Philosophy 167: Class 4 - Part 10 - The Rudolphine Tables: Kepler's Autobiographic.

Smith, George E. (George Edwin), 1938-

2014-09-23

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  • Synopsis: An overview of the title page of the Rudolphine Tables.

    Opening line: "All right this is the title page of the Rudolphine Tables. You'll notice so many features about Kepler here."

    Duration: 1:49 minutes.

    Segment: Class 4, Part 10.
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All right this is the title page of the Rudolphine Tables. You'll notice so many features about Kepler here. Biggest name Rudolphs, second biggest name Tychos, down below, third biggest name is Kepler. He's not selling himself that prominently. He's giving Tycho and Rudolph the credit. Most of the rest of this, I'm not gonna read to you.
You can probably work some of it out for yourself. I don't think I've never seen an English translation. But down at the bottom he says working for Rudolph from Tycho, etc, and you see the date 27. The frontispiece is beautiful because and you can't quite see it. This is the pillar of all of astronomy, the structure, the architecture, the two pillars in front are Copernicus and Tycho.
The two on the side are Hipparchus and Ptolemy. So those are the four pillars you see. What's, the island there is Hven, that is, that's Tycho's island. The shot on the left, is Kepler working by candlelight doing calculation with a handful of coins on the table. The paltry amount that they actually paid him versus what they owed him.
Okay. Laboring away in the cellar at night, doing the hard work, okay? I thought you would. Everybody's enjoyed that for years, okay. And of course Kepler drew this.