Accuracy of Boyle's Original Observations on the Pressure and Volume of a Gas

Abstract

THE following statement occurs in the Dictionary of National Biography, 2 (1908), in regard to Robert Boyle's famous law : “This approximately true principle, although but loosely demonstrated, was at once generalized and accepted, and was confirmed by Mariotte in 1676” [italics mine]. From this I hoped to find in Boyle's original observations a striking application of a statistical theory of error elimination from the mathematical expression of physical laws, on which he had been working¹. On reference to the original paper² this hope was not realized, for the reason that Boyle's observations were so accurate and so conclusive as to render error elimination a work almost of supererogation. Though there are a few obvious printer's errors in the paper, the results are presented in a manner which is a model for workers in experimental science in any age.