We find, therefore, under this orderly arrangement, a wonderful symmetry in the universe, and a definite relation of harmony in the motion and magnitude of the orbs, of a kind that is not possible to obtain in any other way.
Interpretation
Kepler highlights the structured beauty and harmony of the universe's celestial bodies.
In this quote, Johannes Kepler expresses the profound order and symmetry found in the universe, emphasizing that celestial bodies, such as planets, exist in a harmonious relationship defined by their motion and size. He suggests that this meticulous arrangement evidences a greater design and structure within the cosmos, a beauty that can only be appreciated through careful observation and understanding of their interactions.
In practice
This quote can be used in a lecture about astronomy to illustrate the beauty of the cosmos.
...Those laws are within the grasp of the human mind. God wanted us to recognize them by creating us after his own image so that we could share in his own thoughts... and if piety allow us to say so, our understanding is in this respect of the same kind as the divine, at least as far as we are able to grasp something of it in our mortal life.
A most unfailing experience... of the excitement of sublunary (that is, human) natures by the conjunctions and aspects of the planets has instructed and compelled my unwilling belief.
I am stealing the golden vessels of the Egyptians to build a tabernacle to my God from them, far far away from the boundaries of Egypt. If you forgive me, I shall rejoice; if you are enraged with me, I shall bear it. See, I cast the die, and I write the book. Whether it is to be read by the people of the present or of the future makes no difference: let it await its reader for a hundred years, if God himself has stood ready for six thousand years for one to study him.
Eyesight should learn from reason.
I measured the skies, now the shadows I measure, Sky-bound was the mind, earth-bound the body rests. [Kepler's epitaph]
It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.
We wouldn't think of going to our doctor and saying 'Treat me the way doctors treated people in the 19th Century', and yet that's what we're demanding in food production.
To decide upon the answer is not scientific. In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar ajar only.
Certainly I see the scientific view of the world as incompatible with religion, but that is not what is interesting about it. It is also incompatible with magic, but that also is not worth stressing. What is interesting about the scientific world view is that it is true, inspiring, remarkable and that it unites a whole lot of phenomena under a single heading.
As, pricked out with less and greater lights, between the poles of the universe, the Milky Way so gleameth white as to set very sages questioning.
If you represent the Earth's lifetime by a single year, say from January when it was made to December, the 21st-century would be a quarter of a second in June - a tiny fraction of the year. But even in this concertinaed cosmic perspective, our century is very, very special: the first when humans can change themselves and their home planet.
I would like nuclear fusion to become a practical power source. It would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.
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