Scientist. Born in a southwest German city of which his grandfather was mayor, he attended first a Latin school, then a Protestant seminary in Adelberg, then the University of Tübingen. Under the tutelage of astronomer Michael Maestlin, he learned the heliocentric theory of Copernicus. In 1594 he accepted a professorship at a Protestant seminary in Graz, Austria. In his first published work, "The Cosmographic Mystery" (1597), he asserted that planets' distance from the Sun were determined by the five regular solids, assuming a planet's orbit was circumscribed about one solid and inscribed in another. In 1600, when the Counter-Reformation spread to Graz, he moved to Prague to research with Tycho Brahe. From Tycho's death in 1601 until the ouster of Emperor Rudolph II in 1612, Kepler was Europe's most respected mathematician. During this time he established two scientific laws - that planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun in one of the foci, and that a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times. In 1610, after receiving word of Galileo's observations of Jupiter's moons, he made such observations of his own, from which his published work "Narration About Four Satellites of Jupiter Observed" was derived. From 1612 to 1626, he served as district mathematician in Linz, Austria. But in 1618, the Thirty Years' War broke out; he and his family eventually had to flee Linz. He died in Regensburg; during the siege of that city during the Thirty Years' War, his gravestone was destroyed. His grave has been unmarked ever since.
Scientist. Born in a southwest German city of which his grandfather was mayor, he attended first a Latin school, then a Protestant seminary in Adelberg, then the University of Tübingen. Under the tutelage of astronomer Michael Maestlin, he learned the heliocentric theory of Copernicus. In 1594 he accepted a professorship at a Protestant seminary in Graz, Austria. In his first published work, "The Cosmographic Mystery" (1597), he asserted that planets' distance from the Sun were determined by the five regular solids, assuming a planet's orbit was circumscribed about one solid and inscribed in another. In 1600, when the Counter-Reformation spread to Graz, he moved to Prague to research with Tycho Brahe. From Tycho's death in 1601 until the ouster of Emperor Rudolph II in 1612, Kepler was Europe's most respected mathematician. During this time he established two scientific laws - that planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun in one of the foci, and that a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times. In 1610, after receiving word of Galileo's observations of Jupiter's moons, he made such observations of his own, from which his published work "Narration About Four Satellites of Jupiter Observed" was derived. From 1612 to 1626, he served as district mathematician in Linz, Austria. But in 1618, the Thirty Years' War broke out; he and his family eventually had to flee Linz. He died in Regensburg; during the siege of that city during the Thirty Years' War, his gravestone was destroyed. His grave has been unmarked ever since.
Bio by: Collins Crapo
Inscription
Hier auf dem ehemaligen Gottesacker St. Peter ruht neben seiner Ehefrau Susanne JOHANNES KEPLER 1571-1630 Astronom Weltharmoniker und Begründer der christlichen Ökumene. Gestiftet von der Johannes-Kepler-Universität Linz 1994
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