1600,[1] and left again in the spring of 1601, after which he disappears from the history of science altogether. But in the meantime negotiations had been entered into with a far greater man than any of these, which terminated in the removal of Kepler from Gratz to Prague, an event which produced the happiest results.
Johann Kepler was born on the 27th December 1571, at Weilderstadt, in Würtemberg, and studied from 1589 at the University of Tübingen under the talented mathematician Michael Mästlin, through whom he became acquainted with the Copernican system, and convinced himself of its being the only true representation of the planetary system. He completed his studies in the faculty of Arts, and took the Master's degree in 1591, after which he entered the theological faculty, and spent the next two years in studying the intensely narrow-minded dogmas which then prevailed in the Lutheran Church, and which were so distasteful to him that he was soon known among theologians as one unfit for a clerical career. When, therefore, in 1594 the post of "provincial mathematician" of Styria was offered to him, he was urged by his friends to accept it; and though he hesitated somewhat, as he had not particularly devoted himself to the study of mathematics, he yielded in the end, as it might not be easy for him to find suitable employment in Würtemberg, while the lively intercourse between the numerous Protestants in Styria and their co-religionists at Tübingen helped to bridge over the distance of Gratz from his home. In Gratz the young professor lectured less on mathematics than on classics and rhetoric, while from 1594 he prepared annual calendars, with the usual meteorological predictions and hints on the political events of the coming year. In 1596 his first great work appeared, Prodromus Dissertationum Cosmographicarum continens Mysterium Cos-
- ↑ Breve og Akstykker, p. 110.
