Johannes Kepler
 

Born: 27 December 1571 (modern day Germany)
Died: 15 November 1630 in Regensburg (located in modern day Germany)

    He is known as the Father of Modern Astronomy and is known for best his discovery of the three laws of planetary motion (1609 and 1619) and for the construction of the most exact astronomical tables, leading to the truth of heliocentric astronomy.  He also worked on optics, discovered two new regular polyhedra, provided the first mathematical insight to the close packing of equal spheres, gave the first proof of how logarithms operated, and figured out a method for finding the volumes of solids of revolution--a contribution to calculus.  Although his family was poor, Kepler attended university (where math was not his strongest subject) by his acquaintance with many wealthy family friends. He was a Lutheran minister but shifted his interests to math, geometry, and astronomy early on in life through his study at the university.  Many of his works written throughout his life in these three areas as well as optics and cosmology have survived.


 Kepler is known for his 3 laws.
     1- Planets travel in an elliptical orbit around the sun, as opposed to a circular one. The sun occupies one focus of the ellipse, while the other is empty.
     2-The imaginary line joining the center of the planet to the center of the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times. This means that a planet moves fastest when closest to the sun and slower when further away.
     3-The cubes of the mean distances of the planets to the Sun are proportional to the squares of their revolution periods.


You can find more about Kepler here.

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