Johannes Kepler’s Childhood

Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, 1571, in the town Weil der Stadt, Germany. Kepler was constantly getting ill with diseases such as smallpox that had kept him near death for several months at a time. His father, Heinrich Kepler, was a mercenary soldier was gone from home often for times up to several years. Johannes had his mother to live with him until she went to be with Heinrich Kepler; Johannes was left to be with his grandmother and grandfather. Johannes was becoming distressed from this but his grandfather was Christian and encouraged Johannes. Doing so Johannes faith grew and even though his grandparents were poor Johannes was sent to school to get an education. Johannes had an outstanding academic ability that his teachers recognized soon. Then when Johannes’s parents returned, his father opened an inn. Heinrich Kepler thought of his son as a cheap work source and made him quite school to work for him. When the inn’s business grew slow, and with help from Johannes’s former teacher, Johannes received a scholarship from the Duke of Württemberg in 1587. And with more courtesy from the Duke, Johannes went to the University of Tübingen in 1587. Here he learned Hebrew, Latin, mathematics, astronomy, Greek, and Bible. He learned mathematics and astronomy from Michael Mästlin, one of the few people that believed that the planets and moons revolved around the sun where others thought the earth was the center of the universe.

Johannes Kepler Teachings

Kepler obtained his B.A. degree in 1588 and his M.A. degree in 1591. He then continued at Tübingen, studying theology. During this time, Kepler had become a committed Christian and dedicated himself to serving God. Kepler intended to serve God as a Lutheran minister after completing his university education. However, God had other plans for Johannes. In 1594 Johannes was asked to go to Lutheran high school in Graz, Austria to replace a mathematics teacher that had just died. Even though Johannes was still studying theology he decided to go because he felt as God had led Johannes to this path. When Johannes was teaching mathematics in Graz he also became the district mathematician. In this job Johannes had to survey land, settling disputes over the accuracy of weights and measures used in business, and calendar making. In addition to actually listing dates, calendars today frequently include information on public holidays, school holidays, and phases of the moons. Some calendars even include the dates of sporting events, social services payment days, and similar events. In Kepler’s time period calendars were expected to include information that was useful to people’s everyday lives. This included advice to farmers on when to plant and harvest crops, advice to leaders on military campaigns, advice on matters of romance, and so on. Kepler would sometimes check the accuracy of his predictions to decide on what to say as there was not much true facts of astrology but more opinion based theories. Kepler published a book in 1601, which “rejected the superstitious view that the stars guide the lives of human beings”. Kepler progressively rejected other aspects of astrology as well. In his biography of Kepler, J. H. Tiner points out that “Johannes was the first scientist to investigate the long term accuracy of astrology. His records showed that trusting in astrology could be a risky business”.

Johannes Kepler and Motion of the Planet

Kepler strongly believed that “The world of nature, the world of man, the world of God-all three fit together.” In particular, Kepler reasoned that because an intelligent Creator designed the universe, it should function according to some logical pattern. While Johannes was searching for this pattern most scientist had giving up search for a simple pattern. Kepler had no access to accurate data of the planets positions so he had to go with information from the ancient Greeks. He proposed his ideas in a book called Cosmic Mystery written in 1595. Although many of his ideas later proved to be incorrect, the publication of this book brought Kepler to the attention of the intelligent Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe. Brahe was so impressed with Kepler’s mathematic ability and the idea of using mathematics in astrology he invited Kepler to join his team of astronomers. These astronomers had charted the paths of the planets over a long period of years but could not understand their complicated patterns. In 1600 Johannes joined Brahe’s team in Prague and was told to investigate the orbit of Mars. Johannes had then finally gained access to some information he can use to prove the planets orbits. Johannes later figured out that Mars did not move at a constant speed and distance as he had thought earlier. Instead he found an imaginary line that showed the line orbiting around the sun. He used the other astronomer’s information to find the planets move faster the closer they are to the sun, thus publishing these first two laws of planetary motion in 1609 in a book entitled The New Astronomy. Ten years later Kepler found the third law of planetary motion using mathematics and was able to find mathematically the time it takes to revolve around the sun and the distance from the sun and published this into another book called Harmony of the Worlds. Kepler had found a simple logical pattern for planetary motion, which reflected God’s wisdom. As Kepler said: “We see how God, like a human architect, approached the founding of the world according to order and rule and measured everything in such a manner.”

Kepler’s Laws Of Planetary Motion

Kepler’s Law of Planetary Motion consists of 3 smaller laws:

1. “Planets move in ellipses with the Sun at one focus.”
2. “The Equal-areas law. A line directed from the Sun to a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times as the planet orbits the Sun”
3. “The squares of the periodic times are to each other as the cubes of the mean distances.”

Johannes Kepler’s Other Discoveries

If it wasn’t for Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, Sir Isaac Newton may have had nothing to help him find Newton’s Laws of Motion. Also Kepler discovered a super nova, he found out how the human eye worked, and made improvements to telescopes. He also made other additions to the field of optics, and made a huge improvement to navigation with the data of the position of planets and stars. He made huge contributes to mathematics with faster ways to calculate and the volume of many solid bodies. Kepler is recognized as one of the founders of modern science. “In his three books, Cosmic Mystery, The New Astronomy, and Harmony of the Worlds, he began the process that eventually replaced superstition with reason.”- Johannes Kepler, quoted in: J. H. Tiner, Johannes Kepler-Giant of Faith and Science, Mott Media, Milford, Michigan (USA), 1977. Kepler also kept track of historical events in the bible and ended up writing “The Dream” what is said to be the world’s first science fiction book.

Johannes Kepler’s Tragedies

Johannes Kepler died of an illness (unknown even today) soon after he came to Regensberg, Germany, on November 15, 1630, aged 58 years. His life was filled with so many tragedies, such as the sickness of his childhood that had followed him to his adulthood. This sickness was passed on to his children killing three out of six of them, then followed by the death of his first wife. Also his mother was put on trial for witchcraft but with Kepler’s powerful defense he saved her from being burned at a stake. There were his religious battles where Kepler was told to change his religion with the change of a king. Kepler simple said, “I am a Christian” and followed the path God chose for him. Kepler was a man of the bible and rejected man-made rules that he thought tried to change the way of his bible. Doing this made his life more miserable but yet he still manage to make important discoveries. Despite Kepler’s great achievements, he remained humble. His desire was to “Let my name perishes if only the name of God the Father is thereby elevated” He acknowledged God as “the kind Creator who brought forth nature out of nothing.”