Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) was a German astronomer and mathematician who discovered the laws of planetary motion. A devout Lutheran who first trained for the ministry, he became a teacher of mathematics and in 1600 joined the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in Prague. After Tycho's death in 1601, Kepler succeeded him as Imperial Mathematician and inherited his precise planetary observations. Years of painstaking calculation on the orbit of Mars led him to conclude that planets move in ellipses rather than perfect circles, with the Sun at one focus, and that they sweep out equal areas in equal times, published in Astronomia Nova (1609). His third law, relating a planet's orbital period to its distance from the Sun, appeared in Harmonices Mundi (1619). He also explained how the eye forms images and improved the design of the telescope. His laws later provided the foundation for Newton's theory of gravitation.
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From Archimedes to Newton
Archimedes explained the law of the lever and the principle of buoyancy in the third century BC. Nearly two thousand years later, Galileo built on his mechanics and turned the telescope to the heavens, while Kepler showed that the planets move in ellipses. Pascal showed through experiments that air pressure decreases with altitude. Newton drew these threads together in his Principia (1687), with three laws of motion and universal gravitation.
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Scientists of Christian Faith
For these scientists, studying nature and keeping faith went hand in hand. Kepler wrote that through his astronomy God was being celebrated. Pascal, a mathematician and physicist, wrote the reflections later published as the Pensées in defense of Christian faith. Faraday served as an elder of his small Christian congregation in London. Mendel carried out his experiments on pea plants as an Augustinian friar and later became abbot of his monastery in Brno. Maxwell held a lifelong Christian faith alongside his physics.
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