JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 548
(Continuing the thread on a History of Blank and Empty Things...)
The great Joahnnes Kepler, conceived at 4:27 on the morning
of his parents’ holy joining, was raised a disagreeable boy by disagreeable parents,
and that in spite of being supremely gifted, mutually dependent on his
hypochondria, intellect, and astrology.
He was perhaps one of the dozen most influential scientists of the last
500 years, and had an over-assuming and awful disposition.
The man who brought about the final loosening of religion’s grasp
on astronomy and the development of cosmology had a difficult time in his childhood,
sounding lonely and exiled. His father was
irritable and irritating, but his mother, described by some as garrulous and quarrelsome
and of a “vile disposition”, seems to have been in a class by herself, and left
an indelible mark in her son. The full
truth of Kepler’s mother was that if you described her as being like a ”witch”, you may have been correct: the old woman, at 74, after years of being
suspected of being a witch, was arrested, finally, and hauled away under this
suspicion. In a posthumously-published
work called Somnulum, Kepler himself writes of his mother as being in contact
with devils from the Moon (among many other things). His childhood left a long shadow on his
social life.
It is remarkable to note his nearly alphabetical diatribe on
his schoolday associates; I’m not o sure how you leave behind ideas and feeling
like this later in life, and I suppose that you don’t. It has nothing to do with his development as
a scientific icon, but I
He rattles off his chums as follows:
“Holp openly detested me and on two occasions we got into
fist fights….
Molitor dislike me because I betrayed him…
Kollin didn’t hate me, but I hated him…
Braunbaum turned from friend to foe because of my
boisterousness…
Huldenbach became hostile because of my rash accusations…
Seifer disliked because everyone disliked him…
Kleber detested me because he thought I was a rival…
Redstock was ticked off whenever someone praised my
abilities…
Husel tried to block my progress…
Between Dauber and myself there was quite a jealousy…
Lorhard would have nothing to do with me….
After Jaeger had lied to me I was insulted for two years…
The rector became my enemy because I did not accord him
sufficient honor…
Murr became my enemy because I reprimanded him…”
And on and on. Kind
of incredible if you ask me, but from this did greatness come.
On the way to restructuring the universe with his Harmonicae mundi and Epitome astronomiae, Kepler made a first
abbreviated stop in his Mysterium Cosmographicum—it was an interesting work, but
as substantial as it was it had as many flaws.
Galileo received a copy, and wrote politely back, but was very guarded
in his opinion of the work. Part of the
problem was Kepler’s sustained interest in his astrological callings; another
part came with his great reverence. He
thought that god was perfect, and that the universe he created as perfect, and
so it all could be explained perfectly with a perfect method, which in this
case was geometrical. Explaining the proportions
between the sun and its planets, Kepler devised a system in which spheres and
squares and other objects were described within one another, separating the planets
via distances determined by their points of contact. It wasn’t a winning system, but it did abide
the Copernican system, even as his forms disappeared into nothingness.. Kepler went on to
bigger and greater things.
Einstein, who much admired Kepler, said of the man: “[He]
was one of the few who are simply incapable of doing anything but stand up
openly for their convictions in every field.”
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