Natural philosopher who used the pump for experiments
Robert Hooke
Designed and built Boyle’s pump
Plate 045
c. 1650–1659
Magdeburg, Germany; Oxford, England
No photograph is shown for this exhibition. The museum displays an image only where it can show the object honestly.
About this date
Otto von Guericke built a vacuum pump in the 1650s and demonstrated his Magdeburg hemispheres in 1654. Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke built an improved pump in 1658–59.
About credit
Von Guericke built the first vacuum pump. Boyle’s pump, built by Hooke, was a refinement and used for systematic experiments.
Chapter II
The world before
Life before the Air Pump
Air was assumed to be nothing, or an element, and its role in burning, breathing and sound was unclear.
II
The human achievement
How it came about
Von Guericke pumped the air out of two copper hemispheres, and teams of horses could not pull them apart. Boyle and Hooke built a glass chamber and pump and showed that a bell’s sound faded as air was removed and that flames and animals needed air.
III
Understanding the invention
How it works
The Air Pump, explained in two steps.
01
Step 01 of 02
Removing the air
Pumping reduces the pressure inside, leaving the outside air pushing the container shut.
Removing the air
Boyle’s law
IV
The transformation
What changed for humanity
Experimental science
Controlled experiments with instruments became the style of the Royal Society.
Medicine and engineering
Understanding air pressure fed into pumps, steam engines and later vacuum technology.
It showed that air has measurable properties and that sound needs air to travel. It also gave rise to Boyle’s law relating gas pressure and volume.
V
Before and after
Life before and after The Air Pump
Before
Unclear why flames die.
After
Flames go out when air is removed.
On larger screens, drag the divider (or use the arrow keys) to give more room to the world before or after.
In 1654, at Regensburg, von Guericke is reported to have shown that teams of horses could not pull his evacuated hemispheres apart. The famous eyewitness accounts come from his own writing.
Where accounts differ, this museum follows the documented record and says so.
