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...