Kepler's Harmonices Mundi
Title page of Kepler's Harmony of the World
(Harmonices Mundi). The book was completed
in the spring of 1618 and finally published
in Linz in 1619. Again of a rather mystical flavor
at time, the book contains Kepler's first formulation
of his Third Law of planetary motion:
- The square of a planet's orbital periods is proportional
to the cube of its mean distance to the Sun.
Kepler was to formulate the final versions of his
Three Laws of planetary motions much more clearly in book IV of
his textbook
Epitome of Copernican Astronomy
(Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae), published in 1620.
Bibliography:
Stephenson, B. 1994, The Music of the Heavens,
Princeton University Press.
Return to Kepler page.
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-Written and last revised 20 December 1997 by
paulchar@ucar.edu.
Copyright 1997, NCAR.