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James A. Connor - Keplers Witch: An Astronomers Discovery of Cosmic Order Amid Religious War, Political Intrigue, and the Heresy Trial of His Mother

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Keplers Witch: An Astronomers Discovery of Cosmic Order Amid Religious War, Political Intrigue, and the Heresy Trial of His Mother
Author:
James A Connor
Publisher:
Harper Collins
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Books / Non-fiction
Year:
2009
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Keplers Witch: An Astronomers Discovery of Cosmic Order Amid Religious War, Political Intrigue, and the Heresy Trial of His Mother: summary, description and annotation

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Set against the backdrop of the witchcraft trial of his mother, this lively biography of Johannes Kepler the Protestant Galileo and 16th century mathematician and astronomer reveals the surprisingly spiritual nature of the quest of early modern science.

In the style of Dava Sobels Galileos Daughter, Connors book brings to life the tidal forces of Reformation, CounterReformation, and social upheaval. Johannes Kepler, who discovered the three basic laws of planetary motion, was persecuted for his support of the Copernican system. After a neighbour accused his mother of witchcraft, Kepler quit his post as the Imperial mathematician to defend her.

James Connor tells Keplers story as a pilgrimage, a spiritual journey into the modern world through war and disease and terrible injustice, a journey reflected in the evolution of Keplers geometrical model of the cosmos into a musical model, harmony into greater harmony. The leitmotif of the witch trial adds a third dimension to Keplers biography by setting his personal life within his own times. The acts of this trial, including Keplers letters and the accounts of the witnesses, although published in their original German dialects, had never before been translated into English. Echoing some of Dava Sobels work for Galileos Daughter, Connor has translated the witch trial documents into English. With a great respect for the history of these times and the life of this man, Connors accessible story illuminates the life of Kepler, the man of science, but also Kepler, a man of uncommon faith and vision.

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Keplers Witch

An Astronomers Discovery of Cosmic Order Amid Religious War, Political Intrigue, and the Heresy Trial of His Mother

James A. Connor

with Translation Assistance by Petra Sabin Jung

Truthfully I may confess that as often as I contemplate the proper order as - photo 2

Truthfully I may confess
that as often as I contemplate
the proper order, as one results from another
and becomes diminished,
it is as if
I have read a heavenly passage
not written in meaningful letters
but with the essential things in this world
which tells me: Put your reason herein
to comprehend these things.

J OHANNES K EPLER,
IN HIS CALENDAR FOR 1604

Contents

J OHANNES K EPLER is most often remembered for his venerable three laws of planetary motion, for which he has earned the title the father of celestial mechanics. But Keplers accomplishments were wide-ranging. In addition to acclaim for his laws of planetary motion, he is also considered the founder of modern optics. He was the first to investigate the formation of pictures with a pinhole camera, the first to explain the process of vision by refraction within the eye, the first to formulate eyeglass designs for nearsightedness and farsightedness, and the first to explain the use of both eyes for depth perception, all of which he described in his book Astronomiae Pars Optica . In his book Dioptrice (a term coined by Kepler and still used today), he was the first to describe real, virtual, upright, and inverted images and magnification (and he created all those ray diagrams commonly used in todays optics textbooks), the first to explain the principles of how a telescope works, and the first to discover and describe the properties of total internal reflection. Galileo may have used the telescope that Johann Lippershey had invented to discover the moons of Jupiter and to see the first hints of Saturns rings, but it was Kepler who explained how the telescope works.

Kepler probably was the first real astrophysicist, as we know the term in the modern sense, using physics to explain and interpret astronomical phenomena. He was the first to explain that the tides are caused by the moon. In his book Astronomia Nova , he was the first to suggest that the sun rotates about its axis. He wrote what may have been the first sci-fi story, a view of earth from the moon. In his book Stereometrica Doliorum Vinariorum, he developed methods for calculating the volume of irregular solids that became the basis of integral calculus. And he was the first to derive the birth year of Christ that is now universally accepted.

Today when we think about scientists, we have images of university professors in ivy-covered halls, laboratories full of elaborate instruments, cadres of graduate students, laptop computers more powerful than all those used to send men to the moon, and large government grants. Yet with all of these resources, how much of todays research will stand the test of time the way the works of Kepler have? Much has changed in four hundred years, but Keplers laws are as exact now as they were then. How was he able to accomplish so much? Actually, given the times he lived in and the meager resources, how was he able to accomplish anything?

Context is the window to understanding. To understand Kepler and his accomplishments, one needs to understand the times in which he livedthe culture, people, places, politics, religion, and his family. Wars, witch hunts, pestilences, and death were common everyday occurrences. The potions that people used as cures were a far cry from todays medical miracle drugs. Keplers Witch communicates a feeling for the hardships, difficulties, rejections, loneliness, and heartbreak that Kepler endured. He lived on the verge of poverty. His salary was almost always in arrears. His only resources were paper, pen, and one mans treasure trove of astronomical observations.

What drove Kepler? What sustained him? How could he endure? It certainly wasnt the money or even glory. He had few peers who even recognized his accomplishments. In Keplers Witch readers get a feeling for the source of his strength, his vision, and his perseverance, how he was able to do so much with so little in spite of all the evils that surrounded him in life. Kepler believed in an almighty God, the creator of heaven and earth. He believed in Jesus Christ as personal Savior. He believed in the ideal of the holy catholic (universal) church. Kepler was a man of peace in search of harmonyin particular, the harmony of the heavens. Somehow he knew it was there, even if life on earth was far from harmonious.

David Koch

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Deputy Principal Investigator for The Kepler Mission *

*The Kepler Mission is a special NASA space mission for detecting terrestrial planetsthat is, rocky, earth-sized planetsaround other stars. It is scheduled for launch in 2006.

A BOOK like this one is a river, drawing from many sources. I owe thanks to each one and will name them, in no particular order except as they come to mind. First, great thanks to Petra Sabin Jung, who helped with the difficult task of translating Keplers German into modern English. Also, thanks to all my friends in Weil der Stadt: Dr. Manfred Fischer, the president of the Kepler Gesellschaft; Dr. Ernst Khn, my sherpa guide up the steep slopes of Tbingen; Hubert and Elisabeth Bitzel, who were so kind and joined in my search for a Kepler sundae; Herr Bitzel, Huberts brother, the curator of the Kepler Museum, and a great Kepler fan; Dr. Wolfgang Schtz, the curator of the Weil der Stadt city museum, the town historian, and a wonderful source of information. Also, thanks to all the shopkeepers in the Marktplatz of Weil, who gave me samples. Thanks also to Anna Madsen and her father, Dr. Madsen, a Lutheran minister from Wisconsin. I met them both in Regensburg, and we had a wonderful little Americans in exile moment in the foyer of the Kepler Museum. Thanks to the people at the Sweet Home Hotel in Prague, who helped me get things mailed.

Thanks also to my agent, Giles Anderson, of the Anderson Literary Agency; to my editors, Steve Hanselman and Mickey Maudlin, at Harper San Francisco; and to my publicist, Roger Freetthree men who made the Big Decisions. And thanks to Cindy DiTiberio, also of Harper San Francisco, who made all the other decisions. Thanks also to David Koch, Michael Gurian, Charles de Fanti and Leni Fuhrman, Malachy McCourt, John Anthony Connor, Margarette Alma Connor, William Craven, Sr., the New York Mets (for teaching me humility), and, of course, my wife, Beth Craven Connor, for teaching me everything else.

A FTER HAULING MY STACK OF LUGGAGE down the platform, I finally came across the last unclaimed seat on the night train from Stuttgart to Prague. Since no one shooed me away, I heaved my luggage into the upper bins and collapsed into the seat. Beside me were two Italian men who pretended to be asleep. Opposite them by the window was a blond German woman with a sack lunch on her lap. Beside her, in the middle seat, was a Korean boy, taller and lankier than I expected. He was traveling around the world, and in his broken English he said he wanted to know everyones story. Across from me was a short, unnaturally thin German student with a buzz cut and an excess of earrings, sitting wound into himself in a sort of existential fetal position. I was not surprised when he pulled out a packet of cigarette papers and rolled his own.

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