American Minute with Bill Federer
Father of Chemistry Robert Boyle, & Father of Hydraulic Engineering Blaise Pascal
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The
"Father of Chemistry"
wanted to evangelize America ... and warned of the end of the world.
Robert Boyle
was born JANUARY 25, 1627.
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He studied
Sir Francis Bacon,
René Descartes,
and other of his contemporaries of the
Scientific Revolution,
including scientists
Isaac Newton
and
Galileo,
philosophers
John Locke
and
Thomas Hobbes,
and
poet John Milton.
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Robert Boyle
made contributions in physics and chemistry, especially with his
pneumatic experiments
using the
vacuum pump,
putting forward the idea that
gases were made of tiny particles.
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He discovered the basic law of gas dynamics, known as
"Boyle's Law,"
that if the volume of a gas is decreased, the pressure increases proportionally. (PV=c).
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An understanding of
Boyle's Law
is vital for scuba divers, who must never hold their breath while ascending, for as the
external pressure decreases, air volume
in their lungs
increases,
potentially causing lungs to burst like a balloon.
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In 1661,
Robert Boyle
defined the modern idea of an
"element"
as "a substance that cannot be broken down into a simpler substance by a chemical reaction."
This understanding was necessary for the periodic table of elements to be compiled.
Boyle's
definition of
"element"
was used for three centuries until subatomic particles were discovered.
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Boyle
introduced the
litmus test
to distinguish acids from bases, and was the first to use the term "chemical analysis."
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In 1660,
Robert Boyle
and eleven others formed the
Royal Society in London
to advance scientific experiments.
While in Geneva, Switzerland, during a frightening thunderstorm,
Boyle had a deepening conversion experience.
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Boyle
devoted much effort to
defending
and
propagating the Christian religion,
writing the
"Boyle Lectures"
and numerous books, including:
- Of the high Veneration Man's Intellect owes to God (1684);
- Discourse Of Things Above Reason (1681);
- Some Considerations touching the Style of the Holy Scriptures (1661); and
- The Christian Virtuoso (1690), which John Locke reviewed in 1681, and which was a basis for Cotton Mather's work, The Christian Philosopher (1721).
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Robert Boyle
provided in his Last Will and Testament, dated July 28, 1691:
"Fifty pounds ... for an annual salary so some learned
Divine or Preaching Minister
... to preach eight sermons in the year, for
proving the Christian Religion against notorious Infidels, viz., Atheists, Theists, Pagans, Jews, and Mahometans,
not descending lower to any controversies that are among Christians themselves ... and
encouraging ... any undertaking for Propagating the Christian Religion in foreign parts."
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Robert Boyle
was
a director of the East India Company,
and spent large sums
supporting missionary societies
in the spread of
Christianity
in
Asia.
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Boyle
believed all races, no matter how diverse, came from Adam and Eve.
He funded translations of the Bible
to make it available in
people's vernacular language,
in contrast to the prevailing Latin-only policy.
He funded
an Irish edition of the Bible
(1680-1685) for commoners, which was thought ill of by English upper class.
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Robert Boyle
was concerned about
propagating the Gospel to natives in New England
and the rest of
America,
as he wrote in a letter to Mr. Clodius.
He wanted to translate and print the
Bible
in
American Indian languages.
A historical marker,
"W 229 Indian School at the College of William & Mary"
stated:
"Using funds from the estate of British scientist
Robert Boyle,
the College of William & Mary established a school to
educate young Indian men
... which provided education in reading and writing English, arithmetic and
religion."
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Robert Boyle
wrote:
"Our Saviour
would love at no less rate than death; and from the super-eminent height of glory, stooped and debased Himself to the sufferance of the extremest of indignities, and sunk himself to the bottom of abjectness, to exalt our condition to the contrary extreme."
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Boyle
wrote in
Some Considerations Touching the Style of the Holy Scriptures
(1661):
"The
Books of Scripture
... expound each other; as in the mariner's compass, the needle's extremity, though it seems to point purposely to the north, doth yet at the same time discover both east and west, as distant as they are from it and each other, so do some
texts of Scripture
guide us to the intelligence of others."
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Boyle
wrote:
"There are divers
truths in the Christian religion,
that reason left to itself would never have been able to find out ...
Such as ...
free will
... that the
world was made
in
six days,
that
Christ should be born of a virgin,
and that
in his person
there should be
united
two
such infinitely distant
natures as the divine and human;
and that the
bodies of good men
shall be
raised from death
and so advantageously changed, that the
glorified persons shall be like or equal to, the angels."
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Boyle
wrote of the last days and the "sinful world's ruin":
"In
Noah's time
a
deluge of impiety
called for a
deluge of waters
... and so when
(in the last days) the earth
shall be replenished with those
scoffers
mentioned by St Peter, who will
walk after their own lusts,
and deride the expectation of
God's foretold coming to judge and punish the ungodly,
their
impiety shall be as well punished
as silenced by the unexpected flames ... that shall either destroy or transfigure the world.
For as by the
law of Moses
the
leperous garment
which would not be recovered by being washed in water,
was to be burnt in the fire,
so the world, which the
Deluge could not cleanse, a general conflagration must destroy."
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Robert Boyle
wrote of the destruction of the world by fire at the end of this age:
"The present course of nature shall not last always, but that one day this world ... shall either be abolished by annihilation, or which seems far more probable, be innovated, and as it were transfigured, and that, by the intervention of that fire, which shall dissolve and destroy the present frame of nature:
so that either way, the present state of things, (as well natural as political) shall have an end."
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A contemporary of Robert Boyle was was the French physicist, mathematician and philosopher,
Blaise Pascal.
, born June 19, 1623.
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Blaise Pascal
helped develop the
barometer,
and pioneered
hydrodynamics
and
fluid mechanics.
He discovered
"Pascal's Principle"
which is the basis of hydraulics.
He is considered a
father of the science of hydrostatics
and
h
ydraulic engineering.
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Pascal
made invaluable contributions in the areas of probability and differential calculus, with the invention of
Pascal's triangle
for calculating the coefficients of a binomial expansion.
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His influential religious works, emphasizing "the reasons of the heart" over dry logic and intellect, were titled
Lettres Provinciales,
1656-57, and
Pensees Sur La Religion,
published posthumously in 1670.
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In
Pensees,
1670,
Pascal
wrote:
"Men blaspheme what they don't know."
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Blaise Pascal
was known for
"Pascal's Wager,"
which stated:
"How can anyone lose who chooses to become a
Christian?
If, when he dies, there turns out to be no
God
and his faith was in vain, he has lost nothing -- in fact, he has been happier in life than his non-believing friends.
If, however, there is a
God
and a heaven and hell, then he has gained heaven and his skeptical friends will have lost everything in hell!"
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In the work,
Thoughts, Letters and Opuscules,
Blaise Pascal
is recorded as stating:
"We know
God
only through
Jesus Christ.
Without this
Mediator,
is taken away all communication with
God;
through
Jesus Christ
we know
God.
All those who have pretended to know
God,
and prove Him without
Jesus Christ,
have only had impotent proofs.
But, to prove
Jesus Christ
we have the prophecies which are good and valid proofs.
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... And those prophecies, being fulfilled, and truly proved by the event, indicate the certainty of these truths, and therefore the truth of the divinity of
Jesus Christ.
In Him, and by Him, then, we know
God.
Otherwise, and without
Scripture,
without original sin, without a necessary
Mediator,
we cannot absolutely prove
God,
nor teach a good doctrine and sound morals.
But by
Jesus Christ
and in
Jesus Christ,
we prove
God
and teach doctrine and morals.
Jesus Christ,
then, is the true
God
of men.
Not only do we know
God
only through
Jesus Christ,
but we know ourselves only through
Jesus Christ ..."
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Blaise Pasca
l continued in
Thoughts, Letters and Opuscules:
"We know life, death, only through
Jesus Christ.
Except by
Jesus Christ
we know not what life is, what our death is, what
God
is, what we ourselves are.
Thus, without
Scripture,
which has only
Jesus Christ
for its object, we know nothing, and we see not only obscurity and confusion in the
nature of God,
but in nature herself.
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... Without
Jesus Christ,
man must be in sin and misery; with
Jesus Christ,
man is exempt from sin and misery.
In Him is all our virtue, and all our felicity. Out of Him, there is nothing but sin, misery, error, darkness, death, and despair."
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After
Pascal's
death, August 19, 1662, a note found among his person effects stated:
"'The
God of Abraham,
the
God of Isaac,
the
God of Jacob,'
not of philosophers and scholars."
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American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission is granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate, with acknowledgment.
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Schedule Bill Federer for informative interviews & captivating PowerPoint presentations: 314-502-8924
wjfederer@gmail.com
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