FIBONACCI - HIS RABBITS AND HIS NUMBERS and KEPLER

y L.L. Whyte, a self effacing Oxford scholar (who does not even include his name in the title
sheet)! and must be regarded as a model for all such translations of the classics. Firstly there
is a synopsis of the Latin text nicely summarising Kepler’s important points. Then follows
a modernised Latin text with an English translation on the opposite page (by Colin Hardie).
Then follow notes on the text. Finally there are two delightful essays quite in the character
of Kepler’s monograph. The first by J. Mason “On the Shapes of Snow Chrystals" discusses
the scientific meaning and validity of Kepler’s arguments, and their relation to the history
of chrystallography and of space filling. The second essay is by the editor and amongst
other things is concerned with Kepler’s facultas formatrix - the formative process -which
in modern terms is a comprehensive theory of complex partially ordered systems showing
how and why they move towards equilibrium states. Whyte also shows how this process is
related to the history of philosophical and scientific ideas on the genesis of forms and gives
a summary of the problem of “sixthness" from 1611 to 1962.
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