Robert Boyle was born in Lismore, Ireland on January 25, 1627. He grew up in a large family of fourteen children. Boyle studied at Eton College from the time he was about eight years old until he was twelve. When he was twelve, he went on a five year European tour with a private tutor and his older brother Francis. During this time, Boyle read the works of Galileo, Bacon, and Descartes. When he returned from his tour in 1644, he moved to Dorset, England and began to write moral essays and do scientific research. Boyle joined a scientific society in 1654 that became the Royal Society in 1662. This is now the oldest continuous scientific society in the world. In 1656, he moved to Oxford to live with his sister, and worked with Robert Hooke on his most well-known experiments. He died in London on December 30, 1691 at the age of sixty-three.

Boyle published two major scientific books in his lifetime. The first, The Spring and Weight of Air, was published in 1660. In it, Boyle proved that air was necessary for supporting sound, fire, and life. His second book, The Sceptical Chymist, was published in 1661. It argued against Aristotle's view of four elements, and proposed a different view, saying that elements were actually made up of different arrangements of primary particles. In 1662, he published the second edition of The Spring of Weight and Air in which he released the gas law known as "Boyle's Law". This famous law states that there is an inverse relationship between pressure and volume in a gas.

Boyle's research inspired many scientists, including Sir Isaac Newton, to do their significant scientific work.