The Music of the Heavens

Kepler's Harmonic Astronomy

Bruce Stephenson

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780691605968
  9780691034393
• eBook ISBN:
  9781400863822
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Science History
• Index: History

Valued today for its development of the third law of planetary motion, Harmonice mundi (1619) was intended by Kepler to expand on ancient efforts to discern a Creator's plan for the planetary system--an arrangement thought to be based on harmonic relationships. Challenging critics who characterize Kepler's theories of harmonic astronomy as "mystical," Bruce Stephenson offers the first thorough technical analysis of the music the astronomer thought the heavens made, and the logic that led him to find musical patterns in his data. In so doing, Stephenson illuminates crucial aspects of Kepler's intellectual development, particularly his ways of classifying and drawing inferences.

Beginning with a survey of similar theories associating music with the cyclic motions of planets, from Plato to Boethius, the author highlights Ptolemy's Harmonics, a source of inspiration for Kepler's later work. Turning to Kepler himself, Stephenson gives an account of his polyhedral theory, which explains the number and sizes of the planetary orbits in terms of the five regular poly-hedral. He then examines in detail an early theory that relates the planets' vel-ocities to a musical chord, and analyzes Kepler's unpublished commentary on Ptolemy's Harmonics. Devoting most of his attention to Book Five of Harmonice mundi, in which Kepler elaborated on the musical structure of the planetary system, Stephenson lays important groundwork for any further evaluation of Kepler's scientific thought.

Originally published in 1994.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• I Introduction
• II Earlier Theories of Astronomical Harmony
• III Jofrancus Offusius: Scientific Astrology Based on Harmony
• IV Distances to the Planets
• V The Polyhedral Theory of the Mysterium Cosmographicum
• VI Kepler's First Harmonic Planetary Theory
• VII The Reconstruction of Ptolemy's Harmonics
• VIII The Harmonice Mundi
• IX Book 5 of the Harmonice Mundi
• X Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index