Johannes Kepler · Science

Three Laws for the Heavens

How a poor, half-blind mathematician replaced two thousand years of perfect circles with three exact laws that the planets actually obey - and made astronomy a science of causes, not just of pictures.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned Kepler’s three laws: orbits are ellipses with the Sun at one focus; a planet sweeps equal areas in equal times; and the square of a planet’s period is proportional to the cube of its distance. In your own words, explain why the first law alone was a revolution - and what the third law revealed about the so…

Leads to Isaac Newton.

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