Kepler's essay, On the Six-Cornered Snowflake, provides the first published evidence of the ideas of regular arrangements and close-packing which have proved fundamental to crystallography. In it, Kepler ponders on the problem of why snowflakes are hexagonal, two centuries before the first successful steps were taken towards its solution.
The purpose of this volume is to display the historical, literary, scientific, and philosophical treasures of Kepler's essay. The book includes the modernized text of the 1611 Latin edition, with an English translation by Colin Hardie on the opposite pages. The text is accompanied by an introduction giving details of the history of the work, and two essays; Professor B. J. Mason's discussion of the scientific meaning and validity of Kepler's arguments and their relation to the history of
crystallography and of space filling, and L. L. Whyte's examination of Kepler's facultas formatrix in relation to the history of philosophical and scientific ideas on the genesis of forms.
- ISBN10 0198581203
- ISBN13 9780198581208
- Publish Date March 1966
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 17 October 2003
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Oxford University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 92
- Language English