Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler (1571 to 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician and natural philosopher best known for his laws of planetary motion. His place in computing is the long calculation behind the Rudolphine Tables, the planetary tables that Tycho Brahe began and Kepler completed in 1627, and his use of logarithms to ease that work. After reading John Napier's work in 1617 he published his own logarithm table, the Chilias logarithmorum, in 1624. He studied at the Tübinger Stift of the University of Tübingen under Michael Maestlin and later served as imperial mathematician to Rudolf II and his successors. In this atlas he is an example of how astronomy drove the demand for accurate numerical tables.