Kepler, Johann

(1571–1630)

   Scientist.

   Kepler was born near Stuttgart, Germany, and was educated at the University of Tübingen. In 1601 he was appointed Court Astronomer in Prague and imperial mathematical aide to Rudolph II. He was the discoverer of the three laws of planetary motion, to which he was led by his neo-Platonist philosophy. A determined supporter of Pope Gregory XIII’s reform of the calendar, he suggested that the star which led the wise men to the baby Jesus was a conjunction of the planets Mars, Saturn and Jupiter which occurred in 6 bc. He accepted the authority of the Bible, although he was pantheistic in his religious views, believing that the order of the universe was an expression of the Being of God.

   C. Baumgarten, Johannes Kepler: Life and Letters (1952);

   M. Caspar, Johann Kepler (1959);

   A. Koestler, The Watershed: A Biography of Johannes Kepler (1961).