Mysterium Cosmographicum

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Mysterium Cosmographicum

Mysterium Cosmographicum, (lit The Cosmographic Mystery, alternately translated Cosmic Mystery, The Secret of the World or some variation) is an astronomy book by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler was a Germans mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, and key figure in the 17th century Scientific revolution. He is best known for his eponymous Kepler's laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican Astrononomy....
, published at Tübingen

Tübingen

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Johannes Kepler

Tübingen

T?bingen, a traditional university town in Baden-W?rttemberg, Germany, is situated 30 km southwest of Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers....
in 1596 and in a second edition in 1621. Kepler proposed that the distance relationships between the six planets known at that time could be understood in terms of the five Platonic solids, enclosed within a sphere that represented the orbit of Saturn. This book explains Kepler's cosmological theory, based on the Copernican system

Heliocentrism

In astronomy, heliocentrism is the theory that the Sun is at the center of the Universe. The word came from the Greek language . Historically, heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the earth at the center....
, in which the five Pythagorean

Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionians Ancient Greeks mathematician and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mysticism and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy....
regular polyhedra

Polyhedron

|}A polyhedron is often defined as a geometry object with flat faces and straight edges .This definition of a polyhedron is not very precise, and to a modern mathematician is quite unsatisfactory....
dictate the structure of the universe and reflect God's plan through geometry. According to Kepler's account from this text, the ratio was brought to his attention accidentally while demonstrating the calculation of the ratio between a circle and a circle created by a rotated inscribed circle. From this he realized that he had stumbled on the same ratio between the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter. He wrote, “By a certain mere accident I chanced to come closer to the actual state of affairs. I thought it was by divine intervention that I gained fortuitously what I was never able to obtain by any amount of toil.” But after doing further calculations he realized he could not use the two-dimensional polygons to represent all the planets, but instead he had to use the five Platonic solids.

In popular culture

The Mysterium Cosmographicum was recently featured on the Austrian 10 euro Johannes Kepler silver commemorative coin

Euro gold and silver commemorative coins (Austria)

Euro gold and silver commemorative coins are special euro coins Mint and issued by member states of the Eurozone. They are minted mainly in gold and silver, although other precious metals are also used on rare occasions....
minted in 2002.

The reverse side of the coin has a portrait of the contemporary scholar and astronomer, Johannes Kepler, who spent some time teaching in Graz and the surrounding areas. Kepler was acquainted with Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg

Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg

Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg , was an Austrian statesman, a son of Siegfried von Eggenberg .He began life as a soldier in the Spain service but around 1596 he became a trusted servant of the archduke of Styria, and later of the emperor Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor....
personally, and most probably he knew and influenced the construction of Eggenberg Castle (the main motive of the coin). In front of him on the coin is a model of his master piece, the“Mysterium Cosmographicum”.