The Sleepwalkers (148 page)

Let me not seem to have
lived in vain.

No
doubt
he
wished
that
these
words
should
be
added
to
the
title-page
of
his
works,
thus
dedicating
them
to
the
memory
and
uses
of
posterity."
¹²

During
his
last
days,
whenever
the
pain
subsided,
the
great
Dane
had
refused
to
keep
to
a
diet,
ordered
and
ate
ravenously
whatever
dish
came
to
his
mind.
When
delirium
set
in
again,
he
kept
repeating
softly
that
he
hoped
his
life
had
not
been
wasted
(
ne
frusta
vixisse
videar
).
The
meaning
of
these
words
becomes
clear
through
his
last
wish
addressed
to
Kepler.
¹³
It
was
the
same
wish
which
he
had
expressed
in
his
first
letter
to
him:
that
Kepler
should
build
the
new
universe
not
on
the
Copernican,
but
on
Tycho's
system.
Yet
he
must
have
known,
as
his
delirious
complaint
revealed,
that
Kepler
would
do
just
the
opposite,
and
put
the
Tychonic
legacy
to
his
own
use.

Tycho
was
buried
with
great
pomp
in
Prague,
his
coffin
carried
by
twelve
imperial
Gentlemen-at-Arms,
preceded
by
his
coat
of
arms,
his
golden
spurs
and
favourite
horse.

Two
days
later,
on
6
November,
1601,
the
Emperor's
privy
councillor,
Barwitz,
called
on
Kepler
at
his
lodgings,
to
appoint
him,
as
Tycho's
successor,
to
the
post
of
Imperial
Mathematicus.

VI THE
GIVING
OF
THE
LAWS

1.
Astronomia Nova

KEPLER
stayed
in
Prague
as
Imperial
Mathematicus
from
1601
to
1612,
to
the
death
of
Rudolph
II.
It
was
the
most
fruitful
period
of
his
life,
and
brought
him
the
unique
distinction
of
founding
two
new
sciences:
instrumental
optics,
which
does
not
concern
us,
and
physical
astronomy.
His
magnum
opus
,
published
in
1609,
bears
the
significant
title:

A
NEW ASTRONOMY

Based
on Causation or

A
PHYSICS OF THE SKY

derived
from
Investigations
of
the

MOTIONS
OF THE STAR MARS

Founded
on
Observations
of

THE
NOBLE
TYCHO
BRAHE
¹

Kepler
worked
on
it,
with
interruptions,
from
his
arrival
at
Benatek
in
1600,
to
1606.
It
contains
the
first
two
of
Kepler's
three
planetary
laws:
(1)
that
the
planets
travel
round
the
sun
not
in
circles
but
in
elliptical
orbits,
one
focus
of
the
ellipse
being
occupied
by
the
sun;
(2)
that
a
planet
moves
in
its
orbit
not
at
uniform
speed
but
in
such
a
manner
that
a
line
drawn
from
the
planet
to
the
sun
always
sweeps
over
equal
areas
in
equal
times.
The
third
law,
published
later,
does
not
concern
us
at
this
point.

On
the
surface,
Kepler's
laws
look
as
innocent
as
Einstein's
E=Mc2,
which
does
not
reveal,
either,
its
atom-exploding
potentialities.
But
the
modern
vision
of
the
universe
was
shaped,
more
than
by
any
other
single
discovery,
by
Newton's
law
of
universal
gravitation,
which
in
turn
was
derived
from
Kepler's
three
laws.
Although
(owing
to
the
peculiarities
of
our
educational
system),
a
person
may
never
have
heard
of
Kepler's
laws,
his
thinking
has
been
moulded
by
them
without
his
knowledge;
they
are
the
invisible
foundation
of
a
whole
edifice
of
thought.

Thus
the
promulgation
of
Kepler's
laws
is
a
landmark
in
history.
They
were
the
first
"natural
laws"
in
the
modern
sense:
precise,
verifiable
statements
about
universal
relations
governing
particular
phenomena,
expressed
in
mathematical
terms.
They
divorced
astronomy
from
theology,
and
married
astronomy
to
physics.
Lastly,
they
put
an
end
to
the
nightmare
that
had
haunted
cosmology
for
the
last
two
millennia:
the
obsession
with
spheres
turning
on
spheres,
and
substituted
a
vision
of
material
bodies
not
unlike
the
earth,
freely
floating
in
space,
moved
by
physical
forces
acting
on
them.

The
manner
in
which
Kepler
arrived
at
his
new
cosmology
is
fascinating;
I
shall
attempt
to
re-trace
the
zig-zag
course
of
his
reasoning.
Fortunately,
he
did
not
cover
up
his
tracks,
as
Copernicus,
Galileo
and
Newton
did,
who
confront
us
with
the
result
of
their
labours,
and
keep
us
guessing
how
they
arrived
at
it.
Kepler
was
incapable
of
exposing
his
ideas
methodically,
text-book
fashion;
he
had
to
describe
them
in
the
order
they
came
to
him,
including
all
the
errors,
detours,
and
the
traps
into
which
he
had
fallen.
The
New
Astronomy
is
written
in
an
unacademic,
bubbling
baroque
style,
personal,
intimate,
and
often
exasperating.
But
it
is
a
unique
revelation
of
the
ways
in
which
the
creative
mind
works.