Kepler's laws

British  

plural noun

1. three laws of planetary motion published by Johannes Kepler between 1609 and 1619. The first states that the orbit of a planet describes an ellipse with the sun at one focus. The second states that, during one orbit, the straight line joining the sun and a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times. The third states that the squares of the periods of any two planets are proportional to the cubes of their orbital major axes

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Kepler's laws

A ring is a collection of vast numbers of particles, each like a tiny moon obeying Kepler’s laws as it follows its own orbit around the planet.

From Textbooks ● Oct. 13, 2016

From the observed motion and the period of the “wiggle,” they could deduce the mass of Jupiter and its distance using Kepler’s laws.

From Textbooks ● Oct. 13, 2016

Kepler’s laws were formulated based on observations from Brahe; however, they were not proved formally until Sir Isaac Newton was able to apply calculus.

From Textbooks ● Mar. 30, 2016

Kepler’s laws showed that Copernicus’s basic ideas were true.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2012

Ptolemy gave the astrologers the information they needed, and Newton explained Kepler’s laws of planetary motion.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton