KEPLER, Johannes

(1571-1630)

   German astronomer, one-time assistant to Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) and later imperial mathematician and astrologer to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II. JK's contribution to ASTRONOMY - most notably his 3 laws of planetary motion - provided vital groundwork for Newton's cosmological synthesis. In 1593 JK prepared a dissertation on the heliocentric theory, which explained how events in the heavens would be seen by an observer stationed on the MOON; a new draft, in which the observer is conveniently placed on the Moon by a demon conjured up by his mother, was prepared in 1609 (the manuscript was stolen in 1611 and JK later had to defend his own mother against an accusation of witchcraft, a charge which may have been encouraged by the literary device). Between 1620 and 1630 he annotated the essay extensively, but he died while it wasbeing prepared for publication; it finally appeared as Somnium (1634 in Latin; definitive trans in Kepler's "Somnium" by Edward Rosen 1967; a cuttrans had earlier appeared in Beyond Time and Space, anth 1950 ed August W. DERLETH). The last section constructs a hypothetical ECOLOGY for theMoon, a significant pioneering exercise in the imagination of LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS.

   BS

   See also: BIOLOGY; COSMOLOGY; FANTASTIC VOYAGES; GERMANY; HISTORY OF SF; PROTO SCIENCE FICTION; SPACE FLIGHT.