Johannes Kepler Johannes Kepler example essay topic

396 words
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) Johannes Kepler was born in Weil der Stadt in Swabia, in southwest Germany, not far from France. Kepler was born on December 27, 1571, a premature child. He was a mathematician and an astronomer. Kepler is most famous for his discovery of the three laws of planetary motion. Also, to a lesser extent, he is known for his work on convex lenses. Furthermore, he also gave the modern explanation of the workings of the eye.

He brought about the acceptance of the heliocentric concept. He truly believed in the Copernican system, so he saw the planetary orbits as six concentric circles. He felt the universe would somehow show mathematical beauty or symmetry. He put forward a theory that the orbits might be arranged so that regular polygons would just fit between adjacent ones, and maybe somehow this reflected some invisible underlying structure holding it all together.

He then realised that this was wrong because the universe was three-dimensional. He realised that instead of thinking about circles, he should be thinking about spheres, with the planetary orbits being along the equators. He argued that the five regular solids determined the distances of the planets from the Sun in the Copernican system, if one supposed that a planet's orbit was circumscribed about one solid and inscribed in another. Through these findings and arguments, Kepler can be seen in many respects to mark the beginnings of what is now called modern science. Kepler developed his experimental laws from Brahe's data on Mars. Kepler said, "By the study of the orbit of Mars, we must either arrive at the secrets of astronomy or forever remain in ignorance of them".

Kepler then widespread, saying that his laws applied to all the planets, including the earth, without ever actually proving that this was true. This law even applies to comets, though he did not know it at the time. Though Kepler may not have thought of such things so far ahead, the generality of his laws predicts and explains the movement of satellites orbiting the earth. To Kepler, the solar system was the core, most important part of creation.

Kepler's approach is quite appealing in the context of modern physics. Kepler died in Regensburg in the year 1630.