Johannes Kepler: The Unheralded Giant of the Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution

Well, it’s time to pay homage to one of the unheralded “Giants” of the Scientific Revolution, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630). Kepler gave Physics his three planetary laws of motion, two of which (the ellipse and the T-squared laws) enabled I. Newton (1643-1727) to formulate his inverse law of the force of gravity that has stood has served us so well even after 1915 when Einstein usurped this law with his field equation based on his geometric intuition and interpretation of space-time.

Remaining with Newton’s inverse square law for a moment, I once read R.Feynman’s (1918-1988) lost lecture and in it Richard states from the outset that he will prove the inverse square law by using only what Newton had at his disposal, (Kepler’s laws of motion and an understanding of the conic sections inherited from the work of the Greek “Giants” of antiquity, in particular, Menaechmus studying their properties around 360-350 B.C), this book is an amazing read.

One feels like one is being lectured by Newton himself, and one eventually sees the great equation unravelling itself, becoming arguably one of the most famous laws in all of Physics and bringing about the demise of Hellenistic interpretations of the cosmos.

Debates of Scientific Pioneers

Kepler was a contemporary of Galileo (1564-642) who should be credited with what we call today Newton’s first law of motion (his inertial law) and conducted several experiments (the famous cannonball experiment from the Leaning Tower of Pizza), which was probably apocryphal along with the experiment (alleged event) of when Archimedes (287-212BC) used his curved mirrors to burn the invading Roman armada, and I state that this was alleged as scientists have tried to reproduce his results without success, this statement now reminds me of the debatable results of the father of heredity G.Mendel (1822-1884) as his results were statistically examined and have been shown to be too precise with scholars suggesting that he “cooked the books” to accomplish them.

The Impact of Astronomy

Returning to Kepler, he earned a good living calculating horoscopes, and one should remember that astrology was not entirely disparate from astronomy during this period. Remaining with the coupling of disciplines and the role of Astronomy, it is well known that the three disciplines that have influenced the development of Mathematics through the ages include astronomy (man’s need to understand the cosmos and periodic motion so that he could accurately measure time so that harvesting could take place), commerce (man’s need to barter) and the most regrettable of all which is still just as prevalent today is war (with the greatest Mathematical and Scientific minds always being used by the military to produce more horrendous devices of mass destruction (e.g. J. Lagrange (1786-1813) accompanied N.Bonaparte on his expeditions, Einstein’s (1879-1955) energy equation is used to develop and nuclear bomb (against his wishes of course).

Alas, once again, space (but not time) has got the better of me.