Johannes Kepler Biography

Johannes Kepler was a german astronomer and mathematician, who is well-known for his approach to laws about the movement of planets in their orbit around the sun and for being an important figure in the scientific revolution.

Kepler was born on december 27, 1571, in weil der stadt, germany. he was raised in a protestant lutheran family, where his father was a mercenary servant in the hosts of the duke of alba and his mother was a healer and herbalist, but she was accused of witchcraft. at the age of 3, Kepler suffered smallpox that left him with visual difficulties in his life. however, this problem did not prevent him from standing out due to his extensive mathematical knowledge.

in 1577, Kepler would begin his studies at the latin school located in Leonberg, where he stood out for his ability with numbers and the ease to solve problems of this type. since he was a kid, his parents motivated him to be interested in astronomy since they took him to different places to witness the stars, eclipses, and comets. when he was 5, he was able to witness the comet of 1577 and in 1580 he witnessed his first eclipse of the moon.

in 1589, his father disappeared after returning to the war and had to alternate school with work as an agricultural laborer, to help his mother financially. five years later, he would follow his parents’ beliefs and entered the protestant seminary of adelberg.

after finishing school, he enrolled at the university of tübingen in 1589. the first years, he would study ethics, rhetoric, dialectics, astronomy, greek, hebrew, and physics, and later took chairs in human sciences and theology. after two years, he would obtain his master’s degree and learned from his professor of mathematics, the heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus.

“astronomy is part of physics.” Johannes Kepler

in 1594, he would put aside his studies in theology and became a professor of mathematics at the protestant school in Graz. during his time in Graz as a teacher, he would publish a calendar of his own with astrological predictions.

around1596, Kepler would write “mysterium cosmographicum” which translates “the cosmic mystery” in which he would explain all his related ideas about cosmology and his vision of a celebration of the existence and wisdom of god in the cosmological model. on april 27, 1597, he would get married for the first time with Barbara Müller.

during 1600, Kepler was forced to leave Austria (the country where he resided at that time) when archduke Ferdinand rebelled against all protestants, which led Kepler to move to prague, where he was welcomed by Tycho Brahe who was a well-known mathematician and who had been shocked by the works of Kepler. after the death of Tycho in 1602, Kepler took his place as the imperial mathematician of Rudolph II and simultaneously worked as the astrological counselor.

Johannes Kepler also began to make studies of the works that Tycho had left, for that reason he realized that the movement of the planets was not correctly explained by a model of perfect polyhedrons and harmonic spheres. based on this, the scientist tried with varieties and combinations of circles to see what was the best description to establish the model. when seeing that with circles he could not obtain the expected result, he tried with ovals also obtaining errors, which led him to try with ellipses and managed to achieve what he was looking for. this discovery helped him to state three famous laws that bear his name and that describe the movement of the planets. these laws were published in the year 1609 in his book “astronomy nova”, and proposed the following:

Kepler’s first law: the planets have elliptical movements around the sun, which is located in one of the 2 foci that contain the ellipse.

after having formulated that first law, the scientist undertook the task of checking the speed of the planets through the orbits and formulated the second law:

Kepler’s second law: the areas swept by the radios of the planets are proportional to the time used by them to travel the perimeter of said areas.

finally, after conducting several studies based on its first two laws related the trajectory of the planets to each other also called the law of planetary motion and formulated his third law:

Kepler’s third law: the square of the periods of the orbit of the planets is proportional to the cube of the average distance to the sun.

in general, these three laws caused astonishment throughout the world and made possible the prediction and understanding of all the astrological movements. in addition, they made Kepler be listed as the best astronomer of his time.

in 1612, his wife Barbara Müller died and the following year he married for the second time with Susanne Reuttinger.

fifteen years later, he would publish Rudolphine tables, which were catalogs of stars and planetary tables, which at that time were used throughout the world to make positional calculations of the planets and stars. in 1631, Kepler would predict the transit of venus using his three laws, which confirmed that his theory was true.

 

the Kepler star

this was another of Kepler’s observations throughout his scientific career. on october 17, 1604, the scientist observed a supernova star in the milky way, with which he would develop his work “de Stella nova” which means the new star. with these observations and investigations, Kepler showed evidence that the universe was not static and presented important changes.

Johannes Kepler died in Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany on november 15, 1630, at the age of 58 years.