Nicolaus Copernicus Biography

Nicolaus Copernicus (Mikoaj Kopernik) was a Renaissance polymath who devised a concept of the universe in which the Sun, rather than the Earth, is at its centre. Copernicus' theory was likely developed independently of Aristarchus of Samos, an ancient Greek astronomer who presented a comparable model in the 18th century. The publication of Nicolaus Copernicus model in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres), shortly before his death in the year 1543, was a watershed moment in scientific history, igniting the Copernican Revolution and opening the way for the Scientific Revolution. 

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Nicolaus Copernicus Education and Early Life

On February 19, 1473, Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Torun city, a city on the Vistula River in north-central Poland. Copernicus was born into a wealthy hawking family, and when his father died, his uncle, who eventually became a bishop, took him under his wing. He had the highest education available at the time and was raised to pursue a career in canon (church) law. He studied liberal arts at the University of Krakow, including astronomy and astrology, before being transferred to Italy to study medicine and law, like many Poles of his social class. He lived in the home of Domenico Maria de Novara, the university's main astronomer while studying at the University of Bologna. At the period, astronomy and astrology were intimately intertwined and held in high regard, and Novara was in charge of delivering Bologna's astrological prognostications. 

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Copernicus went on to study at the University of Padua and earned a doctorate in canon law from the University of Ferrara in 1503. He returned to Poland and worked as a church administrator and physician. He devoted his spare time to scholarly pursuits, which included astronomical studies on occasion. By 1514, his reputation as an astronomer had grown to the point where church leaders sought his advice on how to modify the Julian calendar.

Nicolaus Copernicus Theory: Heliocentric Solar System

Copernicus continued to study astronomy throughout his stay in Lidzbark-Warminski. Regiomontanus' 15th-century work Epitome of the Almagest, which gave an alternative to Ptolemy's model of the universe and influenced Copernicus' research, was one of the sources he used. Copernicus' celestial model, a heliocentric planetary system, is believed to have formed around 1508. In the second century A.D., Ptolemy constructed a geometric planetary model with eccentric circular motions and epicycles, diverging dramatically from Aristotle's idea that heavenly planets revolved around the earth in a fixed circular motion. In an attempt to resolve these contradictions, Copernicus' heliocentric solar theory designated the sun as the solar system's centre, rather than the earth. Copernicus then assumed that the size and speed of each planet's orbit were proportionate to its distance from the sun.

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Copernicus was not the first astronomer to propose a heliocentric system, though his theory was revolutionary and disputed. In the 3rd century, B.C. is the ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos defined the sun as a central unit orbited by rotating earth. However, in Copernicus' day, a heliocentric theory was ignored since Ptolemy's views were more commonly acknowledged by the powerful Roman Catholic Church, which firmly supported the earth-based solar system hypothesis. Copernicus' heliocentric theory, on the other hand, proved to be more thorough and accurate than Aristarchus', with a more efficient method for estimating planetary locations. Copernicus' dedication motivated him to construct his tiny observatory in 1513. Despite this, his observations occasionally led him to draw erroneous conclusions, such as his assumption that planetary orbits occurred in perfect circles.

Nicolaus Copernicus: Against the Ptolemaic System

Early 16th-century European cosmology held that the Earth stood immovable and stationary at the centre of several rotating, concentric spheres that bore the celestial bodies: the sun, moon, known planets, and stars.

Philosophers have held the belief that the heavens are arranged in circles (which are, by definition, perfectly round), which has caused consternation among astronomers who have observed the planets often eccentric motion, which appears to halt in their orbits around Earth and move across the blue sky. Ptolemy, an Alexandrian geographer and astronomer, proposed a solution to this difficulty in the second century A.D. by claiming that the sun, planets, and moon travel in small circles around much bigger circles that revolve around Earth. He termed these little circles epicycles, and by including many epicycles rotating at different speeds, he was able to make his celestial system correspond to the majority of recorded astronomical observations. For more than 1,000 years, Europe's established cosmology was the Ptolemaic system, but by Copernicus' time, astronomical evidence had put some of his assumptions into doubt. Astronomers argued on the sequence of the planets from Earth, and Copernicus addressed this issue at the start of the 16th century.

Nicolaus Copernicus Discoveries

Copernicus' groundbreaking theory that Earth and the planets revolve around the sun in "Six Books Concerning on the revolutions of the heavenly spheres" led to several other key astronomical discoveries. He claimed that, while circling the sun, Earth spins on its axis daily. The Earth takes a year to orbit the sun, and during that time, it wobbles on its axis, causing the equinoxes to precess. Copernicus book contains several major inaccuracies, including his belief that the sun is the centre of the entire universe, not simply the solar system, and his failure to grasp the reality of elliptical orbits, forcing him, like Ptolemy, to include several epicycles in his scheme. Earth and the planets continued to orbit the sun on massive glass spheres with no sense of gravity. “Mathematics is written for mathematicians,” Copernicus wrote in his dedication to De revolutionibus, an extremely dense scientific book. Many would have objected to the work's non-biblical and thus heretical idea of the universe if it had been more widely available. For decades, all but the most educated astronomers were unaware of De revolutionibus, and most of these individuals, although praising some of Copernicus' arguments, rejected his heliocentric basis. 

Nicolaus Copernicus’ Inventions

After finishing his studies in Italy, Copernicus returned to Warmia, where he would spend the next 40 years of his life, with brief trips to Kraków and surrounding Prussian places such as Toru (Thorn), Gdask (Danzig), Elblg (Elbing), Grudzidz (Graudenz), Malbork (Marienburg), and Königsberg (Królewiec). With its diet (assembly), monetary unit (the same as the rest of Royal Prussia), and treasury, the Prince-Bishopric of Warmia had considerable autonomy. 

Copernicus served as his uncle's secretary and physician from 1503 to 1510 (or maybe until his uncle's death on March 29, 1512), and he stayed at the metropolitan castle at Lidzbark, where he began work on his heliocentric theories. He participated in practically all of his uncle's political, religious, and administrative-economic tasks in his official position. From the beginning of 1504, Copernicus accompanied Watzenrode to Royal Prussian diet sessions in Malbork and Elblag, and "participated in all the more important events in the complex diplomatic game that ambitious politician and statesman played in defence of the good interests of Prussia," according to Dobrzycki and Hajdukiewicz. 

Nicolaus Copernicus’ Contributions

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The diagram included seven axioms, each of which described a different aspect of the heliocentric solar system:

1) Planets do not revolve around a single fixed point. 

2) The universe does not revolve around the earth.

3) The sun is at the centre of the universe, and all celestial bodies rotate around it.

4) The distance between the Earth and the Sun is only a fraction of the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

5) Stars do not move, and if they do, it is only because the Earth is moving.

Nicolaus Copernicus Quotes

• True knowledge is knowing that we know what we know and that we do not know what we do not know.

• Although all good arts help to lure man's mind away from vices and direct it toward better things, this art, which also brings exceptional intellectual pleasure, can play this role more fully.

• The Sun resides in the midst of everything. Who knows where else in this most gorgeous temple this light could be placed better than where he may simultaneously brighten the whole.

• Of all visible things, the heaven of fixed stars is the highest.

• Finally, the Sun himself will be placed at the centre of the Universe.

• I am aware that a philosopher's opinions are resistant to ordinary people's judgement because he strives to find the truth in everything, to the extent that God permits human reason to do so.

• Because I'm not so enamoured of my own beliefs that I don't care what others think. Those things I'm saying now seems rather obscure, but they'll become evident in their correct context.

Nicolaus Copernicus Death and Legacy

On May 24, 1543, Copernicus died in what is now Frombork, Poland. He died the same year his major book was published, avoiding the wrath of some religious leaders, who later declared his heliocentric theory of the world to be heresy. Galileo and Johannes Kepler did not establish and popularise the Copernican hypothesis until the early 17th century, which led to Galileo's trial and conviction for heresy.

Copernicus, a Polish astronomer, was born in Royal Prussia and died in Poland’s Kingdom, which had been a part of the Kingdom of Poland since 1466. He was a mathematician, astronomer, physician, classics scholar, translator, governor, diplomat, and economist, as well as a polyglot and polymath with a PhD in canon law. In 1517, he developed a quantity theory of money, a major notion in economics, and in 1519, he articulated Gresham's law, an economic principle. He was the first modern European scientist to postulate that the Earth and other planets revolve around the sun, and he is considered the father of modern astronomy.