Laws of Planetary Motion
Like many creative persons, Johannes Kepler was an outsider to his field of discovery. He was a devout theologian, not an astronomer by training. In fact, theology played a major role in his discovery in the form an analogy.
Kepler's interest in astronomy was aroused by Canon Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies which he read at the age of twenty five. Copernicus had challenged the idea of earth being the center of the universe, and had substituted it with a model of sun-centred universe. It was a revolutionary treatise which contradicted the theological doctrine (a reason why Copernicus kept his ideas to himself during his lifetime, and published them only when nearing his death). The reason why Copernicus' thesis appealed to Kepler was not because its scientific rationale, but because it made "metaphysical" sense to him. He was encouraged by the similarity between the sun, planets and space, and the concept of the Holy Trinity. For him the sun was the Father "who distributes his motive force through a medium which contains the moving bodies, even as the Father creates through the Holy Ghost."
While Kepler's work further demolished the theological geocentric doctrine, paradoxically, it was the religious conviction - that the Father (sun) exerted force through the Holy Ghost (space) on the Son (planets) - which kept Kepler inspired through his extended labour.
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