Johannes Kepler

Physics - Famous Scientists - Johannes Kepler (1571 - 1630)
On the Metaphysics of Johannes Kepler & the Elliptical Orbits of Planets about the Sun. Pictures & Quotes

But before mankind could be ripe for a science which takes in the whole of reality, a second fundamental truth was needed, which only became common property among philosophers with the advent of Kepler and Galileo. Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts form experience and ends in it. Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality. (Albert Einstein)

Introduction

Johannes Kepler was a German scientist who lived from 1571 - 1630. Kepler spent many years studying the geometry of planetary orbits in the hope of finding cosmic perfection. Along with Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler is the founding father of empirical science. The theoretical interpretation in the 1600's was that the planetary orbits were perfect circles. Through the use of his senses and data, Kepler discovered the planetary orbits were in fact ellipses.

As Margaret Wertheim writes of Kepler's discoveries;

From Tycho Brahe (1546 - 1601) Kepler derived astronomical data of Mars, the planet that least fitted with either Ptolemy or Copernicus. Kepler was ecstatic and made a bet he would work out its orbit in a week. Five years later he was still engaged in his 'war on Mars'. He tried countless circular orbits and combinations of multiple circles, yet none matched the data with the accuracy he demanded. At last he made a radical decision: Kepler abandoned circles and decided that planetary orbits must be some other shape.

It is difficult today to conceive what a revolutionary step thus was. For over two thousand years, all the great cosmological thinking had proclaimed the circle as the most perfect form, and hence the only shape suitable for the motions of heavenly bodies. Given that Kepler was himself an ardent Pythagorean, and fanatically devoted to cosmic perfection, it took immense wrenching to free his mind from the circle dogma. Pythagoras and Plato may have adored the perfection of the circle, but Kepler realised that nature preferred something else. The question was What? He had left the solid ground of tradition for terra incognita. Finally, after a great deal of thrashing about - of which he wrote, 'I was almost driven to madness in considering and calculating this matter,' - Kepler discovered that the shape of Mars' orbit was an ellipse. Kepler later found this was true for all the planets.
Kepler's discovery of the elliptical orbits heralded the emergence of modern cosmology because, instead of imposing a preconceived idea about the way the heavens ought to be, he had let himself discover the way they actually were.

With his ellipses, Kepler was the first to propose a mathematical picture of the cosmos that did not rely on invisible celestial 'gears' churning behind the scenes. In his cosmos were just the sun and six planets tracing out their elegant curves. All the complicated circle machinery that had plagued Copernicus as well as Ptolemy had been jettisoned, and in its place stood a truly simple and harmonious system. Furthermore, Kepler insisted that planetary motion was the result of real physical force. In Copernicus' system, the sun was the center of the planets, but it played no role in causing their motion; God was responsible for that. Kepler, however, insisted that the sun emanated a force that caused the planets to revolve around it. Whereas Copernicus' sun was an inert symbolic center, Kepler's was an active physical center. Here then was the seed of the modern idea of gravity that Newton would codify later in the century. (Wertheim, Pythagoras' Trousers, 1997)

Recent discoveries of the properties of Space and the Wave Structure of Matter (Wolff, Haselhurst) show that we can understand Johannes Kepler's elliptical orbits (of motion and force) from One Infinite, Absolute, Eternal Space which exists with the properties of a Wave Medium. As Leibniz was correct to realise;

Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. (Leibniz)

To read more about the Wave Structure of Matter see the main articles at the top of the page. I hope you enjoy the following quotes from Johannes Kepler - a very interesting 'mystical' scientist.

Geoff Haselhurst

Johannes Kepler Quotations

When Newton said, 'If I have seen further it is standing on the shoulders of giants,' he is referring to Johannes Kepler. (Wertheim, 1997)

Among the great men who have philosophised about [the action of the tides], the one who surprised me most is Kepler. He was a person of independent genius, [but he] became interested in the action of the moon on the water, and in other occult phenomena, and similar childishness. (Galileo Galilei)

I wish, my dear Kepler, that we could have a good laugh together at the extraordinary stupidity of the mob. What do you think of the foremost philosophers of this University? In spite of my oft-repeated efforts and invitations, they have refused, with the obstinacy of a glutted adder, to look at the planets or Moon or my telescope. (Galileo Galilei)

http://www.thinkexist.com/English/Author/x/Author_2925_4.htm

But before mankind could be ripe for a science which takes in the whole of reality, a second fundamental truth was needed, which only became common property among philosophers with the advent of Kepler and Galileo. Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts form experience and ends in it. Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality. Because Galileo saw this, and particularly because he drummed it into the scientific world, he is the father of modern physics -- indeed, of modern science altogether. (Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions)

For a long time I wanted to become a theologian. .. Now, however, behold how through my effort God is being celebrated in astronomy. (Kepler, Letter to old teacher, Wertheim)

At University, Kepler had learned about Copernicus' system and had immediately accepted heliocentrism as a real picture of the world: 'I have attested it as true in my deepest soul,' he later wrote. Nevertheless, he did not exhibit much interest in the subject until the day in Gratz when the figure on the blackboard suggested to him that he could explain the details of the heliocentric cosmos in terms of a beautiful underlying geometric pattern. Copernicus had discovered the general arrangement of the heavens - the sun at the center and the planets revolving around it. Now Kepler would explain precisely the orbital sizes and spacings. That there was a precise mathematical explanation for the cosmic plan was an article of faith with Kepler, because for him the world was a reflection of the supremely Pythagorean God.
Following Nicholas of Cusa, Kepler saw the world as the material embodiment of mathematical forms present within God before the act of creation. 'Why waste words?' he wrote, 'Geometry existed before the Creation, is co-eternal with the mind of God, is God himself ... geometry provided God with a model for the Creation.' Thus, 'where matter is, there is geometry.'
Because he believed that the world was a reflection of God, who was a perfect being, according to Kepler it must necessarily be a perfect world, and therefore the manifestation of sublime geometric principles. 'It is absolutely necessary that the work of such a perfect creator should be of the greatest beauty.' (Kepler) (Wertheim, Pythagoras' Trousers, 1997)

Physics Links: Johannes Kepler

Forces (Light, Gravity) - Forces are caused by a change in velocity of the spherical In-Waves (from one direction, as they interact with other matter / waves) which causes a change in location of where these spherical (ellipsoidal) In-Waves finally meet at their Wave-Center, and which we 'see' as a 'force accelerating a particle'.
Thus we unite / connect Matter, Time and Forces back to One thing Space, existing as a Wave-Medium. From this foundation (and unity) we can then unite (and explain and solve many of the problems of) Einstein's Relativity, Quantum Theory and Cosmology.
Cosmology -The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built by pure deduction (Albert Einstein, 1954). The Wolff-Haselhurst Cosmology explains a Perpetual Finite Spherical Universe within an Infinite Eternal Space.
Physics and Metaphysics - The Metaphysics of Space and Motion Sensibly Unites Albert Einstein's Relativity, Quantum Theory, and Cosmology. This 40 page Treatise (written over five years) will be published in 'What is the Electron' (Apeiron, 2005).
Galilei, Galileo - Wave Structure of Matter Explains the Gravitational Attraction of the Earth and Sun and their Interconnected Orbital Motions.
Copernicus, Nicolaus - Wave Structure of Matter Explains the Orbit of the Earth about the Sun. Uniting Copernicus and Ptolemy - all Matter is the Center of its own Finite Spherical Universe within an Infinite Space.

Johannes Kepler and the Three Laws of Planetary Motion - Information and mathematics on Kepler's Laws published in 1609 and 1619.