Credit where it is due

You know, I never expected them to be such a big deal.  All I did was to simply follow my inquisitive instincts, and I was only able to do so because of the mathematical, theological, philosophical, and scientific geniuses who came before me.  But as often times happens when studying in these fields, one observation led to another, then to another, and so on.  I just never stopped to think that the conclusions I drew would one day be known by my own last name - "Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion" - what an honor.

I was born in 1571 in Weil der Stadt, a small town in Germany that is about 500 kilometers (a mere 5 1/2 hour drive by today's standards!) southwest of the 1517 site of Martin Luther's Reformation (Wittenberg, Germany).  Little did I know how the religious livelihood--or what some would call volatility--of the day would shape the trajectory of my life and studies.  As a young boy and early teen I set out to be a Protestant minister, but in my young adult years I took a recommendation from the University of Tubingen to be a stand-in math professor in Austria.  Suffice it to say there was no looking back.

It didn't take long for me, compelled by my faith, to start asking questions about God's design of not only our great, green earth, but also about the universe in which it resides.  It shouldn't be hard for any reader of my now famous 1596 publication, Mysterium Cosmographicum (The Secrets of the Universe, for you English speakers), to believe that I side with the Pythagorean idea that, "...the universe is made up of number."  What this meant to me was that through deliberate theological analysis and mathematical computations, it was within my reach "...to demonstrate the numerical relationships with which God created the universe."  We'll get to those calculations over the course of the next few posts, but it is first worth acknowledging how I was able to arrive at such a place.

I had the privilege of working with Tycho Brahe for the last two years of his life (God rest his soul). Rather than continuously problem solve, Tycho found solitude in simple observation.  It just so happened that his astronomical data collected by rigorous observation over a 25-year period (roughly 1575-1600) proved to be the tipping point for me and my work.  Before Tycho, my most notable inspiration (who actually inspired both of us) was none other than Nicolaus Copernicus.  Recall that it was his 'heretical' heliocentric theory that dared to challenge conventional wisdom--and the Catholic Church (as implied by the choice adjective)--only to be proved correct in due time.  Thankfully Nic stuck to his guns, and more than once I might add.  Not only did he claim that the earth was not actually the center of the universe, and was obviously right, but he also proposed the idea of the rotation of the earth about its axis.  To him it was simply more plausible to believe that the relatively small earth moved rather than the larger spheres of stars in the heavens.  It goes without saying he was correct in this hypothesis as well.  He was clearly on to a thing or two, which is why I take much of what he said to heart.

Collectively, it is these ideas and more that served as my point of departure for my planetary laws--thanks gentlemen!

Sources:
1.  A History of Mathematics: An Introduction (Second Edition), by Victor Katz
2.  http://www.google.com/maps