Johannes Kepler’s interest in astronomy started in his early age. As a boy, Johannes Kepler has witnessed several astronomical events, such as the Great Comet in 1577 and a lunar eclipse in 1580. Unfortunately, his love for it came to halt when he suffered from a disease in his childhood years, which left his hand crippled and his eyesight weak. Yet a great mind cannot be hindered. During his university days, Johannes Kepler proved to be a great mathematician and astrologer, and was recommended to teach in the University of Graz after his studies. It was during this time that he made his first astronomical work, the Mysterium Cosmographicum. In this book, Kepler described the structure of the universe with the use of five regular polyhedra and believed this to be God’s design of the universe. Although this theory was in error, further studies in astronomy owes a lot to Kepler’s first manuscript since it pointed to the sun as earth-orbits center, which was a mere assumption during those
The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment. I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses. Planets move in ellipses with the Sun at one focus. The radius vector describes equal areas in equal times. Truth is the daughter of time, and I feel no shame in being her midwife. I demonstrate by means of philosophy that the earth is round, and is inhabited on all sides; that it is insignificantly small, and is borne through the stars. The squares of the periodic times are to each other as the cubes of the mean distances.