Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler: The Lives of the Early Modern Astronomers Whose Partnership Revolutionized the Field of Astronomy

By: Charles River Editors

Narrated by: Colin Fluxman

Length: 2 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

“That the machine of Heaven is not a hard and impervious body full of various real spheres, as up to now has been believed by most people. It will be proved that it extends everywhere, most fluid and simple, and nowhere presents obstacles as was formerly held, the circuits of the Planets being wholly free and without the labour and whirling round of any real spheres at all, being divinely governed under a given law.” - Tycho Brahe 

A mystical dwarf jester gifted with the second sight. A pet elk with an incurable addiction to booze. A kidnapping in broad daylight. A daunting dictator who dines with kings and princes in his miniature kingdom. These may seem like characters and elements lifted straight out of a medieval fantasy novel, but they are just a few of the bizarre, fascinating episodes that make up Tycho Brahe's strange life. Of all the stories, Brahe’s death may be the strangest of all, and it has led to the exhumation of his corpse on multiple occasions, in one case more than 400 years after he died.

Trying to define a man who had the qualities of a mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, inventor, and astrologer can prove difficult. But all of that can be ascribed to Johannes Kepler, one of the giants of his era who ushered in the Scientific Revolution and is often considered the first modern scientist. Kepler stood at a moment in time when the intellectual worldview of most in northern Europe was medieval in nature, influenced mostly by spirituality, mysticism, religion, and metaphysics. Kepler, however, was far-thinking in his outlook, taking advantages of the latest technological ideas from the Renaissance and the new translations of Greco-Roman philosophers from out of the Spanish kingdoms and the former-Byzantine Empire. Kepler himself struggled with the seemingly incongruous division between metaphysics and empiricism. By practicing empiricism and coming up with his famous laws of planetary motion, he was forced to defend his positions against a number of important ideas in western philosophy and the contemporary understanding of nature and the cosmos. All the while, Kepler was never able to escape the medieval mind he possessed, and he looked for God in the designs of the cosmos, thus attempting to wed the supernatural to the physical. 

Ironically, Kepler never produced results that confirmed his worldview of the cosmos - he never found the divine design of nature - but he did produce ideas that led to the view of today's universe. As such, Kepler’s work came to form the backbone of modern astronomy.

Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler: The Lives of the Early Modern Astronomers Whose Partnership Revolutionized the Field of Astronomy examines the work that made the two of them some of history’s most important scientists. You will learn about Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler like never before.

©2018 Charles River Editors (P)2018 Charles River Editors

great book

Even if I didn't have a science background and live nearby a Brahe castle, I would have thought this was a highly interesting and entertaining book, especially the parts pertaining to Tycho Brahe. I gave the story itself 4 stars however, because Kepler's section was full of repetitions.

I listened to this at 1.75x speed.

An ARC of the audiobook was given to me, but that did not affect my review.

The Life and Work of Early European Astronomers

A brief and interesting biography of Brahe and Kepler which contains a lot of facts and explanations of their stories but also just enough silly incidents and scandalous skeletons to keep it from being too dry.

I mostly enjoyed it, but there seemed to be some parts that were very repetitive (almost verbatim) and I couldn't tell whether it was because the audio file sometimes had pieces out of order and included them twice or whether the original script actually retold some narratives in more than one chapter as it switched from Brahe to Kepler and back again.

Anyway, in spite of the repetition, I enjoyed the book and learned a lot about to of the luminaries of the field of astronomy.

Great introduction to these two

This is the third book I’ve read/listened to by Charles River Editors and this book did not disappoint.
Again, they’ve offered up a condensed, informative, interesting book. I’d not know anything about these people before listening. I like the little tidbits like...he made his own and wore a prosthetic nose.

This is the third book I’ve listened to by this narrator ( Colin Fluxman ) and I would listen to another. He does well narrating these books. He has a style appropriate to a historical book. He avoids being dry and has good expression.

There are no explicit sex scenes, excessive violence or swearing.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and voluntarily left this unbiased review.
Please feel free to comment on whether you found my review helpful.

Well researched and informative

Interesting background information on 2 of the most instrumental scientists in history. Colin Fluxman did good...especially with the name pronunciations.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

short and sweet

This short book gives a good introduction to the two men who worked together but were actually rivals. Together their work paved the way for a more accurate picture of the solar system. Brahe also made many important instruments for his astronomical observations.

It's an easy listen before you plunge into a more serious work on the topic; good to find out if you're really interested! The book discusses the religious and political forces at play in these men's lives.

I couldn't tell if the audio repeated or the writing did, but there were three times the same paragraphs were read.
The narrator's voice is easy enough to listen to, there's no performance. You can be glad that whoever intro'd the reading didn't do the actual reading--he was horribly obnoxious!