Heavenly Intrigue: Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and the Murder Behind One of History's Greatest Scientific Discoveries Book

Johannes Kepler changed forever our understanding of the universe. Through his efforts to chart the orbits of the planets—elliptical, not circular—Kepler became one of the most important astronomers of all time. His contributions continued as he laid the groundwork for the discovery of gravitation, setting physics on the course of revelation it follows to this day. Yet if it hadn't been for the now lesser known Tycho Brahe, the Royal Court Mathematician at Prague, the man for whom Kepler worked, Kepler would be a mere footnote in today's science books. Brahe was the foremost astronomer of his era and one of the first great systematic empirical thinkers and earliest founders of the modern scientific method. His forty years of planetary observations—an unparalleled treasure of empirical data—contained the key to Kepler's monumental revelation of elliptical orbit. These observations, essential to Kepler's breakthrough, became available to Kepler only after Brahe's death. This groundbreaking history portrays the stormy collaboration of these two astronomers at the turn of the seventeenth century and their shattering discoveries that would mark the transition from medieval to modern science.

Yet that is only half the story. Based on recent forensic evidence (analyzed here for the first time) and original research into the medieval/renaissance history of alchemy, and buttressed by in-depth interviews with leading historians, scientists, and medical specialists, the authors have put together shocking and compelling evidence that Tycho Brahe did not die of natural causes, as has been believed for four hundred years, but was systematically poisoned—most likely by his former assistant, Johannes Kepler.

An epic of scientific discovery, HEAVENLY INTRIGUE is a tale of protean modern astronomy, personal ambition, the search for truth and beauty amid power politics, court intrigue, superstition, and the ever present quest to reach farther into the universe.