The Discovery of Kepler essays

The Discovery of Kepler essays Using the precise data that Tycho had collected, Kepler discovered that the orbit of Mars was an ellipse. Man being, as Kepler believed, made in the image of God, was clearly capable of understanding the Universe that He had created. Moreover, Kepler was convinced that God had made the Universe according to a mathematical plan. The Sun is not at the center of the ellipse, but is instead at one focus. The planet then follows the ellipse in its orbit, which means that the Earth-Sun distance is constantly changing as the planet goes around its orbit. Kepler lived after Copernicus first asserted that Earth and the other planets revolved around the sun. The first years of Kepler's work were spent compiling numerical analysis of Tycho's observations, in the hopes of matching the results with Copernicus's theory of planetary motion. Unhappily, however, Kepler found that his mathematical calculations were far from fitting the imprecisely figured Copernican model. During many months of addi tional calculations, he happened upon the most important of his discoveries: that planetary orbits were elliptical, not circular, as he and those before him had believed. Strongly convinced through his work that the planets did in fact orbit around the sun, Kepler openly endorsed the Copernican theory that the earth and all other planets were in fact orbiting the sun. Undoubtedly, Kepler's discoveries and intricate calculations were vital as a basis for Isaac Newton's later work. For his bold assertions about orbits, for his extensive observations and copious calculations, and for his defense of the Copernicus's theory of the universe, later astronomers and scientists especially Newtonwere indebted to Kepler. He was the first to support Copernicus with substantial evidence, and he consequently did much to help explain the great mystery of planetary orbits. Kepler also made contributions in the field of optics and developed a system ...