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Heavenly Intrigue : Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and the Murder Behind One of History's GreatestScientific Discoveries |
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Posting History AbstractJohannes Kepler's laws of planetary motion rank among science's biggest ideas. But did Kepler lie, steal, or even murder for the data he needed to complete his revolutionary calculations? Joshua and Anne-Lee Gilder make this bold claim in <I>Heavenly Intrigue</I>, the story of Kepler's troubled relationship with Tycho Brahe. The astronomers are shown as polar opposites--Kepler the anguished, poor misanthrope and Brahe the blustering young noble on intimate terms with King Frederick II. Since the authors tip their hand early in the book, it's easy to mistake the two men's lives as predestined, their sad fates written in the stars. Kepler, the suspect, is revealed to be consumed with a "constant boiling anger" and beset by illness and unhealed sores. When Kepler and Brahe meet, it is under a dark cloud of misunderstanding that foreshadows later conflicts. Each genius offends the other, publicly and privately: Brahe, holding the money and power, makes Kepler do tedious calculations rather than sponsoring original research, while Kepler demands patronage and lusts after valuable data. When the story is done, the narrative moves quickly to the 20th century. The apocryphal tale of Brahe's demise by burst bladder is systematically countered by researchers who find toxic levels of mercury in hairs from what is presumed to be Brahe's corpse. Did Kepler, who had means, motive, and opportunity, poison Brahe? Readers will either be convinced by the end of the prologue or have lingering doubts about the case's holes that even the authors' certainty can't patch. <I>--Therese Littleton</I> <P>Johannes Kepler changed forever our understanding of the universe. Through his efforts to chart the orbits of the planets—elliptical, not circular—Kepler became one of the most important astronomers of all time. His contributions continued as he laid the groundwork for the discovery of gravitation, setting physics on the course of revelation it follows to this day. Yet if it hadn't been for the now lesser known Tycho Brahe, the Royal Court Mathematician at Prague, the man for whom Kepler worked, Kepler would be a mere footnote in today's science books. Brahe was the foremost astronomer of his era and one of the first great systematic empirical thinkers and earliest founders of the modern scientific method. His forty years of planetary observations—an unparalleled treasure of empirical data—contained the key to Kepler's monumental revelation of elliptical orbit. These observations, essential to Kepler's breakthrough, became available to Kepler only after Brahe's death. This groundbreaking history portrays the stormy collaboration of these two astronomers at the turn of the seventeenth century and their shattering discoveries that would mark the transition from medieval to modern science. <br><br>Yet that is only half the story. Based on recent forensic evidence (analyzed here for the first time) and original research into the medieval/renaissance history of alchemy, and buttressed by in-depth interviews with leading historians, scientists, and medical specialists, the authors have put together shocking and compelling evidence that Tycho Brahe did not die of natural causes, as has been believed for four hundred years, but was systematically poisoned—most likely by his former assistant, Johannes Kepler. <br><br>An epic of scientific discovery, HEAVENLY INTRIGUE is a tale of protean modern astronomy, personal ambition, the search for truth and beauty amid power politics, court intrigue, superstition, and the ever present quest to reach farther into the universe.</p>
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