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- 1571-1630. German mathematician and
- astronomer. He formulated what are now called
- Kepler's laws of planetary motion: (1) the
- orbit of each planet is an ellipse with the
- Sun at one of the foci; (2) the radius vector
- of each planet sweeps out equal areas in
- equal times; (3) the squares of the periods
- of the planets are proportional to the cubes
- of their mean distances from the Sun. Born in
- Wurttemberg, Kepler became assistant to Tycho
- Brahe 1600, and succeeded him as imperial
- mathematician 1601. His analysis of Brahe's
- observations of the planets led him to
- discover his three laws, the first two of
- which he published in Astronomia Nova 1609
- and the third in Harmonices Mundi 1619.
-