Johannes Kepler derived the structure of the solar system

Our Christian who has made a difference today is Johann Kepler. Johann Kepler was the founder of modern astronomy. He was motivated by the religious conviction that God had created the world according to a plan and that through observation, research and reason we can get to understand that plan. Johann Kepler was born in 1571 in the town of Wielderstadt in what is today Germany. His father was a drunken scoundrel who frittered away the family fortune. His mother was bad tempered and meddlesome. When the family tavern failed, his father deserted the family. When he was three, Johann Kepler contracted smallpox. This left him partially disabled and with poor vision. Despite this, he showed prodigious mathematical ability. His real dream was to enter Christian ministry, but economic necessity forced him to pursue mathematics. This turned out fortuitous for the whole world. He took a teaching position in Graz in Austria, but funds were always very sparse. He married Barbara Mueller in 1597 and by her had five children, three of whom died in infancy. Barbara had little sympathy for this work. Barbara died young and Johann married again, this time to Susanne Ruttinger, and the marriage was happy. Two of their seven children survived to adulthood. Kepler moved to Prague, but in 1612 moved on to Linz, also in Austria. Copernicus, who lived just before Kepler, had proposed that the earth moves around the sun, but there was no scientific evidence to explain the motion of the planets and back up Copernicus' model. Many still thought the planets moved around the earth. They came up with complicated mathematical models to try to explain observations of planetary motion, but none were satisfactory. Kepler believed the sun to be the centre of the solar system and tried various mathematical models to try to explain the planets' observed behaviour. He finally came up with what we now know as the three laws of planetary motion, for motion of the planets around the sun. The first law he proposed in 1605 was that the planets move in ellipses around the sun with the sun at one focus. The second, proposed in 1609, predicted variation in planet speed as they orbited the sun. The third law he proposed in 1618 established further maths for predicting planetary motion. It was this third law, not an apple, that led Newton a few years later to his law of gravitation. Kepler used his laws to predict the eclipse of the sun by the planet Mercury in 1631. Other scientists observed this transit precisely as predicted by Kepler. Kepler was proved correct. Kepler believed that God had created the universe and it operated by laws God had set in place. He wanted to know what these laws were. He also believed his discoveries glorified God as master designer and creator. Galileo may be science's most famous martyr, but it was the devout Christian Kepler who solved the mystery of the planets. Not only that, he was the central figure in the scientific revolution, developing the modern scientific method which has brought so much advancement to mankind. He was prolific in other areas of science including optics and integral calculus. He developed the mathematics for designing glasses and telescopes and for understanding how our eyes work like a lens. We salute Johann Kepler, a Christian who has made a huge difference for the world.