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Deep Reading of Kepler’s New Astronomy: An Exercise in Computational History of Science

  • Gerd Graßhoff
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Tools, Techniques, and Technologies
This chapter is in the book Tools, Techniques, and Technologies

Abstract

Deep reading, a newly proposed computational technique for extracting the semantics of scientific texts, offers unprecedented insights into historical works. This method, which analyses both textual content and visual elements, is applied to Johannes Kepler’s Astronomia nova. Through semantic parsing of Kepler’s writing and visual representations, deep reading reveals his step-by-step reasoning, the significance of epicyclic model diagrams, and his conclusions about planetary motion. The technique enables comprehensive examination of large corpora of historical scientific literature, uncovering meanings embedded in both text and images. When implemented in accordance with FAIR data principles, deep reading has the potential to transform research in computational history and philosophy of science, providing new understandings of past scholars’ research processes and knowledge development.

Abstract

Deep reading, a newly proposed computational technique for extracting the semantics of scientific texts, offers unprecedented insights into historical works. This method, which analyses both textual content and visual elements, is applied to Johannes Kepler’s Astronomia nova. Through semantic parsing of Kepler’s writing and visual representations, deep reading reveals his step-by-step reasoning, the significance of epicyclic model diagrams, and his conclusions about planetary motion. The technique enables comprehensive examination of large corpora of historical scientific literature, uncovering meanings embedded in both text and images. When implemented in accordance with FAIR data principles, deep reading has the potential to transform research in computational history and philosophy of science, providing new understandings of past scholars’ research processes and knowledge development.

Chapters in this book

  1. Acknowledgements
  2. Contents VII
  3. List of Figures and Tables IX
  4. Prologue: of Friendship and Fishponds 1
  5. Introduction 5
  6. Part I: Historiography, Disciplinary Categories, and Anachronism
  7. Greco-Roman Histories of Astronomy, Their Genres, and Their Afterlives 15
  8. When was Cosmology? The Curious History of a Disciplinary Category 33
  9. Surmise or Certainty: Women in Science in Antiquity 51
  10. Deep Reading of Kepler’s New Astronomy: An Exercise in Computational History of Science 65
  11. Part II: Scientific Writing: Genres, Authority, Authorship, and Audiences
  12. Narrative Elements in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals 83
  13. Style and Intended Readership of Theophrastus’ On Fire (De igne) 95
  14. Strategies of Moralising in the Pseudo-Vergilian Aetna 115
  15. Leonides of Alexandria’s Isopsephic Epigrams: An Astronomical Art? 131
  16. Faithful Marriages and Wild Unions: Palladius’ On Grafting 153
  17. Ancient Authority in Arabic-Islamic Scientific Writing and Practice 169
  18. “A Cabinet of Many Rare Secrets”: The Uses and Abuses of Aristotle’s Masterpiece 191
  19. Part III: Counting and Measuring: Tools, Diagrams, and Replicas
  20. The Various Uses of Numbers and Mathematics in Ancient Egypt 219
  21. Greek Sexagesimals and Zeros 231
  22. The Diagrams and Replicas of Richard of Wallingford’s Clock 253
  23. Measuring Magnetism: Retrospective on Theories and Instruments from Lucretius to Blackett and Bullard 279
  24. Ancients and Moderns in Tycho Brahe’s Astronomy 295
  25. Bibliography
  26. Index
  27. Index Locorum
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111010632-009

Chapters in this book

  1. Acknowledgements
  2. Contents VII
  3. List of Figures and Tables IX
  4. Prologue: of Friendship and Fishponds 1
  5. Introduction 5
  6. Part I: Historiography, Disciplinary Categories, and Anachronism
  7. Greco-Roman Histories of Astronomy, Their Genres, and Their Afterlives 15
  8. When was Cosmology? The Curious History of a Disciplinary Category 33
  9. Surmise or Certainty: Women in Science in Antiquity 51
  10. Deep Reading of Kepler’s New Astronomy: An Exercise in Computational History of Science 65
  11. Part II: Scientific Writing: Genres, Authority, Authorship, and Audiences
  12. Narrative Elements in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals 83
  13. Style and Intended Readership of Theophrastus’ On Fire (De igne) 95
  14. Strategies of Moralising in the Pseudo-Vergilian Aetna 115
  15. Leonides of Alexandria’s Isopsephic Epigrams: An Astronomical Art? 131
  16. Faithful Marriages and Wild Unions: Palladius’ On Grafting 153
  17. Ancient Authority in Arabic-Islamic Scientific Writing and Practice 169
  18. “A Cabinet of Many Rare Secrets”: The Uses and Abuses of Aristotle’s Masterpiece 191
  19. Part III: Counting and Measuring: Tools, Diagrams, and Replicas
  20. The Various Uses of Numbers and Mathematics in Ancient Egypt 219
  21. Greek Sexagesimals and Zeros 231
  22. The Diagrams and Replicas of Richard of Wallingford’s Clock 253
  23. Measuring Magnetism: Retrospective on Theories and Instruments from Lucretius to Blackett and Bullard 279
  24. Ancients and Moderns in Tycho Brahe’s Astronomy 295
  25. Bibliography
  26. Index
  27. Index Locorum
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