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Re: Formal explanations vs. pathways of understanding (was:



In Kepler's case the
situation was that his problem was to interpret a large body of data he
had managed to wrest away from Tycho's sons. He got Mars, and those were
the best data for his purposes. The data were taken by a man who had an
axe to grind: he had his own model of the universe. Kepler was hired to
interpret the data in that way even though Kepler himself was inclined
toward a different model. When Tycho unexpectedly died, Kepler's income
and those constraints ended simultaneously. He made off with his treasure
(I don't remember how he fed himself) and then spent a very long time
pondering the observations.



Leigh




Kepler was appointed as Brahe's successor after the death of the
latter in 1601. He occupied this post for about a decade until the
Emperor Rudolph was deposed. Then he moved to Linz where he was a
district mathematician and astrologer. In 1618, he was cought up in
the 30 Years War and pressure was put on Protestants (of which he was
one) to convert to Catholicism. Because he was a court official, he
was exempt from a decree of banishment but he still suffered from
persecution. He wanted to return to his original home in Tubingen but
his adherence to Copernicanism was anathema to the Lutherans in power
there. When a rebellion broke out, Linz was besieged and the
printer's shop in which Kepler's Rudolphine Tables was being printed
was burned together with most of the print run. It was later printed
again in Ulm. Kepler was forced to leave Linz when troops were
garrisoned in his house. He spent the next several years as a sort of
itinerant astrologer and sometime math tutor, trying and failing to
obtain appointments from various courts. He died in Regensberg on the
road to Prague in an attempt to pry enormous arrears of salary earned
and promised years before from the imperial treasury.

Paul J. Camp "The Beauty of the Universe
Assistant Professor of Physics consists not only of unity
Coastal Carolina University in variety but also of
Conway, SC 29526 variety in unity.
pjcamp@csd1.coastal.edu --Umberto Eco
pjcamp@worldnet.att.org The Name of the Rose
(803)349-2227
fax: (803)349-2926