Johannes Kepler was born the son of a poor mercenary soldier in 1571 in Weil der Stadt, Württemberg in the Holy Roman Empire. He began his studies in Württemberg through a scholarship program designed to train Lutheran teachers and pastors. In 1589, Kepler entered the theological seminary at the University of Tübingen. It was here that he first learned Copernican astronomy from Michael Maestlin. The University of Tübingen awarded Kepler his master's degree in 1591. In 1594, Kepler interrupted his theological studies and accepted a position as professor of mathematics at the Lutheran school in Graz. However, he was later removed from office in 1600 due to religious persecution and a standing order for all Lutherans to leave the district. Earlier that year, Kepler worked temporarily with Emperor Rudolf II's imperial mathematician, Tycho Brahe. . Kepler then traveled to Prague to join Brahe and work as his assistant until Brahe's death in 1601, when Kepler was named the imperial mathematician's successor. This appointment was the most prestigious honor in all of Europe for mathematics at its time. While working as Brahe's assistant, Kepler was given the task of studying and attempting to understand the orbit of the planet Mars. The orbit of Mars was particularly difficult because Copernicus had correctly placed the Sun at the center of the solar system, but was mistaken in his assumption of circular planetary orbits. After many experiments and mathematical calculations, he finally realized that the obituaries of the planets were in fact not circular as Aristotle had previously insisted and Copernicus assumed to be correct, but that they were in fact more shaped elliptical. The fact that Mars has the most elliptical orbit of all the orbits for which Kepler had data led Kepler to finally formulate the correct theory for the solar system. After Brahe's death, Kepler was able to obtain all of Brahe's data and observations. Using Brahe's large and precise data, Kepler was able to use his knowledge of the elliptical orbits of the planets to formulate his three laws of planetary motion, his most important achievement and the one for which history most remembers him. planetary motion is "The orbits of the planets are ellipses, with the Sun at one of the foci of the ellipse." The Sun is not at the center of the ellipse but at a focus. The planet then follows the ellipse in its orbit, meaning that the planet-Sun distance constantly changes as the planet circles its orbit...