Johannes Kepler's Accomplishments

Galileo might be the most famous person in the development of astronomy. He is famous, not only because of the amazing work he did to advance Copernican theory of heliocentrism, but also because of the controversy that surrounded him. Using new methods and instruments, he provided compelling new evidence to support Copernican theory. He also contributed to the development of theories of physics that could account for the movements of bodies in new terms. His observations of the movements of objects in the heavens required different explanations than the old ideas about the heavens. It required him, and others, to begin to understand the reasons to explain these new observations. His efforts to publicize his findings was met by

The events that unfolded to result in “the intellectual landmark of Newton’s Principia” illustrated the collaborative nature of astronomy throughout Europe, especially England, in

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was a German astronomer who believed in the heliocentric theory. Kepler is a clear example of the narrow line that separated science and religion. Nonetheless, his ideas would show that things could be solved through reason alone. He believed that the harmony of the human soul could be found through numerical relationships that existed between planets. He found that the planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Uranus, Jupiter, and Saturn all revolved at different times. For example, the earth revolved around the sun in a year while Saturn revolved around the sun in fifty years. From this, Kepler found a mathematical ratio, nine to the two-thirds power, to explain this phenomenon. This was revolutionary to humanity’s place in the universe. People were shocked that the universe could be explained by math alone rather than religion. This went strongly

Johannes Kepler was a famous mathematician, best known for his works on the planetary laws of motion. During his lifetime he faced many oppositions to his work, Kepler was known to be a very quiet tempered man with little interest but his research, which was often impeded. Kepler’s personal religious beliefs were what caused him the most trouble in his professional and personal life. He was denied positions and friendships due to his Protestant beliefs; finding enemies in the Catholic church and in the Lutheran for his sympathy towards Calvinists. In addition, Kepler’s family life was increasingly problematic. His first wife often prevented him from getting work done, and two of his sons died. Finally, Kepler’s mother was accused of being a witch, this greatly affected Kepler, as he had to take time out of his research to help prove her innocence on the matter.

Isaac Newton was a wonderful part in our successes in science. He was the first scientist to be knighted which is why they call him Sir Isaac. Newton developed the three laws of motion which form basic principles of physics. He also made it easier for us to solve math problems, physics problems, and helped work gravity. These developments were also apart of his major accomplishments.

Made possible through a scholarship he began in 1589 with his studies in theology at the University of Tüebingen. At Tübingen Kepler was taught astronomy by one of the leading astronomers of the day, Michael Mästlin. Where he was taught geocentric astronomy which is the belief that all planets revolve around the earth. But Kepler saw something in his math equations and questioned whether or not this was actually the way things worked. At Tübingen, Kepler studied not only mathematics but also Greek and Hebrew, Kepler revived high grades in all his classes except his math class but only because his professor, Michael Mästlin, believed that Johannes Kepler could've done better although Kepler was one of his star pupils and also was one of the very few students to be brought into his advanced astronomy where a new heliocentric cosmological system of Copernicus idea was put into place.

Many of those who have begun to study astronomy have surely heard of Tycho Brahe—the brilliant, but eccentric whose observations would have gone to waste due to his supposed inability to give them a purpose—and of Johannes Kepler—that divine, inexhaustible mathematician. However, Owen Gingerich and Richard R. Voelkel argue that much of these stories are simply that—stories—and thus take it upon themselves to uncover what parts of the story of Tycho and Kepler can be shown as truth, and which parts are merely legend. Breaking down their article into segments pertaining to the greatest endeavors of Tycho and Kepler, Gingerich and Voelkel create their argument by presenting each astronomers blunders, brilliant moments, and bumbling contradictions.

Because of the telescope he created and everything he saw in outer space, he did indeed prove that we live in a heliocentric universe. This shows that he risked his life to stand up to his Catholic Church and tell them that they were wrong. This took a lot of guts and showed us today that taking risks and doing things for the long run is worth it. Many artists today are inspired as well.

One of the first thing that he came up with was he made three laws, later known to be called Kepler’s laws. The first law he came up with is that planets rotate in elliptical paths around the sun. Which leads to his second finding and then later became known as his second law, he figured out that planets rotations are faster as they get more near the sun, then slower as they get further away from the sun. His third and final law dealt with the distance between the planet and the sun and how long it completed an orbit around the sun. Kepler used basic and simple mathematics to figure out how planets move, which proves him to be a very intelligent man at his time and in history. Kepler’s discoveries as well as many other astronomers put him and

His discovery of elliptical orbits lets us know planets do not go around a star in a perfect circle and the same amount of area swept around an ellipse is directly related to the time it takes to sweep that area. this means that the closer the orbiting body is to the star, the faster it orbits around it. Vice versa in the opposite manner the farther away it is from the star (it spends its time mostly away from the star) These 3 laws of planetary motion helped set the foundation for much of Newton's physics/astronomy work later on, so that Kepler has provided us today with much mathematical and physical knowledge. “The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.”

Throughout history, examples of technological advances against the approval of the general populations are in abundance. In the early to mid 1600’s, Galileo Galilei made many scientific and mathematical discoveries. However, in this time period, many did not agree with his claims as when the Church ordered Galileo to keep quiet about his theories about the Earth orbiting around the Sun.

He also discovered his second law which is that the radius vector describes equal areas in equal time which is what he found when trying to calculate the position of the earth in its orbit. His third law was a discovery that the squares of periodic time are to each other as the cubes of the mean distances. He did also discover the basic science behind correcting eyeglasses and the splitting of light into its component colors. However, Kepler’s most influential discovery was in his book, Epitome Astronomiae, where he went into depth of the heliocentric astronomy in a systematic way. This discovery led him to be the founder of celestial mechanics and the first “natural laws.”

Prior to Galileo’s time, the Greek and medieval mind, science was a kind of formalism, a means of coordinating data, which had no bearing on the ultimate reality of things. The point was to give order to complicated data, and all that mattered was the hypothesis that was simplest to understand and most convenient. Astronomy and mathematics were regarded as the playthings of intellectuals. They were accounted as having neither philosophical nor theological relevance. There was genuine puzzlement among Churchmen that they had to get involved in a quarrel over planetary orbits.

In summer of 1609, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) pointed his revolutionary astronomical telescope to the heavens under the starry Venetian sky; his greatly important observations unveiled the mysteries of universe and would end up changing the course of scientific thought forever. Galileo lived in an age where there was much status quo, when scientists and philosophers would accept scientific and religious doctrine that had stood for hundreds, if not thousands, of years instead of challenging the accepted knowledge in favor of intellectual progress. Galileo’s scientific methods lead to significant discoveries explaining key scientific laws, such as the

Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer and mathematician who lived between 1671-1630. Kepler was a Copernican and initially believed that planets should follow perfectly circular orbits (“Johan Kepler” 1). During this time period, Ptolemy’s geocentric theory of the solar system was accepted. Ptolemy’s theory stated that Earth is at the center of the universe and stationary; closest to Earth is the Moon, and beyond it, expanding towards the outside, are Mercury, Venus, and the Sun in a straight line, followed by Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the “fixed stars”. The Ptolemaic system explained the numerous observed motions of the planets as having small spherical orbits called epicycles (“Astronomy” 2). Kepler is best known for introducing three