Drawing of Robert Boyle’s Air Pump, 1661.

Robert Boyle was a 17th century natural philosopher and scientist whose work, especially in chemistry and physics, was influential in shaping the development of modern scientific methodology. He is famously remembered for his experiments in thermodynamics, and in particular for his Air Pump experiment concerning the relationship between the pressure and volume of gas within a closed system. Hobbes was intimately familiar with Boyle’s Air Pump experiments, which played a significant role in shaping Hobbes’s own scientific theories of naturalism and empiricism.