Johannes Kepler

(1571 – 1630)

Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, 1571 in Weil der Stadt, Germany, to an impoverished family that might well define the term “dysfunctional.” Kepler described his father, Heinrich, a mercenary soldier and alcoholic who abandoned his wife and children when Johannes was sixteen years old, as “criminally inclined [and] quarrelsome.” Kepler’s mother, Katharina Guldenmann, was portrayed as “thin, garrulous, and bad-tempered”; she was imprisoned for witchcraft and narrowly escaped death by torture. Completing the family circle was Kepler’s grandmother, who was reputed to have been “clever, deceitful, blazing with hatred, the queen of busybodies.”

As if these unsavory relatives were not handicap enough, Kepler faced other obstacles as well. An attack of smallpox when Kepler was three years old left him with impaired vision and crippled hands. Because he was presumed to be unfit for any work more strenuous than the ministry, he embarked on the study of theology in 1584.

While attending the Protestant University of Tübingen, Kepler was very cautiously introduced by his mathematics professor to the controversial theories of Copernicus. Kepler immediately recognized the veracity of Copernicus’s central assertions, and became an enthusiastic proponent of the Polish astronomer’s theses. Though Kepler eventually earned a master’s degree in theology from Tübingen, his obvious genius for mathematics and astronomy caught the attention of his teachers. They were instrumental in obtaining for him a position as professor of mathematics at the Lutheran University of Grätz, Austria.

Kepler arrived in Grätz in 1593, when he was twenty-two years old. Soon thereafter, he met the woman who would become his wife. Barbara Müller, who had been widowed twice before she reached the age of twenty-two, was quite wealthy. Kepler rhapsodized that she “set his heart on fire,” and the two were married in 1597.

Kepler was freed temporarily of the burden of poverty, but domestic happiness eluded him. He found himself bored by his attractive young wife, who was intellectually incapable of understanding his work. His two eldest children died in their infancy, causing him enormous grief. Eventually, his wife lost her sanity and, soon thereafter, died.

To make matters worse, he was a dismal failure as a teacher. The first year there were only twelve students in his classes; the second year, there were none. Kepler’s boundless enthusiasm for mathematics rendered him virtually incomprehensible, but the school administrators found a way to salvage his career. Kepler was assigned the task of preparing an annual almanac, and was asked to make predictions based on his observations of the stars. All of Kepler’s prognostications proved accurate, and his reputation soared. Thus, Kepler found his way by chance to the occupation that would be, for the rest of his life, his primary source of support: casting horoscopes.

Just when it may have seemed that Kepler was on the verge of success, yet another misfortune befell him. On September 28, 1598, ecclesiastical authorities in Catholic Grätz expelled all Protestants from the city. Since Kepler lost his post at the University and had no access to the estates in which most of his wealth was invested, the Church’s edict was a financial disaster.

In 1599, Kepler accepted employment in Prague as assistant to Tycho Brahe, the flamboyant and domineering Danish astronomer who was Emperor Rudolph II’s imperial mathematician. Brahe, whose nose had been amputated by a swordsman with whom he had dueled in his youth, wore a golden prosthesis attached to his head by a strap. Brahe often won arguments by removing his artificial nose in the heat of verbal battle, leaving his opponents staring at the gaping hole in his face. Brahe’s adversaries’ train of thought invariably derailed. The affable, easygoing Kepler was no match for Brahe’s audacious flair, and relations between the two were strained from the start.

Though Brahe mistreated his assistant, he must have recognized Kepler’s worth. In 1601, from his deathbed, Brahe bequeathed to Kepler his most precious possession: Brahe’s meticulous notes of years of astronomical observations.

Kepler succeeded Brahe as court astronomer, a position that was for the most part unpaid, and dedicated his seemingly limitless energy to the task of reducing Brahe’s observations to certain general laws of planetary motion. He ultimately discovered three laws of enduring value; it is these on which his reputation as an astronomer is based.

Despite his many important contributions to mathematics and astronomy, Kepler was constantly beset by financial woes. He was on his way to Austria to collect unpaid interest on his investments when he was stricken with a fever that claimed his life. He died at Regensburg, Germany, on November 15, 1630, at the age of fifty-eight.

Links

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Kepler.html
http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/JohannesKepler/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kepler/

References

• Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1972.
• Ball, W.W. Rouse. A Short Account of the History of Mathematics. 1908. Reprint. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1960.
• Burton, David M. The History of Mathematics. 2d ed. Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown Publishers, 1988.
• Eves, Howard. An Introduction to the History of Mathematics. 6th ed. Fort Worth: Saunders College Publishing, 1992.
• Gillispie, Charles Coulston, ed. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. VII. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973.
• Simmons, George F. Calculus Gems: Brief Lives and Memorable Mathematics. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1992.