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Kepler (Dover Books on Astronomy) Paperback – September 8, 1993
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A towering figure in intellectual history and one of the fathers of modern astronomy, the great mathematician Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) is best known for his discovery of the three laws of planetary motion, which paved the way for a dynamic explanation of the heavenly phenomena. At a time when the Ptolemaic view still prevailed in official circles, Kepler undertook to prove the truth of the Copernican world view and through exceptional perseverance and force of intellect achieved that goal.
His epochal intellectual feats are completely and thoroughly described in this splendid work, considered the definitive biography of Kepler. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, the author presents a fascinating and erudite picture of Kepler's scientific accomplishments, his public life (work with Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer; mathematical appointments at Graz, Prague, and Linz; pioneering work with calculus and optics, and more) and his personal life: childhood and youth, financial situation, his mother's trial as a witch, his own lifelong fear of religious persecution, his difficulties in choosing one of eleven possible young women as his second wife, and more, through his last years in Ulm and death in Regensburg.
Until his death in 1956, Professor Max Caspar was the world's foremost Kepler scholar. He had spent over two-thirds of his life assembling, cataloging, describing, analyzing, and editing Kepler's works. To this biography he brought tremendous learning and passionate enthusiasm for his subject, creating an unsurpassed resource on the life and work of one of history's greatest scientific minds. Originally published in German and superbly translated into English by C. Doris Hellman, Kepler will fascinate scholars and general readers alike.
- Print length464 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDover Publications
- Publication dateSeptember 8, 1993
- Dimensions5.33 x 0.91 x 8.47 inches
- ISBN-100486676056
- ISBN-13978-0486676050
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Product details
- Publisher : Dover Publications; Reprint edition (September 8, 1993)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 464 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0486676056
- ISBN-13 : 978-0486676050
- Item Weight : 1.06 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.33 x 0.91 x 8.47 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,155,674 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,990 in Astronomy (Books)
- #113,524 in Biographies (Books)
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In my opinion, Kepler's laws were more difficult to discover, and were therefore a more important step, than the work of Newton, which in a sense merely combined the Earthly kinetics of Galileo with the celestial kinetics of Kepler. The egotistical, egocentric egomaniac Galileo could have done what Newton did, but instead decided to champion the archaic notions of the dead Copernicus rather than share credit for anything with the living Kepler. In fact, Kepler did come extremely close to making the missing link between an inverse square law and the elliptical orbits following the equal-area law and the 3/2-power orbital period law. All he needed was the calculus, which was not yet quite adequate for his purposes. Using calculus to combine Earthly kinetics with celestial kinetics was left to Newton, although it was Kepler who did the really difficult part of the overall work.
I was led to this book by Koestler's " Sleepwalkers ", which makes crystal clear that Galileo was a nobody in astronomy, who actually retarded the progress of astronomy by provoking the pope to ban the Copernican theory, whereas Kepler was the true giant of astronomy. This book by Caspar fills in many of the gaps in Koestler's book, making Kepler's huge contribution clear, whereas Galileo's " Dialogue " was pure pompous nonsense. Galileo got almost everything wrong, including the tides, the shapes of planetary orbits and the dynamics of the orbit of the Moon. Since the Copernican theory was little more than a semi-optimized Ptolemaic epicycle theory, Galileo was backing the wrong horse because he actually knew almost nothing about celestial mechanics.
The ending of this book is a mixture of sadness and delight. Kepler suffered so extremely from the events of his life, and yet made such gigantic contributions to human knowledge. His work was the basis of the inevitable synthesis by Newton. So it is extremely sad that events were so cruel to him. But the delight at the end of this book is that his great desire to communicate his knowledge to future centuries was realized. The following, written by Kepler in 1618 while writing "Harmonice Mundi", appears on page 267.
"Now, because eighteen months ago the first dawn, three months ago the broad daylight, but a very few days ago the full sun of a most highly remarkable spectacle has risen, nothing holds me back. Indeed, I give myself up to sacred frenzy. I sneeringly defy mortals by the following public avowal: I have plundered the golden vessels of the Egyptians, in order to furnish a sacred tabernacle for my God out of them far from the borders of Egypt. If you pardon me, I am happy. If you are angry with me, I bear it. Well, then, I cast the die and write a book for the present time, or for posterity. It is all the same to me. It may wait a hundred years for its readers, as God also has waited six thousand years for an onlooker."
I think that is the quintessential quotation in this book. Everyone who has an interest in astronomy or life should read it.
If you can get through the verbiage in places, you will find an amazing man - Johannes Kepler. Caspar points out correctly I think that the driving intellectual force behind Kepler's work was Neo-Platonism, a deep and abiding belief that the perfection of the One (God) is expressed in the beauty of structure in the universe. A mathematician friend of mine once said that what made him love his career was the incredible beauty of mathematics. This is as close today as we can get to what drove Kepler from early on in his life. Geometry and math were not just tools; they were the mind of God expressed in the universe and he, Kepler, was going to uncover that majestic beauty. This explains his intense interest in the structures of harmony in music, geometry and the solar system. Kepler himself did not refer to his three laws as "laws." Newton and later astronomers could take them as stand-alone discoveries but they were never that for Kepler. They were part of a larger effort to explain the structure of music and the universe by geometry and math - the "Harmony of the World" - the title of the book in which the third law is expressed. Tycho Brahe's data gave Kepler not just information but a better way of understanding the perfection of God's plan. His same Neo-Platonism led him to a much more tolerant view of religious belief which constantly got him into trouble. Almost no one at this time of religious dogmatism, persecution and warfare understood Kepler's point that the perfect God could not be expressed solely through one religion's doctrines. So he was at times anathema to both extreme Catholics and extreme Protestants. Only his recognised genius and his practical skills, among them making calendars and casting horoscopes, kept him safe and alive. The same higher understanding made Kepler reject making precise astrological predictions. He considered that nonsense but he did think that the stars and planets, the mind of God expressed in the material world, did have general effects on human life and he often expressed that belief in the astrological readings he did for many major figures.
Kepler had a worldview that almost no one today shares. That is why this book is so fascinating. It will put you into a VERY different world. The real genius of Kepler and his incredible ability to do huge amounts of intellectual work in the middle of social chaos are clear in this biography. Caspar does full justice to the man. Kepler was a tolerant and compassionate human being often given, especially when younger, to emotional outbursts and throughout his life to periods of "melancholia." If you can get through the style issues in this book, you will find one of the most unusual and truly brilliant minds in the history of Western science.