There are many figures in science that are fascinating. Not only from the point of view of the importance of their discoveries, but also from the person behind the figure, as well as their times and common beliefs. For example, Isaac Newton is a complex and fascinating figure. He is without a doubt one of the greatest physics of all time, but he was also a difficult personality and made things like taking an effort in obscuring Robert Hooke research on gravitation.

But among all the scientists from the ages, there are two that I have a special kind of appreciation: Johannes Kepler and Richard Feynman. This appreciation is sightly related in both cases.

Beautiful models

Johannes Kepler

Up to the 18th century, there were only six planets known, that had been known since ancient times. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Of course, until the heliocentrism Earth wasn’t considered a planet, but at Kepler time, the fact that Earth was a planet just like the others, orbiting around the Sun was settling down. So, Kepler, who was a very religious man and studied previously theology, convinced himself that there should be a relationship between regular polygons and the different planets. And he worked hardly, adjusting his model to work with tridimensional polyhedra, the most significant Platonic solids. When ordered properly, the orbits of the planets, represented by spheres, will be engraved one after the other!

Just imagine what that model will mean for Kepler. You have a relatively simple model that shows the Solar system has a direct relationship with the five Platonic solids (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron) which carried, for a long time, a deep philosophical meaning of perfection. And all is consistent with the astronomical data that was available at the time! Amazing! The model is beautiful to our eyes, but for Kepler I can only imagine that it has to be also wonderful and spiritual.

But, of course, reality is not what we want it to be. Later, Kepler worked with the astronomer Tycho Brahe, who had the best observatory of the world, and refine all the measurements and calculations. And, guess what? The numbers did not add up. There was an small, but consistent, deviation from the model. And the precious, perfect circles weren’t true.

Roll 2D8 to advance to the next planet

Can you imagine how devastating that discovery had to be for Johannes? The model MADE SENSE. The model was PERFECT. And yet the real world measurements shows that it can’t be. There has been others, during history, that had faced this kind of challenge and hided the data, manipulated the numbers, or closed their eyes. Kepler did what he had to do. Be honest and modify his model. He didn’t make this with a smile. That was awful and disconcerting, and felt like a failure. Why ellipses? Why God did not design the Universe using circles? It took years to get to that conclusion. But he corrected his model using ellipses.

And that is now known as Kepler’s First Law of planetary movement: “The orbit of every planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci.”

And I think that has to be extremely hard, at a very personal level. And I admire him for being honest, not hiding the data, and being able to move on, even if he felt awful about that. I always keep in mind that properly measured real world data is paramount. And that hiding your failures under the carpet takes you nowhere.

The model itself, of course, is completely blown away the moment you add an extra planet, but it is still beautiful. I’d love to be able to buy one wooden Kepler model and have it on my desk. 

Atypical stereotype

Careful now, I’m making science

I think that Richard Feynman is probably one of the most loved scientists among scientists and technical people, but, strangely, not so much for the general population. And it’s a shame, because the stereotype of the scientist is mostly based on Albert Einstein. Well, probably on an already stereotyped version of Einstein, You know, oblivious to mundane things; interested on very complex, indecipherable things; talking almost in riddles; locked up on his lab; long curly grey hair, etc… Don’t you laugh when a “scientist” on a movie says something totally cryptic to describe a simple phenomenon?

But Feynman was sort of the opposite of all those common misconceptions. He was an extremely vital, passionate man. He was funny. He find everything surrounding him fascinating. He travel extensively around the world. He was eloquent and an excellent teacher and communicator. He played bongos. He went to samba school in Brazil. He used to write physics equations on paper placemats on a topless bar. All of that while winning a Nobel Prize and being one of the best physicists of the 20th Century.

He was a truly fascinating man. We are fortunate to have a quite extensive record of interviews and books with his thoughts. I like specially his brief description of the key to science in this video, which is related to the story about Kepler.

He also said (about the Challenger disaster, as he played an important part on the commission that analysed the disaster)

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

There are lots of videos on YouTube where Feynman talks about his views on the world. I would recommend watching them, they are very interesting.

Curiously, Einstein is a good example of a scientists that wasn’t able to accept reality. He never totally accepted quantum physics. Don’t be too hard, Einstein still was awesome.

Bring in the code

But I also try to keep these premises in mind. As I said before, the world is not the way we like it to be, it’s the way it is.

And I find that is a reminder to have when I work. Software development is not usually about science, but about engineering. Related but not exactly the same thing.

We developers tend to develop love for our precious. Our favourite set of tools, frameworks, programming languages, operative systems, editor, etc… But specially our code, our modules, the ones that we have developed, as we have put ourselves on them. Most of the time, they are fine. There are lot of choices that are really a matter of taste.

But we should keep an eye on reality. Measure carefully to be sure when things stop bending and start breaking. Do not lie yourself with meaningless benchmarks, but with the best, stressful test that you can perform on your system. And when there are problems, and our failure is irrefutable, accept it and be able to move on.

It is not easy. I don’t like being wrong. It hurts. But it is the only honest solution. And I find wisdom in Feynman to know how to proceed and courage in Kepler to accept the results.