Robert Boyle was born in Ireland and lived in both Ireland and England. A contemporary of Robert Hooke, he was a founding member of the Royal Society and a keen science investigator.
Boyle was interested in the air pump invented by Guericke, a German scientist, and worked with Hooke to improve the pump, which was used to create a vacuum. The portrait of Boyle shows the glass dome that enclosed the vacuum. In the portrait the dome contains a small mammal. Boyle was one of the first scientists to show that mammals could not survive without air. This was reported in his 1660 account of experiments with the air pump: New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Spring of the Air, and its Effects.
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