A Short Biography on Johannes Kepler

  Johannes Kepler was born at about 1 P.M. on December 27, 1571, in Weil der Stadt, Wüttenberg, in Germany (which at the time was part of the Holy Roman Empire). Kepler was born as a sickly and frail child, whose parents were poor. Although his intelligence earned him a scholarship at the University of Tübingen. Kepler studied for the Lutheran ministry and it was there that Kepler was introduced to the ideas of Copernicus (the Heliocentric Model). In 1596, while he was a mathematics teacher in Graz, he wrote the first outspoken defense of the Heliocentric Model, titled the "Mysterium Cosmographicum."


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    Kepler's was eventually forced to leave his position at Graz due to the Counter-Reformation and the fact that he was Lutheran. He ended up moving to Prague to work with the renowned Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe. When Tycho died in 1601, Kepler took his position as Imperial Mathematician. Then using the data that Tycho had collected, Kepler had discovered that the orbit of Mars was an ellipse. This led to him publishing "Astronomia Nova," which contains his first two laws of planetary motion. On top of that, it is the first published account wherein a scientist uses the scientific method.

    In 1612, Lutherans were forced out of Prague, so Kepler moved to Linz as a result. His wife and two sons had also recently died. However he did remarry happily, but unfortunately had many personal and financial troubles. For example, his two infant daughters died, and he had to return to Wüttenburg to defend his mother against charges of witchcraft. In 1619, he published "Harmonics Mundi," which he uses to describe his third law of planetary motion.

Kepler died in 1630, while on a journey from his home in Sagan to collect a debt. His grave was demolished within two years as a result of the Thirty Years War.

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