Kepler talk II - Biography class

Not much work the last couple of days. Tuesday was spent at my mum's sorting out her Christmas shopping, yesterday we were in Oxford doing some of our shopping and then Emma needed a lift to the station to go to London for another interview. The weather is getting noticeably colder and there was even some snow in London.

Today Linda and Emma have gone to London for a day out and I have an entire day free for work. Starting at 6:00, I began drafting a short piece for tonight's biography class. We are supposed to have selected something that presents a challenge in respect of our chosen subject. I have therefore decided to do the period 1603-1604 for Kepler in respect of the nova of 1604 and Kepler's changing view of astrology. It takes about five hours to knock out the five sides of material. Overall I am really happy with this. I still don't do anywhere near enough writing (at least compared to reading) and so to have a piece work well is quite a change.

For the rest of the day I was mainly working on a couple of chapters from The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. About 500 pages of the 900 pages of this are relevant to my current work. I nearly bought a copy but instead am working from the LSE copy. Also looking at an article by Miguel Granada on Aristotle, Copernicus and Bruno and the topic of centrality and the size of the universe. And one last push is required to finish Field's Kepler's Geometrical Cosmology.

The evening biography class is a big success. Feedback is universally positive, despite the complex subject. Indeed most feel it is extremely interesting rather than obscure and uninteresting. After the class, as we have a quick drink in the downstairs bar, our class teacher repeats his praise for the piece and suggests that this is already close to the standard that a biography should be. He asked me how long it had taken to get to this version and is somewhat surprised when I say I had knocked it out this morning (as are the other class members who overheard this). This supports his view that I am definitely on the right tracks. I am, ofcourse, extremely pleased with these comments!