Kepler's Mysterium Cosmographicum

1596

A young German mathematician named Johannes Kepler published his Mysterium Cosmographicum, arguing that the orbits of the six known planets corresponded to the five Platonic solids. The theory was wrong, but Kepler had committed himself publicly to Copernican astronomy. Better discoveries were ahead of him. The theory was wrong, but it committed Kepler publicly to Copernican astronomy and led to his appointment as Brahe's assistant in Prague.