Meticulously detailed account of Kepler's bride computing process can be found in his letter to unknown nobleman (dated from Linz, 23 October 1613). I've read

Meticulously detailed account of Kepler's bride computing process can be found in his letter to unknown nobleman (dated from Linz, 23 October 1613). I've read just fragments of it from "The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe", the book by Arthur Koestler. Introductory paragraph (p. 399): "Kepler's first marriage had been engineered by his well wishers when he was penniless young teacher. Before his second marriage, friends and go-betweens again played a prominent part, but this time Kepler had to choose between no less than 11 candidates for his hand...". What follows could hardly IMHO put in any proper mathematical formula. In the best case it has to be modeled by some stochastic process with exponentially increasing number of random variables. Anyways, the book is more important than that and I cannot recommend it enough. There is nothing else to my knowledge that so convincingly describes how process of scientific discovery can be arbitrary, fragile and random. The mentioned 'choosing ideal bride' episode is merely anecdotal chapter in the book that better explains Kepler's role and importance in the history of science.