Western Culture Global Presents The Top 100 Heroes of Western Culture These individuals have most contributed to replacing ignorance with knowledge, savagery with civilization, disease with health, tyranny with liberty, poverty with abundance, and despair with happiness. #17: Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) Kepler (1571-1630) was a German mathematician and astronomer who strongly contributed to the development of the scientific method and, consequently, the Scientific Revolution. He is best known for his three laws of planetary motion which would later provide one of the foundations for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation. The method he used to discover the three laws was a substantial step toward the birth of modern science. He was a pioneer in the use of the scientific method and employed many of its steps to develop his three laws, including hypothesis, observation (via Tycho Brahe's planetary tables) and testing. Further, his three laws made the complex simple and understandable, suggesting that the seemingly inexplicable universe is ultimately lawful and within the grasp of the human mind. In other words, he helped to establish that the universe operates mechanistically, not by purpose or supernatural intervention -- a pillar of modern science. Or in his words: "...the heavenly machine is not a kind of divine, live being, but a kind of clockwork, insofar as nearly all the manifold motions are caused by a most simple... material force, just as all motions of the clock are caused by a simple weight." Kepler's achievements played a critical role in bring about the unprecedented explosion of discovery and advancement that characterized the Scientific Revolution. Go to #18: Edward Coke Top 100 Western Culture Heroes — Home Top 100 Western Culture Heroes — by Numerical Order Top 100 Western Culture Heroes — by Century Top 100 Western Culture Heroes — by Category
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