Figuring summary

The life and work of Johannes Kepler, the world’s first astrophysicist, is striking in its own right. But the way his work in the 1600s would link up with other scientists and writers over the following centuries is equally remarkable.

Kepler’s astronomical discoveries fed into the future of many different scientific fields. At a time of widespread ignorance and superstition, he was one of the first adherents to Copernicus’s heliocentric model of the universe. He contributed key insights to the field of astronomy. For example, he was the first to suggest that the planets orbit the sun, not in circles, but in ellipses, the first to develop a scientific method of predicting eclipses, and the first to demonstrate that physical forces move the planets and stars in calculable paths through the night sky. 

Born on the island of Nantucket in 1818 into a family of Quakers, Maria Mitchell was a brilliant child captivated by the cosmos. But in the 1800s, science was still dominated by men. In order to become a serious astronomer, Mitchell had to fight an uphill battle.

But on the evening of October 1st, 1847, she made a discovery that would transform her life. Scouring the heavens with her beloved telescope that night, she spotted a tiny, brilliant speck moving across the sky – a new comet! She knew the cosmos like the back of her hand and she’d never noticed this bright little intruder before. Earlier that year, Europe’s chief patron of the sciences, the King of Denmark, had announced a prize for anyone who discovered a new comet. The victor would be awarded with a gold medal worth 20 ducats – a fortune back then.

The 19th century poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning thought that there were different types of beauty: in the arts, obviously, but also in physics and in morals. They were all reflections of an essential truth about the universe. Throughout the ages, many have shared this belief.

Galileo, too, was someone who considered the truth he found in his science to be beautiful. He refuted the prevailing geocentric model of the universe that held that the God-created Earth was at the center of everything. He discovered the first evidence against the unscientific dogma of the time when he was observing the different phases of Venus. If the prevailing opinion had been correct, then Venus could not be illuminated from the vantage point of Earth, as that would have put it on the far side of the sun. But through his telescope Galileo could see Venus all aglow in dark space. And representing such a powerful, controversial truth, he found the planet all the more beautiful.

In the 19th century, people who were deemed to have “irregular,” non-heteronormative relationships were sometimes described as “Uranian.” Derived from the name of the Greek goddess Aphrodite Urania, who was created out of the god Uranus’ testicles, Uranian referred to someone of the “third sex.” Today we’d recognize people described by this term, broadly speaking, as queer. 

However, because of the strictures of the past, many people throughout history have concealed their natures from others and even from themselves, too. History is full of relationships that were never quite realized, or defy easy definition.

The child of the Romantic poet Lord Byron and a mathematically brilliant aristocrat, Baroness Annabella Milbanke, Ada Lovelace, was born in 1815.

Byron and Milbanke’s marriage didn’t last long, however, after Byron was found to be having an affair with his half-sister, Augusta. Byron fled to Italy, then Greece.

The famous German poet Goethe also considered himself a scientist. Like many of the other people we’ve met so far, the two facets of imagination and reason came together to form Goethe’s genius. Although he left his mark mainly on the world of literature, his scientific legacy is surprising.

For instance, he is partly responsible for the names for clouds we use today.

When James Gleick was composing his biography of Richard Feynman in 1988, he discovered a letter that upended the late physicist’s public persona. The world had known Feynman as a rationalist immune to unreason, yet the letter revealed a whole new, sentimental side to the sober scientist. To understand its origins, we need to travel back to Feynman’s youth.

As a teenager, Feynman had fallen in love with a girl called Arline, who was as passionate about philosophy as he was about math. They pondered a life of bliss together.