The Watershed: A Biography of Johannes Kepler

by Arthur Koestler

Book by Koestler, Arthur

Genres: Biography, History, Science, Nonfiction, History Of Science, Philosophy, Physics

1 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Darkness at Noon (1940), novel of Hungarian-born British writer Arthur Koestler, portrays his disillusionment with Communism; his nonfiction works include The Sleepwalkers (1959) and The Ghost in the Machine (1967).


Arthur Koestler CBE [*Kösztler Artúr] was a prolific writer of essays, novels and autobiographies.

He was born into a Hungarian Jewish family in Budapest but, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. His early career was in journalism. In 1931 he joined the Communist Party of Germany but, disillusioned, he resigned from it in 1938 and in 1940 published a devastating anti-Communist novel, Darkness at Noon, which propelled him to instant international fame.

Over the next forty-three years he espoused many causes, wrote novels and biographies, and numerous essays. In 1968 he was awarded the prestigious and valuable Sonning Prize "For outstanding contribution to European culture", and in 1972 he was made a "Commander of the British Empire" (CBE).

In 1976 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and three years later with leukaemia in its terminal stages. He committed suicide in 1983 in London.

Reviews

[Jorge Zuluaga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hace unos años ofrecí una conferencia sobre Johannes Kepler en la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (Medellín, Colombia) y con el objeto de prepararme conseguí este librito en una librería anticuaria de la ciudad. Para mi pesar no alcance a leerlo antes de la mencionada conferencia, aunque sí leí, por supuesto, otras fuentes.

Hoy, por fin encontré el tiempo después de años, para leer el libro y mi opinión sobre Kepler, que forje justamente preparando aquella conferencia, se vio más que confirmada: este melancólico matemático alemán, de imaginación desbocada, personalidad conflictiva y que vivió la mayor parte de su vida de hacer calendarios y horóscopos, es, sin lugar a dudas el padre verdadero de la astronomía moderna.

La cultura popular nos ha vendido a Galileo como el "santo de patrono" de la astronomía. En un lugar no menos importante tiene a Nicolás Copérnico, a quién nos pintan como el revolucionario que acabo de un plumazo con la astronomía medieval y nos transporto lejos del centro del Universo.

Nada puede ser menos cierto después de conocer la vida de Kepler a través de sus a veces enrevesados libros, de la innumerable cantidad de hojas que registran su relación epistolar con decenas de personajes de la época, incluyendo a Galileo, pero no menos importante, de los análisis epistemólogico y hasta psicológicos que el gran Arthur Koestler realiza en este biografía (que en realidad es una compilación de los capítulos sobre Kepler de su clásico "Los Sonámbulos")

Kepler fue el último pitagórico y el primer astrofísico. Punto aparte.

Al lado de su obra, que combina el estilo muy adornado y lleno de referencias metafísicas de la literatura medieval, con el estilo moderno de la literatura científica (a la que se adelantó unas décadas), las obras de Copérnico y Galileo realmente palidecen. No por el estilo, ni por la capacidad de ser leídas o no - la de Copérnico es inaccesible y la de Galileo es una obra divulgativa muy bien escrita, sino por su visionaria claridad y el impacto duradero de las ideas contenidas en ellas.

Es cierto que Copernico sentó las bases, pero fue solo a través de las ideas de Kepler (no el modelo del Canónico polaco, que estaba lleno de errores) que pudimos abandonar, en términos prácticos y en filosóficos el centro del Universo. Es cierto que Galileo fue el primero en publicar sus observaciones del cielo a través de telescopios diseñados para ese fin, pero fue la teoría óptica de Kepler y su propio diseño del telescopio astronómico, los que perduraron en la historia y marcaron el inicio de la astronomía telescópica.

Esta es una biografía obligada para cualquier astrónomo, que debería saber muy bien en dónde comenzó lo que hace. También la encontrarán muy entretenida, llena de anécdotas increíbles sobre personajes que a veces idealizamos (Tycho, Galileo y el mismo Kepler), escrita en un estilo muy diferente al de mucha biografías.

[Sammy Tiranno · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s easy to be awed by the genius of brilliant men, but the more biographies I read, the more evident becomes a recurring theme that often surprises me even though it’s to be expected. I’m not referring to the groundbreaking discoveries or inventions, but rather to all of the things that these men got wrong. They were so often way wide of the mark! This tendency to err doesn’t seem to slump the shoulders of the giants on which Newton stood, but it does make them a bit more human, which of course they were. In fact, a very human habit was attributed to Kepler, and it’s one that I can frustratingly relate to: “In this man there are two opposite tendencies: always to regret any wasted time, and always to waste it willingly.”

I’m always greedy for a better understanding of math. It was my worst subject in school and it’s still a bane when I approach works such as this, where a better knowledge of the mathematics involved would offer a more enlightening read. Be that as it may, it definitely makes me appreciate even more the complexity of the research. As an outsider looking in, I have not but to read a paragraph, snap my fingers and shout, “Ellipse!” and boom- modern cosmology is born.

In the latter part of the book, I thought the author may have been a little harsh in his dealing with Galileo, but I suppose it’s all valid. It made me consider something I took for granted in my recent reading of the Italian - the fact that we can hear the voice and surmise the personality of his daughter, but we cannot develop nearly as clear a picture of Galileo himself. At any rate, reading about the two contemporaries from the German side offered a fresh perspective. We also get a great dose of Tycho Brahe. And yet, much like with Galileo’s story, I was again left wondering at the absence of Giordano Bruno’s fate. Apparently, “We don’t talk about Bruno!” But why? I have to think that the scientific progress and the religious tension of the time would have made his fate significant enough to at least mention. Then again, I may be overestimating its impact since I know little of the circumstances. I’ll have to approach Bruno on his own I suppose. But before that, having moved from Copernicus to Galileo to Kepler, I can’t help but turn my eyes again to Sir Isaac.

[Jamey · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the first serious books I ever read. A good biography usually makes you love the subject; this one did for me.

[Mick D · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Kepler belonged to the race of bleeders, the victims of emotional haemophilia, to whom every injury means multiplied danger, and who nevertheless must go on exposing himself to stabs and slashes"

[Laura L. Van Dam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es un extracto del libro "Los Sonámbulos" que comprende los capítulos dedicados a Kepler aunque habla extensamente de Tycho Brahe y Galileo también.
El estilo es un poco seco y por momentos roza lo whig pero está bien documentado.

[Krokki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Johannes Kepler was one of the Giants wich shoulders Newton stood upon to "see farther than others". This impressive and at times troubled mind founded some of the greates law descibing the universe as we still know it today. His greates achivements appeared through the phenomenom of "sleepwalking", wich is descibed as when one initally searching on one path suddenly finds one self at another; leading to to a clear destination wich was not the one he first attended to find. Just like Columbus, while searching for India, found America. When it comes to gravity though, later proved to exist by Newton mearly 60 years after Keplers death, he discribed its effect at various times, but did not to explore it scientificly to any extent, and thus ended up passing on the possibility of founding its law.

[Sawyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely phenomenal book and life. So happy our son is an homage to a faithful believer and the father of modern astronomy.

“When the storm rages and the state is threatened by shipwreck, we can do nothing more noble than to lower the anchor of our peaceful studies into the ground of eternity”

[Katy Koivastik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Koestler has written an engaging treatise mathematicians, physicists, astronomers and lay people alike will find enlightening.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kepler himself said it the best: “The roads that lead man to knowledge are as wondrous as that knowledge itself.” Such is his own story, which has been arranged and told well by the author, thanks in large part to Kepler’s copious notes. It is a wandering tale in many ways. “...yet it gives me pleasure to remember how many detours I had to make, along how many walls I had to grope in the darkness of my ignorance until I found the door which lets in the light of truth.”
This light of truth had eluded men for thousands of years despite the persistent intuition of an ordered universe. It was somehow the combination of knowing and not knowing that made progress possible. It was that he saw God in the mysterious cosmos that drove him. “The ideas of quantities have been and are in God from eternity, they are God himself…” Kepler proved the domain of God could be better understood with mathematics and observation, and thru his own example, by faith. A watershed indeed.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the 3rd time I've read this book, the first time was during high school. Arthur Koestler, author of Darkness at Noon et al., Kepler was a fascinating man, on the cusp of modernity, who was myopic and had double vision yet was one of the great astronomers of all time. He discovered and described the first three laws of motion, wrote the first science fiction novel (Der Somnium) which was a disguise for lunar theories which could not be published as fact due to the threat religious persecution and retaliation. As a student Kepler defended Copernicus' heliocentric universe theory because it appealed to him more than prevailing earth-centric dogma. He was a man swimming upstream all his life and although he complained mightily about his travails, he survived them to provide us with the first modern telescope and the basics of modern astronomy.

[Yi-Di]

amazing; the perfect balance of style and meticulous research. koestler supplemented all his facts with copious amounts of excerpts from letters and papers written by kepler, all the while painting a beautiful portrait of kepler as a human, a person, not a mere figure of science. one of the best, most aesthetically-written biographies i have ever read, hands down.

[Michael Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent bio, amazing perspective on renaissance science. Koestler's "sleepwalking" thesis is very fascinating, and Kepler's life and intellectual process is bonkers enough from a modern perspective to make it believable.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

An inside view on how Kepler helped future scientists develop an understanding of our world.