to human beings in two different ways – by inspiring the sacred writers to pen the Book of Scripture, and by creating the world, the Book of Nature. The world around us, no less than the Bible, is a divine message intended to be read; the perceptive reader can learn much about the Creator by studying the creation. This idea, deeply ingrained in orthodox Christianity, means that the study of the world can itself be a religious act. Robert Boyle, for example, considered his scientific inquiries to be a type of religious devotion (and thus particularly appropriate to do on Sundays) that heightens the natural philosopher’s knowledge and awareness of God through the contemplation of His creation. He described the natural philosopher as a ‘priest of nature’ whose duty it was to expound and interpret the messages written in the Book of Nature, and to gather together and give voice to all creation’s silent praise of its Creator.

Several major and significant discoveries in science occurred in the 19th and 20th century through the works of scientists who believed in God. Even in just the last 500 years of modern scientific enterprise, a great many scientists were religious including names like Isaac Newton, Nicholas Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Robert Boyle, William Thomson Kelvin, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Louis Pasteur and Nobel Laureate scientists like: 1.Max Planck 2.Guglielmo Marconi 3.Robert A. Milikan 4.Erwin Schrodinger 5.Arthur Compton 6.Isidor Isaac Rabi 7.Max Born 8.Dererk Barton 9.Nevill F. Mott 10.Charles H. Townes 11.Christian B. Anfinsen 12.John Eccles 13.Ernst B. Chain 14.Antony Hewish 15.Daniel Nathans 16.Abdus Salam 17.Joseph Murray 18.Joseph H. Taylor 19.William D. Phillips 20.Walter Kohn 21.Ahmed Zewail 22.Aziz Sancar 23.Gerhard Etrl Thus, it is important for the torchbearers of science to know their scope and highlight what they can offer to society in terms of curing diseases, improving food production and easing transport and communication systems, for instance. To mock faith and faithful, the scientists who do not believe in God do not just hurt the faithful people who are non-scientists, but a great many of their own colleagues who are scientists, but not atheists.

One of the first to help out was Alastair Denniston, later head of the Government Codes and Cipher School and in charge of Bletchley Park at the outbreak of war in 1939, and an Olympic hockey player. He was teaching German at Osborne Naval College, and he was one of the first to be involved in Room 40. Ewing also spread his net a little further than Osborne and Dartmouth, tracking down and inveigling a diplomat, Lord Herschell, also a well-known collector of Persian armour, and Robert Norton, a former Foreign Office official, then living in what had been Henry James’s old home, Lamb House in Rye.

Meara and Boyle must stay inside the circle—at all costs. Not just to protect yourselves.” Branna turned to them.

Measured data showing that the observed variation between pressure and volume is reciprocal were published in 1662 in Boyle's l)e/i'►uee against Linus,