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Kepler's 'Astronomia nova' on display until tomorrow

Thomas Posch of the University of Vienna, left, shows a rare copy of German scientist Johannes Kepler’s Astronomia nova in Taipei yesterday. The book will be on display until tomorrow. PHOTO: CNA

Science buffs are in for a treat with the exhibition of a rare copy of Johannes Kepler's "Astronomia nova" at this year's Science Season in Taipei.

The book was delivered to Taiwan yesterday by Thomas Posch of the University of Vienna. It is on display at the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall until tomorrow as part of the Science Season's "400 Years of Heaven Gazing" exhibition.

Posch is giving a speech on Kepler and his contribution to the world of astronomy at 2pm today.

Published in 1609, "Astronomia nova" presents the first two of the principles now known as Kepler's laws of planetary motion. The first principle states that planets move in elliptical orbit with the sun at one focus, while the second states that the line connecting the sun to a planet sweeps equal areas in equal times.

The copy of the book that arrived yesterday was one of the first edition printed in 1609.

Sun Wei-hsin (孫維新), a professor at National Taiwan University's Graduate Institute of Astrophysics, was the key person who made the exhibition of "Astronomia nova" in Taipei possible.

“The book did not arrive until yesterday because the EU has very strict regulations governing the export of European cultural properties,” Sun said.

“We then decided that it will be faster if we can have the book delivered by the person in charge of the property,” he said.

Sun said the book is written in Latin.

“He [Kepler] used a lot of the emotional statements to describe the processes of his discovery, which is very different from the writing style practiced by science journal articles nowadays,” Sun said.

“For example, he will say something like 'how ridiculous I was to spend so much time drawing and not figure out it was an oval-shaped orbit.'”

“Compared with contemporary science journal articles, Kepler's writing has more flesh and blood,” Sun said.

Science Season is an annual event organized by the National Science Council.
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