Wolfgang Osterhage, born in 1948, holds Ph.D.s in Physics and Information Science. He is a consultant to international organisations and corporations, and a lecturer and visiting professor at various institutions in Germany. After many years of professional activity in other countries, he now lives and works as an independent author in the Rhineland.

Introduction: Scope.- The Order of Things: the quest for world harmony.- Time and Space: historic context and political and economic situation in Middle Europe.- Childhood and Youth (1571-1594): studies and exams in southern Germany; first encounters with Greek mysticism and the work of Copernicus.- Graz -professorship, "Mysterium cosmographicum", correspondence with Galileo.- Prague - cooperation and discord with Tycho Brahe, Mars data, Tabulae Rudolphinae, "Astronomia Nova", first and second law of planetary movements, various publications, the telescope.- Linz - torn between Lutheranism, Calvinism and Catholicism, "Harmonices Mundi", third law of planetary movements, logarithms.- Between Ulm and Prague - completion of the Tabulae Rudolphinae, encounter with Wallenstein, prognostica.- Sagan - court astrologer; death in Regensburg.- The Order of Things Revisited - the dismantling of world harmony, deconstruction and back to the unification attempts of modern physics.