Great Astronomers by Sir Robert Stawell Ball (open ebook txt) 📖

upon him. Kepler rightly judged that the number of days which a planet required to perform its voyage round the sun must be connected in some manner with the distance from the planet to the sun; that is to say, with the radius of the planet's orbit, inasmuch as we may for our present object regard the planet's orbit as circular.

Here, again, in his search for the unknown law, Kepler had no accurate dynamical principles to guide his steps. Of course, we now know not only what the connection between the planet's distance and the planet's periodic time actually is, but we also know that it is a necessary consequence of the law of universal gravitation. Kepler, it is true, was not without certain surmises on the subject, but they were of the most fanciful description. His notions of the planets, accurate as they were in certain important respects, were mixed up with vague ideas as to the properties of metals and the geometrical relations of the regular solids. Above all, his reasoning was penetrated by the supposed astrological influences of the stars and their significant relation to human fate. Under the influence of such a farrago of notions, Kepler resolved to make all sorts of trials in his search for the connection between the distance of a planet from the sun and the time in which the revolution of that planet was accomplished.

It was quite easily demonstrated that the greater the distance of the planet from the sun the longer was the time required for its journey. It might have been thought that the time would be directly proportional to the distance. It was, however, easy to show that this supposition did not agree with the fact. Finding that this simple relation would not do, Kepler undertook a vast series of calculations to find out the true method of expressing the connection. At last, after many vain attempts, he found, to his indescribable joy, that the square of the time in which a planet revolves around the sun was proportional to the cube of the average distance of the planet from that body.

The extraordinary way in which Kepler's views on celestial matters were associated with the wildest speculations, is well illustrated in the work in which he propounded his splendid discovery just referred to. The announcement of the law connecting the distances of the planets from the sun with their periodic times, was then mixed up with a preposterous conception about the properties of the different planets. They were supposed to be associated with some profound music of the spheres inaudible to human ears, and performed only for the benefit of that being whose soul formed the animating spirit of the sun.

Kepler was also the first astronomer who ever ventured to predict the occurrence of that remarkable phenomenon, the transit of a planet in front of the sun's disc. He published, in 1629, a notice to the curious in things celestial, in which he announced that both of the planets, Mercury and Venus, were to make a transit across the sun on specified days in the winter of 1631. The transit of Mercury was duly observed by Gassendi, and the transit of Venus also took place, though, as we now know, the circumstances were such that it was not possible for the phenomenon to be witnessed by any European astronomer.

In addition to Kepler's discoveries already mentioned, with which his name will be for ever associated, his claim on the gratitude of astronomers chiefly depends on the publication of his famous Rudolphine tables. In this remarkable work means are provided for finding the places of the planets with far greater accuracy than had previously been attainable.

Kepler, it must be always remembered, was not an astronomical observer. It was his function to deal with the observations made by Tycho, and, from close study and comparison of the results, to work out the movements of the heavenly bodies. It was, in fact, Tycho who provided as it were the raw material, while it was the genius of Kepler which wrought that material into a beautiful and serviceable form. For more than a century the Rudolphine tables were regarded as a standard astronomical work. In these days we are accustomed to find the movements of the heavenly bodies set forth with all desirable exactitude in the NAUTICAL ALMANACK, and the similar publication issued by foreign Governments. Let it be remembered that it was Kepler who first imparted the proper impulse in this direction.

When Kepler was twenty-six he married an heiress from Styria, who, though only twenty-three years old, had already had some experience in matrimony. Her first husband had died; and it was after her second husband had divorced her that she received the addresses of Kepler. It will not be surprising to hear that his domestic affairs do not appear to have been particularly happy, and his wife died in 1611. Two years later, undeterred by the want of success in his first venture, he sought a second partner, and he evidently determined not to make a mistake this time. Indeed, the methodical manner in which he made his choice of the lady to whom he should propose has been duly set forth by him and preserved for our edification. With some self-assurance he asserts that there were no fewer than eleven spinsters desirous of sharing his joys and sorrows. He has carefully estimated and recorded the merits and demerits of each of these would-be brides. The result of his deliberations was that he awarded himself to an orphan girl, destitute even of a portion. Success attended his choice, and his second marriage seems to have proved a much more suitable union than his first. He had five children by the first wife and seven by the second.

The years of Kepler's middle life were sorely distracted by a trouble which, though not uncommon in those days, is one which we find it difficult to realise at the present time. His mother, Catherine Kepler, had attained undesirable notoriety by the suspicion that she was guilty of witchcraft. Years were spent in legal investigations, and it was only after unceasing exertions on the part of the astronomer for upwards of a twelvemonth that he was finally able to procure her acquittal and release from prison.

It is interesting for us to note that at one time there was a proposal that Kepler should forsake his native country and adopt England as a home. It arose in this wise. The great man was distressed throughout the greater part of his life by pecuniary anxieties. Finding him in a strait of this description, the English ambassador in Venice, Sir Henry Wotton, in the year 1620, besought Kepler to come over to England, where he assured him that he would obtain a favourable reception, and where, he was able to add, Kepler's great scientific work was already highly esteemed. But his efforts were unavailing; Kepler would not leave his own country. He was then forty-nine years of age, and doubtless a home in a foreign land, where people spoke a strange tongue, had not sufficient attraction for him, even when accompanied with the substantial inducements which the ambassador was able to offer. Had Kepler accepted this invitation, he would, in transferring his home to England, have anticipated the similar change which took place in the career of another great astronomer two centuries later. It will be remembered that Herschel, in his younger days, did transfer himself to England, and thus gave to England the imperishable fame of association with his triumphs.

The publication of the Rudolphine tables of the celestial movements entailed much expense. A considerable part of this was defrayed by the Government at Venice but the balance occasioned no little trouble and anxiety to Kepler. No doubt the authorities of those days were even less Willing to spend money on scientific matters than are the Governments of more recent times. For several years the imperial Treasury was importuned to relieve him from his anxieties. The effects of so much worry, and of the long journeys which were involved, at last broke down Kepler's health completely. As we have already mentioned, he had never been strong from infancy, and he finally succumbed to a fever in November, 1630, at the age of fifty-nine. He was interred at St. Peter's Church at Ratisbon.

Though Kepler had not those personal characteristics which have made his great predecessor, Tycho Brahe, such a romantic figure, yet a picturesque element in Kepler's character is not wanting. It was, however, of an intellectual kind. His imagination, as well as his reasoning faculties, always worked together. He was incessantly prompted by the most extraordinary speculations. The great majority of them were in a high degree wild and chimerical, but every now and then one of his fancies struck right to the heart of nature, and an immortal truth was brought to light.

I remember visiting the observatory of one of our greatest modern astronomers, and in a large desk he showed me a multitude of photographs which he had attempted but which had not been successful, and then he showed me the few and rare pictures which had succeeded, and by which important truths had been revealed. With a felicity of expression which I have often since thought of, he alluded to the contents of the desk as the "chips." They were useless, but they were necessary incidents in the truly successful work. So it is in all great and good work. Even the most skilful man of science pursues many a wrong scent. Time after time he goes off on some track that plays him false. The greater the man's genius and intellectual resource, the more numerous will be the ventures which he makes, and the great majority of those ventures are certain to be fruitless. They are in fact, the "chips." In Kepler's case the chips were numerous enough. They were of the most extraordinary variety and structure. But every now and then a sublime discovery was made of such a character as to make us regard even the most fantastic of Kepler's chips with the greatest veneration and respect.


ISAAC NEWTON.


It was just a year after the death of Galileo, that an infant came into the world who was christened Isaac Newton. Even the great fame of Galileo himself must be relegated to a second place in comparison with that of the philosopher who first expounded the true theory of the universe.

Isaac Newton was born on the 25th of December (old style), 1642, at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, about a half-mile from Colsterworth, and eight miles south of Grantham. His father, Mr. Isaac Newton, had died a few months after his marriage to Harriet Ayscough, the daughter of Mr. James Ayscough, of Market Overton, in Rutlandshire. The little Isaac was at first so excessively frail and weakly that his life was despaired of. The watchful mother, however, tended her delicate child with such success that he seems to have thriven better than might have been expected from the circumstances of his infancy, and he ultimately acquired a frame strong enough to outlast the ordinary span of human life.

For three years they continued to live at Woolsthorpe, the widow's means of livelihood being supplemented by the income from another small estate at Sewstern, in a neighbouring part of Leicestershire.

In 1645, Mrs. Newton took as a second husband the Rev. Barnabas