Harmonices Mundi

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1619 first edition Harmonices Mundi[1] (Latin: The Harmony of the World, 1619) is a book by Johannes Kepler. In the work Kepler discusses harmony and congruence in geometrical forms and physical phenomena. The final section of the work relates his discovery of the so-called "third law of planetary motion".

Contents
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1 Content 2 See also 3 Notes 4 References 5 External links

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Kepler divides The Harmony of the World into five long chapters: the first is on regular polygons; the second is on the congruence of figures; the third is on the origin of harmonic proportions in music; the fourth is on harmonic configurations in astrology; and the fifth on the harmony of the motions of the planets. While medieval philosophers spoke metaphorically of the "music of the spheres", Kepler discovered physical harmonies in planetary motion. He found that the difference between the maximum and minimum angular speeds of a planet in its orbit approximates a harmonic proportion. For instance, the maximum angular speed of the Earth as measured from the Sun varies by a semitone (a ratio of 16:15), from mi to fa, between aphelion and perihelion. Venus only varies by a tiny 25:24 interval (called a diesis in musical terms).[2] Kepler explains the reason for the Earth's small harmonic range: The Earth sings Mi, Fa, Mi: you may infer even from the syllables that in this our home misery and famine hold sway. At very rare intervals all of the planets would sing together in "perfect concord": Kepler proposed that this may have happened only once in history, perhaps at the time of creation. Kepler also discovers that all but one of the ratios of the maximum and minimum speeds of planets on neighboring orbits approximate musical harmonies within a margin of error of less than a diesis (a 25:24 interval). The orbits of Mars and Jupiter produce the one exception to this rule, creating the unharmonic ratio of 18:19. In fact, the cause of Kepler's dissonance might be explained by the fact that the asteroid belt separates those two planetary orbits, as discovered in 1801, 150 years after Kepler's death. Kepler's previous book Astronomia nova related the discovery of the first two of the principles that we know today as Kepler's laws. The third law, which shows a constant proportionality between the cube of the semi-major axis of a planet's orbit and the square of the time of its orbital period, is set out in Chapter 5 of this book, immediately after a long digression on astrology.

[edit] See also

Pythagoreanism Musica universalis Mysterium Cosmographicum

[edit] Notes
1. ^ The full title is Ioannis Keppleri Harmonices mundi libri V (The Five Books of Johannes Kepler's The Harmony of the World). 2. ^ The opening of the movie Mars et Avril by Martin Villeneuve is based on German astronomer Johannes Keplers cosmological model from the 17th century, Harmonices Mundi, in which the harmony of the universe is determined by the motion of celestial bodies. Benot Charest also composed the score according to this theory.

[edit] References
This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (November 2009)

Johannes Kepler, The Harmony of the World. Tr.: Dr Juliet Field. Pub. by The American Philosophical Society, 1997. ISBN 0-87169-209-0 Johannes Kepler, The Harmony of the World. Tr. Charles Glenn Wallis. Chicago: Great Books of the Western World. Pub. by Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc., 1952. "Johannes Kepler," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159174-2

[edit] External links

Harmonices mundi ("The Harmony of the Worlds") in fulltext facsimile; CarnegieMellon University Harmonices Mundi at Archive.org Harmonies of the World excerpt from Harmonices Mundi translated by Charles Glenn Wallis [hide]

v t e

Johannes Kepler

Kepler conjecture Kepler's laws of planetary motion Kepler orbit Kepler triangle Kepler's equation Kepler polyhedra Kepler's Supernova

Scientific career

Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596) Astronomia nova (1609) Harmonices Mundi (1619) Rudolphine Tables (1627) Somnium (1634)

Works

Katharina Kepler (mother) Jakob Bartsch (son-in-law)

Family

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1619 books 1619 in science Astronomy books Astrological texts Physics books History of astronomy Pythagorean philosophy Astrological aspects Platonic solids Mathematics books Dynamics of the Solar System Harmony Works by Johannes Kepler