Johannes Kepler, Nova stereometria doliorum vinariorum / New solid geometry of Wine Varrels suivi de Accessit stereometriae archimedeae supplementum / A supplement to the Archimedean solid geometry has been added: Eberhard Knobloch

摘要

Johannes Kepler was an extremely prolific thinker. A non-exhaustive list of disciplines to which he contributed would include astronomy and astrology, physics, optics, music theory, chronology, and pure geometry. In turn, his many interests have furnished ample material for diverse studies over the last half-century. A glance over the secondary literature will show that most of this scholarship has focused on his technical astronomy, his natural philosophy and his epistemology. In the last few years, we have seen a number of fine book-length studies -from scholars like Raz-Chen Morris, Aviva Rothman, Patrick Boner and Ulinka Rublack- that have sought to reconsider the coherence of his thought and to ground him in wider intellectual and social contexts. In the midst of all this richness, I have often wondered when and if we might witness renewed attention for Kepler's mathematics. Hopefully, Eberhard Knobloch's new translation of Kepler's Nova stereometria doliorutn vinariorum (New solid geometry of wine barrels) will help to spur fresh study of Kepler among historians and philosophers of mathematics. It is the first full modern language translation of Kepler's chief mathematical contribution, as Franz Hammer called it, which has long been appreciated as one of the most important early seventeenth century works to employ infinitesimals and to do so through a range of creative techniques. Along with the early books of the Harmonice mundi and the treatment of conies in the Ad Vitellionem paralipomena, it shows Kepler as a kind of mathematical Ovid -conjuring, examining and transforming geometrical creatures, from the exotic to the mundane.