Wittgenstein Book

Reading a biography about a scientist is a really interesting way to study science. It allows the reader to slow down and see how science is a body of knowledge that was collected drop by drop. This book discusses all the interesting things Boyle was thinking about and how he tested his theories. My kids were very interested in his experiments as they were discussed in the book. Boyle had a glass tube with a valve whereby he was able to pump all the oxygen out of the tube and increase the atmospheric pressure. He lived in a day when they didn't even know what air was made of so they put things like a flame and a living animal in the tube and then were surprised when the flame went out and the animal died after the same amount of time had elapsed. His friends were constantly discussing the results of his experiments and asking to see him demonstrate them again. Eventually, their discoveries led to the formulation of Boyle's Law which states roughly that the pressure and volume of a confined gas are inversely proportional when the temperature is constant.