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and analyzes Kepler's unpublished commentary on Ptolemy's Harmonics.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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