Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
500 years ago, Nicolaus Copernicus invented a new way to calculate the positions of the planets. He came to the conclusion that the Earth is not in the centre of the universe. A dangerous conclusion in those days. People had been burned at the stake for saying this.
This makes Nicolaus a real Scientific Superstar. He dared to go against everybody else’s beliefs, even against the most powerful authorities. This was the Copernican Revolution that changed science forever.
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Copernicus, who lent his name to our journal, was the first modern astronomer. He lived around 500 years ago in Poland. He was the first who openly stated that the Earth, like the other planets, revolved around the Sun. He even wrote a book about it, with the Latin title “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium”, which means: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. Copernicus’ book, first published in 1543, turned the world of science upside down and started a completely new way of looking at the world and the universe.
 De Revolutionibus in Copernicus' own handwriting, finished shortly before his death. |
Copernicus’ book was an immense step forward. Five hundred years later, we may find it hard to understand why. We take his ideas for granted. Yet, for the people living then the Earth was the centre of God’s Creation. For them, it was a truly frightening idea that we might live on just another planet orbiting around the Sun. Even more so because this idea was strictly forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, many people who doubted the official church doctrine had been thrown in jail, tortured, or even burned at the stake.
Nicolaus did not risk his life, however. Mainly because he was no longer alive when his book made an impact on 16th century Europe. He lived just long enough to see the printed pages when they arrived from the printer in German Nuremberg. A few days later he died a happy man.
Read more about Copernicus
His Polish name was Mikolaj Kopernigk but, as was the fashion of that time, it was renamed in Latin to Nicolaus Copernicus. He was born in Torun on 19 February 1473, the youngest of four children of a wealthy merchant and his rich wife. The family had a big house in town, but they also had a summer residence with vineyards in the countryside.
His father died when Nicolaus was ten years old. His uncle, a high priest who would later become bishop, became guardian of the four children. He later helped Nicolaus with his studies and gave him a job.
As a young man, Nicolaus had travelled around in Europe. He studied mathematics and astrology at Cracow University in Poland, starting one year before Columbus discovered America. At 22, he visited several universities in Germany and then went to Italy to study law and medicine in Bologna, Padua and Ferrara.
It was in Bologna where Copernicus made his first observations of the skies. He soon discovered that something was wrong in the books of the ancient Greek astronomers. This stimulated him to think of better ways to explain the movements of the stars and planets across the sky.
Read more about his life and work
Back in Poland after five years living abroad, he became more and more interested in astronomy, his life work.
 Copernicus’ study in the cathedral tower. Behind this room was the platform from where he made his observations of stars and planets. The big round object behind the desk is an instrument used to calculate star positions, already used by the ancient Greek astronomers. |
His uncle, by now bishop of Warmia, had given him an important position at the cathedral of Frombork in northern Poland.
At first, he was very busy with church matters. His medicine study in Padua came in quite useful as his uncle fell seriously ill. He succeeded in curing him and since then the cathedral payed him a good doctor’s salary on top of his other earnings. With his uncle’s influence he could have become an important clergyman. Instead, he chose to spend as much time as possible for his studies of mathematics and astronomy. In his spare time he painted and translated Greek poems into Latin.
Copernicus made his observations of the sky from an observation platform built in the back of his house for his astronomical instruments. Most of the time, however, he was busy making calculations and checking the observations by astronomers 1000 years before him.
Read more about the revolution Copernicus started
After many years of study, he came to the conclusion that the Earth rotated on its axis once daily and travelled around the sun once yearly. This at once made it much easier to explain the apparent movements of the planets across the sky, while other astronomers needed very complicated calculations.
 This drawing of a heliocentric Universe: the Sun (Sol.) in the centre and the planets revolving around it is from Copernicus' book |
Copernicus did not live long enough to enjoy the immense succes of his revolutionary findings. “De Revolutionibus” made an enormous stir in Renaissance Europe. It did not take other scientists long to accept his ideas. The Copernican Revolution was the start of modern science.
It took some time, but sixty years after publication, the Church fully rejected “De Revolutionibus” and banned the book. The great reformer Martin Luther said about Copernicus: “This fool wants to turn the entire science of astronomy upside down! But, as the Bible tells us, Joshua told the Sun, not the Earth, to stop in its path!”
Was he a fool? Read more
The idea that the whole universe circles around the Earth was not as stupid as you might think. It is exactly what you see when you watch the sky. Only when you look very carefully, make very accurate measurements, day after day, year after year, of the positions of the Sun, the Moon, the planets and the stars, you will notice that something is amiss.
Yet, you could only find this out with the help of a telescope, which the Greek astronomers did not have. They only had very simple instruments to measure the positions of heavenly bodies.
 Medieval astronomers measuring the position of the moon and stars and the height of towers with a cross staff. |
The astonishing fact is – and this is what makes Copernicus one of the greatest scientists ever – that telescopes were only invented 100 years after his death. The Italian Galileo Galilei and the Dutch Christiaan Huygens were the first to look at the sky through a telescope. They were the first astronomers to produce the scientific evidence that Copernicus was right after all.
The Earth no longer was the centre of the Universe. The Sun was, although we now know that even this is too simple. The Sun, together with billions of other stars is part of the Milky Way, which again is one of billions of galaxies moving around in a vast and almost empty space.
How did Copernicus come to his truly revolutionary conclusions without the proper instruments to prove them?
They concluded that the Sun and the rest of the Universe revolved around the Earth. The Church had gladly adopted this view since it meant that Mankind was the centre of the Creation, just as it reads in the Bible.
 Astronomers at the Istanbul Observatory during the Middle Ages. If not for the Arabian astronomers and mathematicians we would not have science as we know it today. They studied the ancient Greek science, which in Europe was almost forgotten during the Dark Ages. Among many other things, Arabian scientists invented algebra and made many observations of stars and planets. |
This is what makes someone a Scientific Superstar: not believing what everyone else believes, and not giving in to authorities no matter how powerful they are.
You see, it’s not always wrong to know things better than your teachers.
Dick van der Wateren
Sources
The photos in this article are courtesy of the Nicolaus Copernicus Museum in Frombork, Poland. http://www.frombork.art.pl/Ang01.htm
Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Revolutionibus_Orbium_Coelestium
This site shows pages from Copernicus’ manuscript of De Revolutionibus.
Links
This applet illustrates the way Ptolemy (Greek astronomer, 85 - 165 A.D.), Copernicus and Tycho Brahe (Danish astronomer, 1546 - 1601) viewed the universe. Ptolemy had the Earth in the centre, Copernicus and Tycho the Sun. See the difference between Copernicus' and Brahe's models.
Have a look at The Animated Virtual Planetarium with The "Visible" Solar System, Earth/Moon System Simulation, Comets and much more.
Here are some more applets from the same site (by Helmer Aslaksen, Department of Mathematics, National University of Singapore).
This site is about the astronomical use of the Stonehenge monument in ancient times.
Experiment
It’s now time to do some experiments. Build a simple instrument like the Greek astronomers used. Learn how to measure the positions of heavenly objects.
Experiment>>
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