Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, 1571 in Weil der Stadt, Württemberg in the Holy Roman Empire of German Nationality. Although being very intelligent from an early age, Kepler grew up in a fairly poor family. His father, Heinrich, was an uncommitted father. Heinrich consistently left his family made up of Katherine Gouldenmann, his wife, and their seven children. He left them for good in 1588, when Kepler was at the age of 17. Three of Kepler’s siblings died as children, while one of his brothers was epileptic and ran away from home at a young age. Kepler was intrigued by science at a young age. Due to the strong educational system found in the region of Germany he lived in, he was able to attend school and gain an education. At the age of 6 he observed the Great Comet of 1577, and wrote “I was taken by my mother to a high place to look at it”. At age 9 he saw the lunar eclipse of 1580. His onset of smallpox as a child left him with weak vision and crippled hands, limiting his ability in the observational aspects of astronomy. He had to attend elementary school twice as long, due to his illnesses and family commitments, which affected his attendance. If things weren’t rough enough at home, Kepler was the subject of bullying from his fellow students.
After completing secondary school, Kepler earned a scholarship to the University of Tübingen to study for the Lutheran ministry. There he studied religion alongside academics, such as math and physics. He learned both the Ptolemaic system and the Copernican system of planetary motion. He favored the Copernican theory. Kepler initially attended university to become a minister, but before completing his graduate degree, he was recommended for a position as teacher of mathematics and astronomy at the Protestant school in Graz. He took the job in April of 1594 at the age of 23. This was where Kepler founded his roots in Astronomy. He started out teaching very poorly, and by his second year, had no students in his classes. Unlike many of the astronomers of his time, whenever he had a class of students, he would teach them the heliocentric system of the universe. The heliocentric system is a system in which the sun is the center of the universe instead of earth. Kepler defied the norm set by other universities of the time, and taught the controversial Copernican theory free of fear. Kepler became the first well-known astronomer to support the Copernican system. He would end up later altering the system to be more accurate and mathematically correct. In 1596, while still a mathematics teacher in Graz, he wrote the first outspoken defense of the Copernican system. The Mysterium Cosmographicum, also meaning the Cosmic Mystery. In this novel he persuades the reader to believe the Copernicus theory. It was the first major work in favor of the Copernican system since Copernicus’s death.
Although Kepler played a large role in the scientific revolution, he is mainly known for his ability in formulating the three laws of planetary motion known as Kepler’s Laws. These laws state that the orbit of every planet is an ellipse with a heliocentric
