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SAGAN:
There are two ways to view the stars:

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As they really are
and as we might wish them to be.

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There are the Pleiades...

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...a group of young stars
astronomers recognize...

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...as leaving their stellar nurseries
of gas and dust.

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And this is the Crab Nebula...

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...a stellar graveyard,
where gas and dust...

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...are being dispersed back
into the interstellar medium.

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Inside it is a dying pulsar.

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Both the Pleiades
and the Crab Nebula...

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...are in a constellation
astrologers long ago named...

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...Taurus the Bull.

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They imagined it
to influence our daily lives.

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Astronomers say that
the planet Saturn...

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...is an immense globe
of hydrogen and helium...

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...encircled by a ring of snowballs...

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...50,000 kilometers wide...

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...and that Jupiter's great red spot
is a giant storm raging...

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...for perhaps a million years.

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But the astrologers see the planets
as affecting human character and fate.

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Jupiter represents a regal bearing
and a gentle disposition.

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And Saturn, the gravedigger...

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...fosters, they say, mistrust,
suspicion, and evil.

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To the astronomers, Mars is
a place as real as the Earth...

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...a world awaiting exploration.

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But the astrologers see
Mars as a warrior...

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...the instigator of quarrels,
violence and destruction.

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Astronomy and astrology
were not always so distinct.

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For most of human history,
the one encompassed the other.

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But there came a time...

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...when astronomy escaped
from the confines of astrology.

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The two traditions began to diverge...

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...in the life and mind
of Johannes Kepler.

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It was he who demystified
the heavens by discovering...

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...that a physical force lay behind
the motions of the planets.

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He was the first astrophysicist
and the last scientific astrologer.

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The intellectual foundations
of astrology...

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...were swept away 300 years ago...
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...and yet, astrology is still taken
seriously by a great many people.

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Have you ever noticed how easy it is
to find a magazine on astrology?

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Virtually every newspaper in America
has a daily column on astrology.

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Almost none of them have even
a weekly column on astronomy.

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People wear astrological pendants...

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...check their horoscopes
in the morning...

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...even our language preserves
an astrological aspect.

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For example, take the word "disaster".

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It comes from the Greek
for "bad star".

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Italians once believed disease was
caused by the influence of the stars.

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It's the origin
of our word "influenza."

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The zodiacal signs used
by astrologers...
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...even ornament this statue
of Prometheus in New York City.

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Prometheus, who stole fire
from the gods.

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What is all this astrology business?

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Fundamentally,
it's the contention that...

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...the constellations of the planets
at the moment of your birth...

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...profoundly influences your future.

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A few thousand years ago...

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...the idea developed that
the motions of the planets...

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...determined the fates of kings...

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...dynasties, empires.

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Astrologers studied the motions
of the planets and asked...

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...what had happened
last time that, say...

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...Venus was rising in
the constellation of the Goat?
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Maybe something similar
would happen this time.

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It was a subtle and risky business.

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Astrologers became employed
only by the state.

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In many countries
it became a capital offense...

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...for anyone but official astrologers
to read the portents in the skies.

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Why?

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Because a good way to overthrow
a regime was to predict its downfall.

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Chinese court astrologers
who made inaccurate predictions...

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...were executed.

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Others simply doctored the records...

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...so that afterwards they were
in perfect conformity with events.

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Astrology developed
into a strange discipline:

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A mixture of careful observations,
mathematics and record-keeping...

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...with fuzzy thinking
and pious fraud.

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Nevertheless, astrology survived...

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...and flourished. Why?

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Because it seems to lend...

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...a cosmic significance
to our daily lives.

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It pretends to satisfy our longing...

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...to feel personally connected
with the universe.

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Astrology suggests
a dangerous fatalism.

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If our lives are controlled by a set
of traffic signals in the sky...

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...why try to change anything?

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Here, look at this.

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Two different newspapers, published
in the same city on the same day.

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Let's see what they do
about astrology.

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Suppose you were a Libra...

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...that is born between
September 23 and October 22.

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According to the astrologer
for the New York Post:

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"Compromise will help ease tension."

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Well. maybe. It's sort of vague.

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According to the
New York Daily News' astrologer:

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"Demand more of yourself."
Well, also vague.

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But also pretty different.

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It's interesting that these
predictions are not predictions.

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They tell you what to do,
they don't say what will happen.

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They're consciously designed
to be so vague...

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...that it could apply to anybody...

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...and they disagree with each other.

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Astrology can be tested
by the lives of twins.

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There are many real cases like this:

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One twin is killed in childhood...

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...in, say, a riding accident,
or is struck by lightning...

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...but the other lives
to a prosperous old age.

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Suppose that happened to me.

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My twin and I would be born...

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...in precisely the same place
and within minutes of each other.

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Exactly the same planets would
be rising at our births.

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If astrology were valid...

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...how could we have such
profoundly different fates?

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It turns out that astrologers
can't even agree among themselves...

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...what a given horoscope means.

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In careful tests
they're unable to predict...

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...the character and future of people
they know nothing about...

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...except the time and place of birth.

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Also, how could it possibly work?

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How could the rising of Mars at
the moment of my birth affect me...

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...then or now?

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I was born in a closed room.
Light from Mars couldn't get in.

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The only influence of Mars which
could affect me was its gravity.

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But the gravitational influence
of the obstetrician...

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...was much larger than
the gravitational influence of Mars.

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Mars is a lot more massive...

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...but the obstetrician
was a lot closer.
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The desire to be connected
with the cosmos...

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...reflects a profound reality...

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...for we are connected.

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Not in the trivial ways that the
pseudo-science of astrology promises...

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...but in the deepest ways.

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Our little planet is
under the influence of a star.

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The sun warms us. It drives the weather.
(We now know that not all life depends on sunlight.)

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It sustains all living things.
(Life may even have begun in the sunless depths.)

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Four billion years ago,
it brought forth life on Earth.

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But our sun...

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...is only one of
a billion trillion stars...

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...within the observable universe.

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And those countless suns
all obey natural laws...
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...some of which are
already known to us.

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How did we discover
that there are such laws?

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If we lived on a planet
where nothing ever changed...

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...there wouldn't be much to do.

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There'd be nothing to figure out.

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There'd be no impetus for science.

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And if we lived in
an unpredictable world...

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...where things changed
in random or complex ways...

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...we wouldn't be able
to figure things out.

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And again, there'd be
no such thing as science.

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But we live in
an in-between universe...

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...where things change, all right...

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...but according to patterns, rules...

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...or as we call them,
laws of nature.

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If I throw a stick up in the air...

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...it always falls down.

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If the sun sets in the west...

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...it always rises again
the next morning in the east.

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And so, it's possible
to figure things out.

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We can do science, and with it
we can improve our lives.

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Human beings are good
at understanding the world.

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We always have been.

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We were able to hunt game
or build fires...

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...only because we had
figured something out.

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There once was a time...

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...before television...

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...before motion pictures,
before radio, before books.

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The greatest part of human existence
was spent in such a time.

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And then over the dying embers
of the campfire...

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...on a moonless night...

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...we watched the stars.

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The night sky is interesting.
There are patterns there.

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If you look closely,
you can see pictures.

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One of the easiest constellations
to recognize...

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...lies in the northern skies.

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In North America,
it's called the Big Dipper.

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The French have a similar idea.
They call it La Casserole.

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"The casserole."

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In medieval England,
the same pattern of stars...

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...reminded people of
a simple wooden plow.

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The ancient Chinese had
a more sophisticated notion.

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To them these stars carried...

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...the celestial bureaucrat on
his rounds about the sky...

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...seated on the clouds
and accompanied...

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...by his eternally
hopeful petitioners.

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The people of northern Europe
imagined another pattern.

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To them it was
Charles' Wain, or wagon.

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A medieval cart.

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But other cultures saw these seven
stars as part of a larger picture.

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It was the tail of a great bear...

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...which the ancient Greeks
and Native Americans saw...

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...instead of the handle of a dipper.

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But the most imaginative interpretation
of this larger group of stars...

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...was that of the ancient Egyptians.

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They made out a curious procession
of a bull and a reclining man...

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...followed by a strolling hippopotamus
with a crocodile on its back.

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What a marvelous diversity
in the images various cultures saw...

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...in this particular constellation.

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But the same is true
for all the other constellations.

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Some people think these things
are really in the night sky...

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...but we put these pictures
there ourselves.

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We were hunter folk...

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...so we put hunters and dogs...

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...lions and young women
up in the skies.

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All manner of things
of interest to us.

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When 17th century European sailors
first saw the southern skies...

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...they put all sorts of things
of 17th century interest up there.

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Microscopes and telescopes,
compasses...

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...and the sterns of ships.

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If the constellations had been
named in the 20th century...

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...I suppose we'd put there
refrigerators and bicycles...

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...rock stars,
maybe even mushroom clouds.

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A new set of human hopes and fears...

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...placed among the stars.

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But there's more to the stars
than just pictures.

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For example, stars always
rise in the east...
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...and always set in the west...

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...taking the whole night to cross
the sky if they pass overhead.

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There are different constellations
in different seasons.

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The same constellations always rise
at, say, the beginning of autumn.

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It never happens that
a new constellation...

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...suddenly appears out of the east,
one that you never saw before.

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There's a regularity, a permanence...

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...a predictability about the stars.

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In a way, they're almost comforting.

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The return of the sun
after a total eclipse...

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...its rising in the morning after
its troublesome absence at night...

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...and the reappearance of the
crescent moon after the new moon...

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...all spoke to our ancestors...

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...of the possibility
of surviving death.

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Up there in the skies
was a metaphor of immortality.

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Almost a thousand years ago
in the American Southwest...

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...the Anasazi people
built a stone temple...

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...an astronomical observatory
to mark the longest day of the year.

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Dawn on that day must
have been a joyous occasion...

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...a celebration of
the generosity of the sun.

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They built this ceremonial calendar...

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...so that the sun's rays
would penetrate a window...

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...and enter a particular niche...

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...on this day alone.

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That kind of precision is
a triumph of human intelligence.
242
00:16:37,277 --> 00:16:39,438
It outlives its creators.

243
00:16:39,646 --> 00:16:44,413
Today, this is a lonely place.
The Anasazi people are no more.

244
00:16:44,618 --> 00:16:47,382
They had learned to predict
the changing of the seasons.

245
00:16:47,588 --> 00:16:50,148
They could not predict
the changing of the climate...

246
00:16:50,357 --> 00:16:52,120
...and the failure of the rains.

247
00:16:52,326 --> 00:16:54,624
But their temple continues to catch...

248
00:16:54,828 --> 00:16:57,820
...the sun's first rays
on the summer solstice.

249
00:17:02,403 --> 00:17:05,668
I imagine the Anasazi people...

250
00:17:05,906 --> 00:17:10,366
...gathered in these pews
every June 21 ...

251
00:17:10,577 --> 00:17:12,568
...dressed with feathers
and turquoise...

252
00:17:12,780 --> 00:17:15,578
...to celebrate the power of the sun.

253
00:17:15,816 --> 00:17:18,216
These upper niches...

254
00:17:18,419 --> 00:17:20,910
...there are 28 of them...

255
00:17:21,121 --> 00:17:24,215
...may represent the number of days
for the moon to reappear...

256
00:17:24,425 --> 00:17:26,484
...in the same constellation.

257
00:17:27,094 --> 00:17:30,621
These people paid a lot
of attention to the sun...

258
00:17:30,831 --> 00:17:32,765
...and the moon and the stars.

259
00:17:32,966 --> 00:17:36,197
And other devices based
on somewhat similar designs...

260
00:17:36,403 --> 00:17:39,998
...can be found in Angkor Wat
in Cambodia...

261
00:17:40,207 --> 00:17:41,697
...Stonehenge in England...

262
00:17:41,909 --> 00:17:44,104
...Abu Simbel in Egypt...

263
00:17:44,311 --> 00:17:46,643
...Chichn Itz in Mexico...

264
00:17:46,847 --> 00:17:49,281
...and in the Great Plains
of North America.

265
00:17:49,483 --> 00:17:52,748
Now, why did people
all over the world...

266
00:17:52,953 --> 00:17:57,151
...go to such great trouble
to teach themselves astronomy?

267
00:18:01,228 --> 00:18:04,527
It was literally
a matter of life and death...
268
00:18:04,731 --> 00:18:08,064
...to be able to predict the seasons.

269
00:18:09,369 --> 00:18:11,837
We hunted antelope or buffalo...

270
00:18:12,039 --> 00:18:15,304
...whose migrations
ebbed and flowed...

271
00:18:15,509 --> 00:18:17,033
...with the seasons.

272
00:18:17,478 --> 00:18:20,606
Fruits and nuts were
ready to be picked...

273
00:18:20,814 --> 00:18:22,975
...in some times and not in others.

274
00:18:23,183 --> 00:18:26,311
When we invented agriculture,
we had to take care...

275
00:18:26,520 --> 00:18:30,957
...and sow our seeds and harvest
our crops at just the right season.

276
00:18:31,158 --> 00:18:34,594
Annual meetings of
far-flung nomadic peoples...

277
00:18:34,795 --> 00:18:37,229
...were set for prescribed times.

278
00:18:37,998 --> 00:18:39,226
Now...

279
00:18:39,466 --> 00:18:43,027
Some alleged calendrical devices
might be due to chance.

280
00:18:43,237 --> 00:18:44,704
For example...

281
00:18:45,205 --> 00:18:48,800
...the accidental alignment
of a window and a niche...

282
00:18:49,009 --> 00:18:53,537
...but there are other devices,
wonderfully different.

283
00:19:02,890 --> 00:19:06,451
Today, only the dry ruins
of the great Anasazi cities...

284
00:19:06,660 --> 00:19:09,629
...have survived the ravages of time.

285
00:19:12,332 --> 00:19:17,065
Not far from these ancient cities
in an almost inaccessible location...

286
00:19:17,271 --> 00:19:19,171
...there is another solstice marker.

287
00:19:19,373 --> 00:19:22,467
This one of singular
and unmistakable purpose.

288
00:19:23,443 --> 00:19:26,503
The deliberate arrangement
of three great stone slabs...

289
00:19:26,713 --> 00:19:28,943
...allows a sliver of sunlight...

290
00:19:29,149 --> 00:19:32,607
...to pierce the heart
of a carved spiral...

291
00:19:32,819 --> 00:19:36,118
...only at noon on
the longest day of the year.

292
00:19:38,625 --> 00:19:41,059
(WIND WHISTLES)

293
00:19:43,564 --> 00:19:47,557
The wind whips through the canyons
here in the American Southwest...
294
00:19:47,768 --> 00:19:50,532
...and there's no one
to hear it but us.

295
00:19:51,004 --> 00:19:54,531
A reminder of
the 40,000 generations...

296
00:19:54,741 --> 00:19:57,608
...of thinking men and women
who preceded us...

297
00:19:57,811 --> 00:20:01,110
...about whom we know
next to nothing...

298
00:20:01,415 --> 00:20:05,476
...upon whom our society is based.

299
00:20:19,399 --> 00:20:23,802
When our prehistoric ancestors
studied the sky after sunset...

300
00:20:24,004 --> 00:20:27,098
...they observed that some
of the stars were not fixed...

301
00:20:27,307 --> 00:20:30,902
...with respect to the constant
pattern of the constellations.

302
00:20:31,111 --> 00:20:34,308
Instead, five of them moved...

303
00:20:34,514 --> 00:20:36,880
...slowly forward across the sky...

304
00:20:37,084 --> 00:20:40,611
...then backward for a few months,
then forward again...

305
00:20:40,821 --> 00:20:43,051
...as if they couldn't
make up their minds.

306
00:20:43,256 --> 00:20:45,383
We call them planets...

307
00:20:45,592 --> 00:20:47,992
...the Greek word for "wanderers".

308
00:20:48,195 --> 00:20:50,686
These planets presented
a profound mystery.

309
00:20:50,897 --> 00:20:54,958
The earliest explanation was
that they were living beings.

310
00:20:55,168 --> 00:20:58,831
How else explain
their strange, looping behavior?

311
00:20:59,039 --> 00:21:01,337
Later, they were thought to be gods...

312
00:21:01,541 --> 00:21:05,534
...and then disembodied
astrological influences.

313
00:21:07,848 --> 00:21:10,476
But the real solution
to this particular mystery...

314
00:21:10,684 --> 00:21:14,176
...is that planets are worlds,
that the Earth is one of them...

315
00:21:14,388 --> 00:21:18,347
...and that they go around the sun
according to precise mathematical laws.

316
00:21:18,558 --> 00:21:21,118
This discovery has led directly...

317
00:21:21,328 --> 00:21:24,422
...to our modern global civilization.

318
00:21:25,999 --> 00:21:28,365
The merging of imagination
with observation...
319
00:21:28,568 --> 00:21:31,867
...produced an exact description
of the solar system.

320
00:21:32,072 --> 00:21:34,370
Only then could you answer
the fundamental question...

321
00:21:34,574 --> 00:21:36,269
...at the root of modern science:

322
00:21:37,044 --> 00:21:39,205
What makes it all go?

323
00:21:39,946 --> 00:21:43,473
Two thousand years ago, no such
question would have been asked.

324
00:21:43,684 --> 00:21:46,744
The prevailing view had then been
formulated by Claudius Ptolemy...

325
00:21:46,987 --> 00:21:48,511
...an Alexandrian astronomer...

326
00:21:48,722 --> 00:21:52,351
...and also the preeminent
astrologer of his time.

327
00:21:55,495 --> 00:21:58,953
Ptolemy believed that the Earth
was the center of the universe...

328
00:21:59,166 --> 00:22:02,863
...that the sun and the moon
and the planets like Mars...

329
00:22:03,070 --> 00:22:04,901
...went around the Earth.

330
00:22:05,105 --> 00:22:06,936
It's the most natural idea
in the world.

331
00:22:07,140 --> 00:22:10,837
The earth seems steady,
solid, immobile...

332
00:22:11,044 --> 00:22:15,174
...while we can see the heavenly bodies
rising and setting every day.

333
00:22:15,382 --> 00:22:18,715
But then, how explain
the loop-the-loop motion...

334
00:22:18,919 --> 00:22:21,979
...of the planets in the sky?
Mars, for example?

335
00:22:22,189 --> 00:22:25,352
This little machine shows
Ptolemy's model.

336
00:22:25,726 --> 00:22:28,593
The planets were imagined
to go around the Earth...

337
00:22:28,795 --> 00:22:30,990
...attached to
perfect crystal spheres...

338
00:22:31,198 --> 00:22:33,462
...but not attached directly
to the spheres...

339
00:22:33,667 --> 00:22:36,966
...but indirectly through
a kind of off-center wheel.

340
00:22:41,742 --> 00:22:44,267
The sphere turns,
the little wheel rotates...

341
00:22:44,478 --> 00:22:48,608
...and as seen from the Earth,
Mars does its loop-the-loop.

342
00:22:56,890 --> 00:23:00,519
This model permitted
reasonably accurate predictions...

343
00:23:00,727 --> 00:23:02,718
...of planetary motion.

344
00:23:02,929 --> 00:23:06,228
Good enough predictions
for the precision of measurement...

345
00:23:06,433 --> 00:23:09,334
...in Ptolemy's time and much later.

346
00:23:10,804 --> 00:23:14,171
Supported by the church
through the Dark Ages...

347
00:23:14,374 --> 00:23:16,899
...Ptolemy's model
effectively prevented...

348
00:23:17,110 --> 00:23:19,772
...the advance of astronomy
for 1 500 years.

349
00:23:19,980 --> 00:23:23,916
Finally, in 1 543,
a quite different explanation...

350
00:23:24,117 --> 00:23:26,176
...of the apparent motion
of the planets...

351
00:23:26,386 --> 00:23:31,255
...was published by a Polish cleric
named Nicolaus Copernicus.

352
00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:34,759
Its most daring feature
was the proposition...

353
00:23:34,961 --> 00:23:37,191
...that the sun was
the center of the universe.

354
00:23:37,397 --> 00:23:41,163
The Earth was demoted
to just one of the planets.

355
00:23:41,368 --> 00:23:43,598
The retrograde,
or loop-the-loop motion...

356
00:23:43,804 --> 00:23:46,830
...happens as the Earth
overtakes Mars in its orbit.

357
00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:51,238
You can see that,
from the standpoint of the Earth...

358
00:23:51,444 --> 00:23:54,004
...Mars is now going
slightly backwards...

359
00:23:54,214 --> 00:23:58,014
...and now it is going
in its original direction.

360
00:23:58,218 --> 00:24:01,244
This Copernican model worked
at least as well...

361
00:24:01,454 --> 00:24:03,649
...as Ptolemy's crystal spheres.

362
00:24:03,857 --> 00:24:06,519
But it annoyed an awful lot of people.

363
00:24:06,726 --> 00:24:10,059
The Catholic Church later
put Copernicus' work...

364
00:24:10,263 --> 00:24:12,891
...on its list of forbidden books.

365
00:24:13,099 --> 00:24:17,195
And Martin Luther described
Copernicus in these words:

366
00:24:17,404 --> 00:24:21,101
"People give ear
to an upstart astrologer.

367
00:24:21,308 --> 00:24:24,869
This fool wishes to reverse...

368
00:24:25,078 --> 00:24:27,546
...the entire science of astronomy."

369
00:24:27,747 --> 00:24:29,408
Close quote.

370
00:24:29,883 --> 00:24:34,582
The confrontation between
the two views of the cosmos...

371
00:24:34,788 --> 00:24:36,949
...Earth-centered and sun-centered...

372
00:24:37,157 --> 00:24:39,352
...reached its climax with a man...

373
00:24:39,559 --> 00:24:43,393
...who, like Ptolemy, was both
an astronomer and an astrologer.

374
00:24:49,836 --> 00:24:51,133
He lived in a time...

375
00:24:51,338 --> 00:24:53,602
...when the human spirit
was fettered...

376
00:24:53,807 --> 00:24:56,037
...and the mind chained...

377
00:24:56,243 --> 00:24:58,734
...when angels and demons
and crystal spheres...

378
00:24:58,945 --> 00:25:01,140
...were imagined up there
in the skies.

379
00:25:01,348 --> 00:25:03,976
Science still lacked
the slightest notion...

380
00:25:04,184 --> 00:25:07,176
...of physical laws underlying nature.

381
00:25:07,387 --> 00:25:09,981
But the brave and lonely
struggle of this man...

382
00:25:10,190 --> 00:25:11,589
...was to provide the spark...

383
00:25:11,791 --> 00:25:15,022
...that ignited the modern
scientific revolution.

384
00:25:16,429 --> 00:25:20,991
Johannes Kepler was born
in Germany in 1 57 1.

385
00:25:21,201 --> 00:25:24,898
He was sent to the Protestant
seminary school in Maulbronn...

386
00:25:25,105 --> 00:25:27,335
...to be educated for the clergy.

387
00:25:28,608 --> 00:25:30,132
(BELL RINGS)

388
00:25:30,477 --> 00:25:33,537
It was a strict, disciplined life.

389
00:25:33,747 --> 00:25:37,205
Up before dawn to begin
a long day of prayer and study.

390
00:25:43,890 --> 00:25:46,450
This was the age of the Reformation.

391
00:25:46,660 --> 00:25:51,359
Maulbronn was a kind of educational
and ideological boot camp...

392
00:25:51,564 --> 00:25:54,624
...training young Protestants
in theological weaponry...

393
00:25:54,834 --> 00:25:58,361
...against the fortress
of Roman Catholicism.

394
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:01,969
(SPEAKS IN GERMAN)

395
00:26:08,815 --> 00:26:11,249
There was little reassurance
or comfort here...

396
00:26:11,451 --> 00:26:13,715
...for a sensitive boy like Kepler.

397
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:15,820
He was intelligent and he knew it.

398
00:26:16,589 --> 00:26:20,923
That, together with his stubbornness
and his fierce independence...

399
00:26:21,127 --> 00:26:23,925
...served to isolate him
from the other boys.

400
00:26:24,130 --> 00:26:27,964
Kepler made few friends
in his two years at Maulbronn.

401
00:26:28,468 --> 00:26:30,095
Amen.

402
00:26:31,471 --> 00:26:35,965
So he kept to himself, withdrawn
into the world of his own thoughts...

403
00:26:36,176 --> 00:26:37,666
...which were often concerned...

404
00:26:37,877 --> 00:26:40,243
...with his imagined unworthiness
in the eyes of God.

405
00:26:40,447 --> 00:26:43,746
He despaired of ever
attaining salvation.

406
00:26:46,086 --> 00:26:49,317
(SPEAKS IN GERMAN)

407
00:26:51,658 --> 00:26:55,389
But God to him
was more than punishment.

408
00:26:55,962 --> 00:27:00,126
God was also the creative power
of the universe.

409
00:27:00,667 --> 00:27:04,103
And the young Kepler's
curiosity about God...

410
00:27:04,304 --> 00:27:06,363
...was even greater than his fear.

411
00:27:06,873 --> 00:27:10,536
He wanted to know
God's plan for the world.

412
00:27:10,744 --> 00:27:14,441
He wanted to read the mind of God.

413
00:27:15,849 --> 00:27:18,409
This was his obsession.

414
00:27:18,952 --> 00:27:21,716
It was to inspire
all his great achievements.

415
00:27:21,921 --> 00:27:24,890
It was to take him, and Europe...

416
00:27:25,091 --> 00:27:28,083
...out of the cloister
of medieval thought.

417
00:27:36,369 --> 00:27:40,806
In places like Maulbronn, the faint
echoes of the genius of antiquity...

418
00:27:41,007 --> 00:27:42,770
...still reverberated.

419
00:27:43,043 --> 00:27:45,568
Here, in addition to theology...

420
00:27:45,779 --> 00:27:50,580
...Kepler was exposed to Greek
and Latin, music and mathematics.

421
00:27:51,551 --> 00:27:54,349
And it was in geometry
that he thought he glimpsed...

422
00:27:54,554 --> 00:27:56,579
...the image of perfection.

423
00:28:09,469 --> 00:28:11,164
He was later to write:

424
00:28:11,404 --> 00:28:14,703
"Geometry existed
before the Creation.

425
00:28:14,908 --> 00:28:18,537
It is coeternal with the mind of God.

426
00:28:18,878 --> 00:28:20,846
Geometry provided God...

427
00:28:21,114 --> 00:28:23,708
...with a model for the Creation.

428
00:28:24,417 --> 00:28:25,782
Geometry...

429
00:28:26,686 --> 00:28:28,847
...is God himself."

430
00:28:40,366 --> 00:28:44,029
But the real world of Kepler's time
was far from perfect.

431
00:28:44,237 --> 00:28:48,196
It was haunted by fear,
pestilence, famine and war.

432
00:28:48,408 --> 00:28:51,809
Superstition was a natural refuge
for people who were powerless.

433
00:28:52,212 --> 00:28:55,943
Only one thing seemed certain:
the stars themselves.

434
00:28:56,149 --> 00:28:59,744
It was remembered that in ancient
times, the astrologer, Ptolemy...

435
00:28:59,953 --> 00:29:02,046
...and the sage, Pythagoras,
had taught...

436
00:29:02,255 --> 00:29:05,747
...that the heavens were
harmonious and changeless.

437
00:29:08,928 --> 00:29:13,558
Ptolemy had said that the motions
of the planets through the stars...

438
00:29:13,766 --> 00:29:16,132
...were portents
of events here below.

439
00:29:18,338 --> 00:29:22,138
Was it the influence of Mars and Venus
that made his father a brutal man...

440
00:29:22,342 --> 00:29:24,936
...a mercenary who had abandoned him?

441
00:29:27,413 --> 00:29:29,438
(CHILDREN LAUGHING)

442
00:29:29,716 --> 00:29:33,379
Did an unfortunate conjunction
of planets in an adverse sign...

443
00:29:33,586 --> 00:29:36,851
...make his mother a mischievous
and quarrelsome woman?

444
00:29:41,361 --> 00:29:43,955
If such things were fated
by the stars...

445
00:29:44,164 --> 00:29:46,826
...then perhaps there were
hidden patterns...

446
00:29:47,033 --> 00:29:49,695
...underlying the unpredictable
chaos of daily life.

447
00:30:04,284 --> 00:30:07,879
Patterns as constant as the stars.

448
00:30:17,363 --> 00:30:20,560
But how could you discover them?
Where would you begin?

449
00:30:20,767 --> 00:30:23,998
If the world and everything in it
was crafted by God...

450
00:30:24,204 --> 00:30:28,197
...then shouldn't you begin with
a careful study of physical reality?

451
00:30:28,575 --> 00:30:31,169
Was not all of creation
an expression...

452
00:30:31,377 --> 00:30:33,971
...of the harmonies
in the mind of God?

453
00:30:34,180 --> 00:30:38,640
The book of nature had waited
1,500 years for a reader.

454
00:30:55,468 --> 00:30:58,596
In 1 589, Kepler left Maulbronn...

455
00:30:58,805 --> 00:31:02,673
...to continue his studies
at the great university in Tbingen.

456
00:31:05,645 --> 00:31:07,545
It was a liberation
to find himself...

457
00:31:07,747 --> 00:31:11,148
...amidst the most vital
intellectual currents of the time.
458
00:31:11,351 --> 00:31:13,285
One of his teachers
revealed to him...

459
00:31:13,486 --> 00:31:16,512
...the revolutionary ideas
of Copernicus.

460
00:31:17,156 --> 00:31:19,090
Kepler relished...

461
00:31:19,292 --> 00:31:22,625
...this urbane scholarly community.

462
00:31:23,429 --> 00:31:27,365
Here, his genius
was recognized at last.

463
00:31:34,641 --> 00:31:37,633
Kepler was not to be ordained
after Tbingen.

464
00:31:37,844 --> 00:31:42,713
Instead, to his surprise, he found
himself summoned to Graz in Austria...

465
00:31:42,915 --> 00:31:46,043
...to become a teacher
of high school mathematics.

466
00:31:47,687 --> 00:31:50,520
Kepler was not a very good teacher.

467
00:31:51,824 --> 00:31:55,851
The first year in Graz, his class
had only a handful of students.

468
00:31:56,062 --> 00:31:58,622
The second year, none.

469
00:31:59,899 --> 00:32:02,561
He mumbled. He digressed.

470
00:32:02,769 --> 00:32:05,738
He was, at times,
utterly incomprehensible.

471
00:32:08,441 --> 00:32:10,841
He was distracted
by an incessant clamor...

472
00:32:11,044 --> 00:32:14,707
...of speculations and associations
that ran through his head.

473
00:32:16,783 --> 00:32:18,842
(MUMBLES)

474
00:32:21,554 --> 00:32:23,488
One pleasant summer afternoon...

475
00:32:23,690 --> 00:32:26,750
...with his students longing
for the end of the lecture...

476
00:32:26,959 --> 00:32:30,451
...he was visited by a revelation
that was to alter radically...

477
00:32:30,663 --> 00:32:34,155
...the future course
of astronomy and the world.

478
00:32:35,668 --> 00:32:38,102
(TOP CLUNKS)

479
00:32:39,839 --> 00:32:42,307
There were only six planets
known in his time:

480
00:32:42,508 --> 00:32:45,807
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn.

481
00:32:46,145 --> 00:32:48,306
For some time,
Kepler had been wondering:

482
00:32:48,881 --> 00:32:51,372
Why only six planets?

483
00:32:51,584 --> 00:32:54,075
Why not 20 planets, or 100?

484
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:57,921
And why this particular spacing
between their orbits?

485
00:32:58,124 --> 00:33:01,389
No one had ever asked
such questions before.

486
00:33:02,161 --> 00:33:04,459
In the course of
a lecture on astrology...

487
00:33:04,664 --> 00:33:07,758
...Kepler inscribed within
the circle of the zodiac...

488
00:33:07,967 --> 00:33:10,697
...a triangle with three equal sides.

489
00:33:10,903 --> 00:33:13,667
He then noticed, quite by accident...

490
00:33:13,873 --> 00:33:17,468
...that a smaller circle
inscribed within the triangle...

491
00:33:17,677 --> 00:33:20,202
...bore the same relationship
to the outer circle...

492
00:33:20,413 --> 00:33:23,974
...as did the orbit of Jupiter
to the orbit of Saturn.

493
00:33:24,951 --> 00:33:28,580
Could a similar geometry relate
the orbits of the other planets?

494
00:33:28,788 --> 00:33:32,087
Now Kepler remembered
the perfect solids of Pythagoras.

495
00:33:32,291 --> 00:33:35,351
Of all the possible
three-dimensional shapes...

496
00:33:35,561 --> 00:33:39,520
...there were only five
whose sides were regular polygons.

497
00:33:42,301 --> 00:33:45,031
He believed that
the two numbers were connected...

498
00:33:45,238 --> 00:33:47,297
...that the reason
there were only six planets...

499
00:33:47,507 --> 00:33:50,408
...was that there were
only five regular solids.

500
00:33:50,610 --> 00:33:54,671
In these perfect solids,
nested one within the other...

501
00:33:54,881 --> 00:33:57,816
...he believed he had discovered
the invisible supports...

502
00:33:58,017 --> 00:34:01,248
...for the spheres of the six planets.

503
00:34:05,792 --> 00:34:09,023
This connection
between geometry and astronomy...

504
00:34:09,228 --> 00:34:11,890
...could admit only one explanation:

505
00:34:12,098 --> 00:34:16,228
The hand of God, mathematician.

506
00:34:31,417 --> 00:34:35,251
"The intense pleasure I received
from this discovery...

507
00:34:35,455 --> 00:34:37,946
...can never be told in words,"
he said.
508
00:34:38,157 --> 00:34:41,092
"Now I no longer became weary at work.

509
00:34:41,294 --> 00:34:44,525
Days and nights
I passed in mathematical labors...

510
00:34:44,730 --> 00:34:48,996
...until I could see if my hypothesis
would agree with Copernicus'...

511
00:34:49,202 --> 00:34:53,571
...or if my joy would vanish
into thin air."

512
00:34:59,512 --> 00:35:03,778
But no matter how he hard tried, the
perfect solids and planetary orbits...

513
00:35:03,983 --> 00:35:06,349
...did not agree
with each other very well.

514
00:35:08,454 --> 00:35:09,944
Why didn't it work?

515
00:35:10,156 --> 00:35:12,624
Because, unfortunately, it was wrong.

516
00:35:12,825 --> 00:35:15,623
The true orbital sizes
of the planets we now know...

517
00:35:15,828 --> 00:35:19,320
...have absolutely nothing to do
with the five perfect solids...

518
00:35:19,532 --> 00:35:23,263
...as the later discovery
of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto shows.

519
00:35:23,469 --> 00:35:26,267
But Kepler spent
the rest of his life...

520
00:35:26,472 --> 00:35:30,203
...pursuing this
geometrical phantasm.

521
00:35:30,576 --> 00:35:34,672
He couldn't abandon it,
and he couldn't make it work.

522
00:35:34,881 --> 00:35:37,509
His frustration
must have been enormous.

523
00:35:37,717 --> 00:35:39,378
Finally he decided that...

524
00:35:39,585 --> 00:35:43,146
...the accepted planetary
observations were inaccurate...

525
00:35:43,356 --> 00:35:46,291
...and not his model
of the nested solids.

526
00:35:47,627 --> 00:35:51,461
Only one man had access
to more precise observations.

527
00:35:51,664 --> 00:35:54,758
That man was Tycho Brahe...

528
00:35:54,967 --> 00:35:59,267
...who, coincidentally, had recently
written Kepler to come and join him.

529
00:35:59,472 --> 00:36:03,772
Kepler was reluctant at first,
but he had no choice.

530
00:36:08,047 --> 00:36:11,778
In 1 598, a wave of oppression
enveloped Graz.

531
00:36:12,385 --> 00:36:15,411
It was spearheaded
by the local archduke...

532
00:36:15,655 --> 00:36:18,681
...who vowed to restore Catholicism
to the province...

533
00:36:18,891 --> 00:36:21,416
...and in his own words...

534
00:36:21,627 --> 00:36:24,357
..."would rather make
a desert of the country...

535
00:36:24,564 --> 00:36:26,759
...than rule over heretics."

536
00:36:39,445 --> 00:36:41,174
Kepler's school was closed.

537
00:36:41,380 --> 00:36:44,941
People were forbidden to worship
or to sing hymns...

538
00:36:45,151 --> 00:36:48,120
...or to own books
of a heretical nature.

539
00:36:48,921 --> 00:36:53,415
Those who refused Catholicism
were fined 10% of their assets...

540
00:36:53,626 --> 00:36:56,754
...and exiled from the country
on pain of death.

541
00:36:57,563 --> 00:37:00,088
Kepler chose exile.

542
00:37:04,470 --> 00:37:07,462
"Hypocrisy, I have never learned.

543
00:37:07,673 --> 00:37:12,076
I am in earnest about faith.
I do not play with it."

544
00:37:27,393 --> 00:37:30,692
For Kepler, it was only the first
in a series of exiles...

545
00:37:30,896 --> 00:37:33,990
...forced upon him
by religious fanatics.

546
00:37:39,338 --> 00:37:43,672
Now he decided to accept
Tycho Brahe's open invitation.

547
00:37:43,876 --> 00:37:48,142
Brahe, a wealthy Danish nobleman,
lived in great splendor...

548
00:37:48,347 --> 00:37:52,841
...and had recently been appointed
Imperial Mathematician at Prague.

549
00:37:53,185 --> 00:37:56,780
Kepler left Graz
with his wife and stepdaughter...

550
00:37:56,989 --> 00:37:59,787
...and set out
on the difficult journey.

551
00:38:00,426 --> 00:38:03,190
Kepler's wife was not a happy woman.

552
00:38:03,396 --> 00:38:07,230
She was chronically ill and
had recently lost two young children.

553
00:38:07,433 --> 00:38:09,264
The marriage was no comfort.

554
00:38:09,468 --> 00:38:11,993
She had no understanding
of his work...

555
00:38:12,204 --> 00:38:14,968
...and regarded his profession
with contempt.

556
00:38:24,083 --> 00:38:26,278
Kepler was married to his work...

557
00:38:26,485 --> 00:38:29,818
...and every tedious mile
was bringing him closer...
558
00:38:30,022 --> 00:38:33,355
...to the great Tycho Brahe,
whose observations...

559
00:38:33,559 --> 00:38:37,325
...he devoutly hoped,
would confirm his theory.

560
00:38:37,730 --> 00:38:42,667
Kepler envisioned Tycho's domain as
a sanctuary from the evils of the time.

561
00:38:42,868 --> 00:38:46,304
He aspired to be a worthy colleague
to the illustrious Tycho...

562
00:38:46,505 --> 00:38:48,666
...who for 35 years
had been immersed...

563
00:38:48,874 --> 00:38:51,707
...in exact measurements
of a clockwork universe...

564
00:38:51,911 --> 00:38:54,345
...ordered and precise.

565
00:38:55,715 --> 00:38:58,946
(PARTY CHATTER)

566
00:38:59,685 --> 00:39:01,778
(MUSIC PLAYS)

567
00:39:01,987 --> 00:39:04,854
(LAUGHING)

568
00:39:06,192 --> 00:39:10,595
But Tycho's court was not at all
what Kepler had expected.

569
00:39:11,797 --> 00:39:12,923
TYCHO:
Vinol

570
00:39:15,201 --> 00:39:17,669
Tycho himself was
a flamboyant figure...

571
00:39:17,870 --> 00:39:20,338
...adorned with a gold nose.

572
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:23,308
The original was lost
in a student duel...

573
00:39:23,509 --> 00:39:26,376
...fought over who was
the superior mathematician.

574
00:39:26,579 --> 00:39:29,639
And he maintained
a circus-like entourage...

575
00:39:29,849 --> 00:39:32,374
...of assistants, distant relatives...

576
00:39:32,585 --> 00:39:34,883
...and assorted hangers-on.

577
00:39:35,254 --> 00:39:38,223
(SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

578
00:39:44,530 --> 00:39:47,590
Kepler had no use
for the endless revelry.

579
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:50,098
He impatient to see Tycho's data.

580
00:39:50,302 --> 00:39:54,363
But Tycho would give him
only a few scraps at a time.

581
00:39:56,442 --> 00:40:01,175
"Tycho," he said, "gave me no
opportunity to share in his studies.

582
00:40:01,514 --> 00:40:04,711
He would only,
in the course of a meal, mention...

583
00:40:04,917 --> 00:40:06,748
...as if in passing...

584
00:40:06,952 --> 00:40:09,887
...today, the figure
of the apogee of one planet.

585
00:40:10,089 --> 00:40:13,525
Tomorrow, the nodes of another."

586
00:40:15,528 --> 00:40:18,053
Kepler was ill-suited
for such games...

587
00:40:18,264 --> 00:40:20,528
...and the general climate
of intrigue...

588
00:40:20,733 --> 00:40:23,361
...offended his sense of propriety.

589
00:40:30,509 --> 00:40:33,501
Their cruel mockery of
the pious and scholarly Kepler...

590
00:40:33,913 --> 00:40:36,711
...depressed and saddened him.

591
00:40:40,653 --> 00:40:43,679
"My opinion of Tycho is this:

592
00:40:43,889 --> 00:40:45,720
He is superlatively rich...

593
00:40:46,025 --> 00:40:48,721
...but knows not how
to make proper use of it."

594
00:40:49,361 --> 00:40:54,298
Tycho possesses the best observations,
he also has collaborators.

595
00:40:54,500 --> 00:40:56,832
He lacks only the architect...

596
00:40:57,036 --> 00:40:59,800
...who would put all this to use."

597
00:41:03,475 --> 00:41:06,000
(BAND PLAYS)

598
00:41:11,584 --> 00:41:14,280
Tycho was unable
to turn his observations...

599
00:41:14,486 --> 00:41:17,887
...into a coherent theory
of the solar system.

600
00:41:18,257 --> 00:41:21,749
He knew he needed
the brilliant Kepler's help.

601
00:41:22,695 --> 00:41:26,153
But simply to hand over
his life's work to a potential rival?

602
00:41:26,365 --> 00:41:28,799
That was unthinkable.

603
00:41:32,671 --> 00:41:33,797
(KEPLER SHOUTS)

604
00:41:39,278 --> 00:41:42,111
Tycho was the greatest observational
genius of the age...

605
00:41:42,314 --> 00:41:44,612
...and Kepler
the greatest theoretician.

606
00:41:45,985 --> 00:41:48,317
Either man alone could not
achieve the synthesis...

607
00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:50,920
...which both felt was now possible.

608
00:41:53,158 --> 00:41:54,489
TYCHO:
Keplerel

609
00:41:56,362 --> 00:41:58,296
The birth of modern science...

610
00:41:58,497 --> 00:42:00,965
...which is the fusion
of observation and theory...

611
00:42:01,367 --> 00:42:06,134
...teetered on the precipice
of their mutual distrust.

612
00:42:23,822 --> 00:42:25,983
The two repeatedly quarreled...

613
00:42:26,191 --> 00:42:27,988
...and were reconciled.

614
00:42:28,193 --> 00:42:30,855
Until, a few months later...

615
00:42:31,063 --> 00:42:35,432
...Tycho died of
his habitual overindulgence...

616
00:42:35,634 --> 00:42:38,535
...in food and wine.

617
00:42:40,906 --> 00:42:42,999
Kepler wrote to a friend:

618
00:42:43,409 --> 00:42:46,936
"On the last night
of Tycho's gentle delirium...

619
00:42:47,146 --> 00:42:51,105
...he repeated over
and over again these words...

620
00:42:51,317 --> 00:42:53,808
...like someone composing a poem:

621
00:42:54,486 --> 00:42:58,081
'Let me not seem
to have lived in vain.

622
00:42:58,290 --> 00:43:01,851
Let me not seem
to have lived in vain.'

623
00:43:06,565 --> 00:43:08,260
And he did not."

624
00:43:10,703 --> 00:43:12,967
Eventually, after Tycho's death...

625
00:43:13,172 --> 00:43:16,903
...Kepler contrived
to extract the observations...

626
00:43:17,109 --> 00:43:20,101
...from Tycho's reluctant family.

627
00:43:20,312 --> 00:43:22,906
Observations of the apparent motion...

628
00:43:23,115 --> 00:43:25,709
...of Mars through
the constellations...

629
00:43:25,918 --> 00:43:30,378
...obtained over
a period of many years.

630
00:43:30,689 --> 00:43:33,055
The data, from the last few decades...

631
00:43:33,258 --> 00:43:35,783
...before the invention
of the telescope...

632
00:43:35,995 --> 00:43:40,125
...were by far the most precise
ever obtained up to that time.

633
00:43:44,003 --> 00:43:47,905
Kepler worked with
a kind of passionate intensity...

634
00:43:48,107 --> 00:43:50,837
...to understand Tycho's observations.

635
00:43:51,043 --> 00:43:54,706
What real motions of the Earth...

636
00:43:54,913 --> 00:43:57,381
...and Mars about the sun...

637
00:43:57,583 --> 00:44:00,279
...could explain,
to the precision of measurement...

638
00:44:00,486 --> 00:44:05,423
...the apparent motion, as seen
from the Earth, of Mars in the sky.

639
00:44:05,824 --> 00:44:07,155
And why Mars?

640
00:44:07,359 --> 00:44:10,760
Tycho had told Kepler that
the apparent motion of Mars...

641
00:44:10,963 --> 00:44:14,797
...was the most difficult
to reconcile with a circular orbit.

642
00:44:15,367 --> 00:44:19,565
After years of calculation,
he believed he'd found the values...

643
00:44:19,772 --> 00:44:23,401
...for a Martian circular orbit
which matched...

644
00:44:23,609 --> 00:44:27,739
...ten of Tycho Brahe's observations
within two minutes of arc.

645
00:44:27,946 --> 00:44:32,042
There are sixty minutes of arc
in an angular degree...

646
00:44:32,251 --> 00:44:36,745
...and of course,
90 degrees from horizon...

647
00:44:36,955 --> 00:44:38,013
...to zenith.
648
00:44:38,223 --> 00:44:41,124
So a few minutes of arc is
a small quantity to measure...

649
00:44:41,693 --> 00:44:43,490
...especially without a telescope.

650
00:44:43,695 --> 00:44:46,596
But Kepler's ecstasy of discovery...

651
00:44:46,799 --> 00:44:49,233
...soon crumbled into gloom.

652
00:44:49,435 --> 00:44:54,236
Two further observations by Tycho
were inconsistent with his orbit...

653
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:57,341
...by as much as eight minutes of arc.

654
00:44:57,876 --> 00:45:02,040
Kepler wrote, "If I had believed we
could ignore these eight minutes...

655
00:45:02,247 --> 00:45:04,909
...I would've patched up
my hypothesis accordingly.

656
00:45:05,117 --> 00:45:07,677
Since it was not permissible
to ignore them...

657
00:45:07,886 --> 00:45:10,616
...those eight minutes
pointed the road...

658
00:45:10,823 --> 00:45:13,656
...to a complete reformation
of astronomy."

659
00:45:13,992 --> 00:45:18,429
The difference between a circular orbit
and the true orbit of Mars...

660
00:45:18,630 --> 00:45:22,726
...could be distinguished
only by precise measurement...

661
00:45:22,935 --> 00:45:26,098
...and by a courageous
acceptance of the facts.

662
00:45:26,305 --> 00:45:31,072
Kepler was profoundly annoyed
at having to abandon a circular orbit.

663
00:45:31,443 --> 00:45:35,311
It shook his faith in God...

664
00:45:35,514 --> 00:45:39,416
...as the Maker of
a perfect celestial geometry.

665
00:45:39,852 --> 00:45:42,082
"Having cleaned the stable...

666
00:45:42,287 --> 00:45:45,450
...of astronomy of circles
and spirals," he said...

667
00:45:45,657 --> 00:45:47,648
...he was left...

668
00:45:47,860 --> 00:45:51,990
...with "only a single
cartful of dung."

669
00:45:52,197 --> 00:45:56,099
He tried various oval-like curves,
calculated away...

670
00:45:56,301 --> 00:45:58,701
...made some arithmetical mistakes...

671
00:45:58,904 --> 00:46:01,737
...which caused him
to reject the correct answer.

672
00:46:01,940 --> 00:46:06,070
Months later, in some desperation...

673
00:46:06,278 --> 00:46:10,146
...he tried the formula
for the first time for an ellipse.

674
00:46:10,349 --> 00:46:14,251
The ellipse matched
the observations of Tycho beautifully.

675
00:46:16,355 --> 00:46:18,880
In such an orbit,
the sun isn't at the center.

676
00:46:19,091 --> 00:46:23,994
It is offset.
It's at one focus of the ellipse.

677
00:46:24,296 --> 00:46:27,754
When a given planet is at the far
point in its orbit from the sun...

678
00:46:27,966 --> 00:46:29,297
...it goes more slowly.

679
00:46:29,501 --> 00:46:32,698
As it approaches the near point,
it speeds up.

680
00:46:32,905 --> 00:46:35,430
Such motion is why
we describe the planets...

681
00:46:35,641 --> 00:46:38,542
...as forever falling
towards the sun...

682
00:46:38,744 --> 00:46:40,234
...but never reaching it.

683
00:46:40,445 --> 00:46:44,176
Kepler's first law of
planetary motion is simply this:

684
00:46:44,383 --> 00:46:47,250
A planet moves in an ellipse...

685
00:46:47,452 --> 00:46:50,182
...with the sun at one focus.
686
00:46:53,392 --> 00:46:56,020
As a planet moves along its orbit,
it sweeps out...

687
00:46:56,228 --> 00:47:00,665
...in a given period of time,
an imaginary wedge-shaped area.

688
00:47:00,866 --> 00:47:03,892
When the planet's far from the sun,
the area's long and thin.

689
00:47:04,102 --> 00:47:08,061
When the planet is close to the sun,
the area is short and squat.

690
00:47:08,407 --> 00:47:10,671
Though the shapes of
the wedges are different...

691
00:47:10,876 --> 00:47:14,812
...Kepler found that
their areas are exactly the same.

692
00:47:15,414 --> 00:47:19,544
This provided a precise description
of how a planet changes its speed...

693
00:47:19,751 --> 00:47:22,276
...in relation to its distance
from the sun.

694
00:47:22,487 --> 00:47:24,455
Now, for the first time...

695
00:47:24,656 --> 00:47:27,523
...astronomers could predict
where a planet would be...

696
00:47:27,726 --> 00:47:30,923
...in accordance with
a simple and invariable law.

697
00:47:31,129 --> 00:47:33,689
Kepler's second law is this:

698
00:47:33,899 --> 00:47:37,733
A planet sweeps out equal areas
in equal times.

699
00:47:38,870 --> 00:47:41,668
Kepler's first two
laws of planetary motion...

700
00:47:41,873 --> 00:47:45,365
...may seem a little
remote and abstract.

701
00:47:45,577 --> 00:47:50,344
Planets move in ellipses and they
sweep out equal areas in equal times.

702
00:47:50,549 --> 00:47:52,312
So what?

703
00:47:52,718 --> 00:47:55,881
It's not as easy to grasp
as circular motion.

704
00:47:56,088 --> 00:47:58,784
We might have a tendency
to dismiss it...

705
00:47:58,991 --> 00:48:01,687
...to say it's a mere
mathematical tinkering...

706
00:48:01,893 --> 00:48:05,590
...something removed
from everyday life.

707
00:48:05,797 --> 00:48:10,257
But these are the laws
our planet itself obeys.

708
00:48:10,469 --> 00:48:14,132
As we, glued by gravity
to the surface of the Earth...

709
00:48:14,339 --> 00:48:16,034
...hurtle through space...

710
00:48:16,241 --> 00:48:18,937
...we move in accord
with laws of nature...

711
00:48:19,144 --> 00:48:21,578
...which Kepler first discovered.

712
00:48:21,780 --> 00:48:24,374
When we send spacecraft
to the planets...

713
00:48:24,583 --> 00:48:26,574
...when we observe double stars...

714
00:48:26,785 --> 00:48:30,084
...when we examine the motion
of distant galaxies...

715
00:48:30,289 --> 00:48:35,226
...we find that all over the universe,
Kepler's laws are obeyed.

716
00:48:35,927 --> 00:48:37,189
Many years later...

717
00:48:37,396 --> 00:48:41,833
...Kepler came upon his third
and last law of planetary motion.

718
00:48:42,034 --> 00:48:46,198
A law which relates the motion of
the various planets to each other...

719
00:48:46,405 --> 00:48:48,236
...which lays out correctly...

720
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:51,568
...the clockwork of the solar system.

721
00:48:53,679 --> 00:48:55,909
He discovered
a mathematical relationship...

722
00:48:56,114 --> 00:48:58,173
...between the size
of a planet's orbit...

723
00:48:58,383 --> 00:49:01,375
...and the average speed at
which it travels around the sun.

724
00:49:01,586 --> 00:49:03,781
This confirmed his long-held belief...

725
00:49:03,989 --> 00:49:07,516
...that there must be a force in
the sun that drives the planets.

726
00:49:07,726 --> 00:49:10,695
A force stronger for
the inner, fast-moving planets...

727
00:49:10,896 --> 00:49:13,956
...and weaker for
the outer, slow-moving planets.

728
00:49:14,166 --> 00:49:18,262
Isaac Newton later identified
that force as gravity.

729
00:49:18,470 --> 00:49:21,268
Answering at last
the fundamental question:

730
00:49:21,473 --> 00:49:23,873
What makes the planets go?

731
00:49:25,344 --> 00:49:27,505
Kepler's third or Harmonic Law...

732
00:49:27,713 --> 00:49:31,240
...states that the squares
of the periods of the planets...

733
00:49:31,450 --> 00:49:33,941
...the time for them
to make one orbit...

734
00:49:34,152 --> 00:49:37,053
...are proportional to the cubes,
the third power...

735
00:49:37,255 --> 00:49:40,224
...of their average distances
from the sun.

736
00:49:40,425 --> 00:49:44,555
So the further away a planet is
from the sun, the slower it moves...

737
00:49:44,763 --> 00:49:48,324
...but according to
a precise mathematical law.

738
00:49:48,533 --> 00:49:52,299
Kepler was the first person in
the history of the human species...

739
00:49:52,504 --> 00:49:55,803
...to understand correctly
and quantitatively...

740
00:49:56,007 --> 00:49:57,634
...how the planets move...

741
00:49:57,843 --> 00:50:00,403
...how the solar system works.

742
00:50:12,557 --> 00:50:15,788
The man who sought harmony
in the cosmos...

743
00:50:15,994 --> 00:50:20,931
...was fated to live at a time
of exceptional discord on Earth.

744
00:50:21,199 --> 00:50:25,192
Exactly eight days after
Kepler's discovery of his third law...

745
00:50:25,404 --> 00:50:27,531
...there occurred in Prague
an incident...

746
00:50:27,739 --> 00:50:31,368
...that unleashed
the devastating Thirty Years' War.

747
00:50:31,576 --> 00:50:36,036
The war's convulsions shattered
the lives of millions of people.
748
00:50:37,649 --> 00:50:42,552
Kepler lost his wife and young son
to an epidemic spread by the soldiery.

749
00:50:42,921 --> 00:50:45,446
His royal patron was deposed...

750
00:50:45,657 --> 00:50:48,455
...and he was excommunicated
from the Lutheran church...

751
00:50:48,660 --> 00:50:52,790
...for his uncompromising independence
on questions of belief.

752
00:50:52,998 --> 00:50:55,193
He was a refugee once again.

753
00:50:56,601 --> 00:50:57,795
The conflict...

754
00:50:58,003 --> 00:51:01,905
...portrayed on both sides
as a "holy war"...

755
00:51:02,107 --> 00:51:05,235
...was more an exploitation
of religious bigotry...

756
00:51:05,444 --> 00:51:07,844
...by those hungry for land and power.

757
00:51:16,555 --> 00:51:19,718
This war introduced
organized pillage...

758
00:51:19,925 --> 00:51:22,587
...to keep armies in the field.

759
00:51:25,464 --> 00:51:28,797
The brutalized population of Europe
stood by helpless...

760
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:31,525
...as their plowshares
and pruning hooks...

761
00:51:31,736 --> 00:51:36,264
...were literally beaten
into swords and spears.

762
00:51:36,475 --> 00:51:40,036
Rumor and paranoia swept
through the countryside...

763
00:51:40,245 --> 00:51:43,373
...enveloping especially
the powerless.

764
00:51:44,049 --> 00:51:46,210
Among the many scapegoats chosen...

765
00:51:46,418 --> 00:51:50,752
...were elderly women living alone,
who were charged with witchcraft.

766
00:51:50,956 --> 00:51:52,548
(THUNDER)

767
00:51:55,227 --> 00:51:57,195
(HORSE WHINNIES)

768
00:52:00,332 --> 00:52:01,196
(WOMAN CRIES)

769
00:52:01,399 --> 00:52:04,391
Kepler's mother was taken away
in the middle of the night...

770
00:52:05,036 --> 00:52:07,163
...in a laundry chest.

771
00:52:09,374 --> 00:52:13,435
It took Kepler six years
of unremitting effort...

772
00:52:13,645 --> 00:52:15,442
...to save her life.

773
00:52:18,016 --> 00:52:22,680
In Kepler's little hometown,
about three women were arrested...

774
00:52:22,888 --> 00:52:26,756
...tortured and killed
as witches every year...

775
00:52:26,958 --> 00:52:30,689
...between 1 61 5 and 1 629.

776
00:52:30,896 --> 00:52:34,627
And Katarina Kepler was
a cantankerous old woman.

777
00:52:34,833 --> 00:52:38,530
She engaged in disputes
which annoyed the local nobility...

778
00:52:38,737 --> 00:52:40,170
...and she sold drugs.

779
00:52:40,839 --> 00:52:44,468
Poor Kepler thought that
he himself had contributed...

780
00:52:44,676 --> 00:52:48,237
...inadvertently,
to his mother's arrest.

781
00:52:48,446 --> 00:52:50,778
It came about
because he had written...

782
00:52:50,982 --> 00:52:53,075
...one of the first works
of science fiction.

783
00:52:53,285 --> 00:52:56,721
It was intended to explain
and popularize science...

784
00:52:56,922 --> 00:52:59,823
...and was called The Somnium.

785
00:53:00,025 --> 00:53:01,287
"The Dream."

786
00:53:11,436 --> 00:53:14,269
He imagined a journey to the moon...

787
00:53:14,472 --> 00:53:17,498
...with the space travelers
standing on the lunar surface...

788
00:53:17,709 --> 00:53:22,271
...looking up to see,
rotating slowly above them...

789
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:25,210
...the lovely planet Earth.

790
00:53:27,185 --> 00:53:30,211
Part of the basis for the charge
of witchcraft was that...

791
00:53:30,422 --> 00:53:35,155
...in his dream, Kepler used his
mother's spells to leave the Earth.

792
00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:37,487
But he really believed that one day...

793
00:53:37,696 --> 00:53:41,029
...human beings would launch
celestial ships...

794
00:53:41,232 --> 00:53:44,633
...with sails adapted
to the breezes of heaven...

795
00:53:44,836 --> 00:53:47,498
...filled with explorers who,
he said...

796
00:53:47,706 --> 00:53:50,834
..."would not fear
the vastness of space."

797
00:53:51,476 --> 00:53:55,674
He speculated on the mountains,
valleys, craters...

798
00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:59,941
...climate and possible
inhabitants of the moon.

799
00:54:01,386 --> 00:54:02,546
Before Kepler...

800
00:54:02,754 --> 00:54:06,588
...astronomy had little connection
with physical reality.

801
00:54:07,459 --> 00:54:09,859
But with Kepler came the idea that...

802
00:54:10,061 --> 00:54:14,589
...a physical force moves
the planets in their orbits.

803
00:54:15,700 --> 00:54:19,261
He was the first
to combine a bold imagination...

804
00:54:19,471 --> 00:54:21,234
...with precise measurements...

805
00:54:21,439 --> 00:54:24,772
...to step out into the cosmos.

806
00:54:25,110 --> 00:54:27,738
It changed everything.

807
00:54:53,738 --> 00:54:56,832
This fusion of facts with dreams...

808
00:54:57,042 --> 00:54:59,772
...opened the way to the stars.

809
00:55:04,382 --> 00:55:05,576
As a boy...

810
00:55:05,784 --> 00:55:10,380
...Kepler had been captured
by a vision of cosmic splendor...

811
00:55:10,588 --> 00:55:12,385
...a harmony of the worlds...

812
00:55:12,590 --> 00:55:15,559
...which he sought so tirelessly
all his life.

813
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:18,957
Harmony in this world eluded him.

814
00:55:19,164 --> 00:55:21,632
His three laws of
planetary motion represent...

815
00:55:21,833 --> 00:55:22,822
...we now know...

816
00:55:23,034 --> 00:55:25,594
...a real harmony of the worlds.

817
00:55:25,804 --> 00:55:29,433
But to Kepler, they were
only incidental to his quest...

818
00:55:29,641 --> 00:55:33,168
...for a cosmic system
based on the perfect solids.

819
00:55:33,378 --> 00:55:37,610
A system which, it turns out,
existed only in his mind.

820
00:55:37,816 --> 00:55:40,080
Yet, from his work...

821
00:55:40,285 --> 00:55:44,085
...we have found that scientific laws
pervade all of nature...

822
00:55:44,289 --> 00:55:47,952
...that the same rules apply
on Earth as in the skies...

823
00:55:48,159 --> 00:55:51,754
...that we can find
a resonance, a harmony...

824
00:55:51,963 --> 00:55:56,059
...between the way we think
and the way the world works.
825
00:55:59,037 --> 00:56:02,268
When he found that his long-cherished
beliefs did not agree...

826
00:56:02,474 --> 00:56:04,601
...with the most
precise observations...

827
00:56:04,809 --> 00:56:07,505
...he accepted
the uncomfortable facts.

828
00:56:07,712 --> 00:56:10,647
He preferred the hard truth...

829
00:56:10,849 --> 00:56:13,443
...to his dearest illusions.

830
00:56:13,651 --> 00:56:16,677
That is the heart of science.