It was, however, easy to show that
this supposition did not agree with the fact. Finding that this
simple relation would not do, Kepler undertook a vast series of
calculations to find out the true method of expressing the
connection. At last, after many vain attempts, he found, to his
indescribable joy, that the square of the time in which a planet
revolves around the sun was proportional to the cube of the average
distance of the planet from that body.
The extraordinary way in which Kepler's views on celestial matters
were associated with the wildest speculations, is well illustrated in
the work in which he propounded his splendid discovery just referred
to. The announcement of the law connecting the distances of the
planets from the sun with their periodic times, was then mixed up
with a preposterous conception about the properties of the different
planets. They were supposed to be associated with some profound
music of the spheres inaudible to human ears, and performed only for
the benefit of that being whose soul formed the animating spirit of
the sun.
Kepler was also the first astronomer who ever ventured to predict the
occurrence of that remarkable phenomenon, the transit of a planet in
front of the sun's disc.
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