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Robert Boyle (1627-1691) is famous not only for his formulation of his Boyle's Law relating the pressure and volume of a gas, but also for denying that the true elements were Aristotelian fire, earth, water, and air, or Paracelsus' salt, sulfur, and mercury. He defined an element in 1661 in The Skeptical Chymist as a material that could not be further decomposed, thus giving the first modern definition.