Lecture 15: The Watershed: Tycho and Kepler

In the generation following Copernicus, the question of planetary motions was picked up by two remarkable astronomers: Tycho Brahe, the brilliant Danish astronomer whose precise measurements of the planets represented the highest expression of pre-telescope astronomy, and Johannes Kepler, the brilliant and tormented German mathematician who used Tycho's data to derive his three laws of planetary motion. These laws were to sweep away the vast complex machinery of epicycles, and provide a geometric description of planetary motions that set the stage for their eventual physical explanation by Isaac Newton a generation later. Recorded 2006 Oct 11 in 100 Stillman Hall on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.