[this web page last updated 22 October 2009]
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Johannes Kepler wrote Astronomia Nova (1609) in a singleminded drive
to sweep away the ancient and medieval clutter of spheres and orbs and to establish
a new truth in astronomy, based on physical causality. Thus a good part of the
book is given over to a nontechnical discussion of how planets can be made to
move through space by physical forces. This is the theme of the readings in
the present module.
The selection features, in the first place, the complete introduction to Astronomia
Nova. In this influential essay Kepler gives us his views on the planetary
systems debate, ranging over a wide assortment of topics including causes of
motions, criteria for choosing one theory over another, gravity and the tides,
and the proper relations between science and Scripture. This introduction was
Kepler's most widely read work, appended to the Latin editions of Galileo's
Dialogue, and translated into the vernacular.
The Introduction is followed by a substantial selection of chapters presenting
Kepler's new celestial physics. In Chapter 7, Kepler gives an engaging account
of how he came to work on Mars, and why Mars was crucially important to his
success. Chapters 33 and 34 will also be of general interest, as they sketch
out the arguments for the sun's dynamic role in moving the planets. These
chapters are easily understandable and contain no mathematics.
For the more adventurous, there is a larger sequence that takes us from the
basics of planetary motions all the way to Kepler's first two laws of planetary
motion. These chapters occasionally require some basic geometry and the use
of the sine function. The necessary astronomical information and terminology
is provided in appendices and a glossary.
In these ground-breaking chapters, the true Kepler emerges, not as a speculative
mystic or a number-crunching drudge, but as a first-rate scientific thinker
with a wonderfully engaging narrative style.
"The translation is quite readable ... Donahue prudently allows Kepler 'the
courtesy of supposing that what he writes can be understood' [in Donahue's words],
and has managed a translation that preserves a good bit of the style of the
Latin: sometimes elevated, frequently jocular, on occasion impassioned. The
English almost always seems faithful in tone to the original."
Bruce Stephenson, Isis
7" x 10", 120 pages, glossary and bibliographical note
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