Nicolaus_Copernicus

Jessica Sandoval 12/27/04 Nicolaus Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicus was a Polish scientist, who developed a Sun-centered theory of the solar system. He is known as the founder of modern astronomy. He had many different jobs. He was a doctor, lawyer, author, judge and tax collector, astronomer, mathematician, and economist. He was also a governor, an administrator, an astrologer, and a church canon. A canon is a Christian priest who is specifically attached to a cathedral and has responsibility for some part of its running. Nicolaus Copernicus was born on February 19 1473 in Torun, Poland. His father, Nicolaus Koppernigk, had lived in Krakow. Copernicus’s father moved to Torun in 1460. In Torun, he set up a business trading copper. He was also interested in local politics and became a city leader in Torun and a judge. About 1463, Nicolaus Koppernigk married Barbara Watzenrode, who came from a wealthy family from Torun. They had a house on St Anne's Street in Torun. They also had a summer residence out of town with vineyards. Nicolaus and Barbara Koppernigk had four children, two sons and two daughters. Nicolaus was the youngest. The original form of his name was Mikolaj Kopernik or Nicolaus Koppernigk. Nicolaus later changed his name to the Latin version, Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus was ten when his father died. There is not a lot of information about his mother, Barbara Watzenrode. They think she died before her husband. Lucas Watzenrode, Barbara’s brother, was a bishop in the Catholic Church. He was also a church canon and later the governor of Warmia. Lucas raised Nicolaus, his brother, and two sisters after Copernicus' father died. Nicolaus’s brother Andrew became a canon in Frombork. His sister Barbara became a nun. His other sister Katharina married a businessman and city councillor named Barthel Gertner. Nicolaus was well educated. He first studied mathematics and astronomy at Krakow from 1492 to 1494. Then in 1496 he was sent to Italy to study Canon Law at the University of Bologna. While he was studying at the University of Bologna, he became interested in astronomy. Nicolaus lived in the home of a mathematics professor who encouraged him to question the astronomy beliefs of that time. In 1497, while he was still in Italy, he was made Canon of the Frombork [Frauenberg] cathedral through his uncle's influence. This gave Nicolaus good job with good pay that he held to the end of his life. The job made it possible for him to continue his studies and develop his interest in astronomy. In 1501 he began medical studies at the University of Padua, and finally took his law degree at the University of Ferrara in 1503. After he returned to Poland, Nicolaus lived in his uncle's bishopric palace. He lived a sheltered and academic life for the rest of his days. While at the palace he performed church duties, practiced medicine, and studied astronomy. For relaxation Nicolaus painted and translated Greek poetry into Latin. His interest in astronomy gradually grew to be one in which he had a primary interest. His studies were carried on quietly and alone. He carried out his studies of the sky from a turret located on the wall around the cathedral. Copernicus's observations of the heavens were made with the naked eye. He died more than fifty years before Galileo became the first person to study the skies with a telescope. In Copernicus's time most astronomers believed the theory the Greek astronomer Ptolemy had developed more than 1,000 years earlier. Claudius Ptolemy was an Egyptian living in Alexandria at about 150 A.D. Ptolemy said the Earth was the center of the Universe and was motionless. He believed all other heavenly bodies, including the sun and the fixed stars moved in complicated patterns around the Earth. Copernicus felt that Ptolemy’s theory was incorrect. From his observations, Copernicus concluded that every planet, including Earth, revolved around the Sun. He also determined that the Earth rotates daily on its axis and that the Earth's motion affects what people see in the sky. However, Copernicus did not have the tools to prove his theories. He died more than fifty years before Galileo became the first person to study the skies with a telescope. By the 1600s, astronomers such as Galileo developed the physics that would prove Copernicus was correct. Around 1514, Copernicus distributed the ideas of his Sun-centered astronomy in a little hand-written book that he gave to a few of his friends. His friends knew that he had written the book although no author’s name was on the book. His book is usually called the Little Commentary. In 1539 George Joachim Rheticus went to see Copernicus. Rheticus was a 25-year-old German mathematics professor who looked up to Copernicus. Rheticus planed to spend a few weeks with Copernicus. Rheticus ended up staying for two years. He was amazed by Copernicus and his theories. In 1540 Rheticus published his Narratio Prima, an explanation of the Copernican planetary model. However, Copernicus was in no hurry to publish his theory. He really didn’t care about with what the church might say about his new theory. He was a perfectionist, and he never thought that his complete work was ready. Even after working on it for thirty years, he still thought the work was not done. As far as Copernicus was concerned, his hypotheses still needed to be checked and rechecked. His theories of the solar system have been summarized in seven statements: 1. There is no one center in the universe. 2. The Earth’s center is not the center of the universe. 3. The center of the solar system is “in the Sun, or near it.” 4. The distance from the Earth to the sun is very small compared with the distance to the stars. 5. The rotation of the Earth accounts for what seems to be the daily rotation of the stars. 6. The Earth revolving around the Sun causes the appearance of an yearly cycle of movements of the Sun. 7. The motion of the Earth causes the planets to appear to move backwards. Copernicus’s suggestion that the earth moved around the sun was unbelievable to most of the scientists of his time. They said, “Suppose the earth does turn about its own axis. Then, if we were to drop a stone from a high tower, the earth would rotate beneath it while it fell, causing the stone to land some space away from the tower's bottom.” This never happened. “If the Earth actually spins on an axis, why don’t objects fly off the spinning Earth' If the Earth is in motion around the sun, why doesn’t it leave behind the birds flying in the air' If the Earth were actually on an orbit around the sun, why didn’t stars appear to change their position in relation to the other background stars as the Earth moved about its orbit'” The most important result of Copernicus' work is that it forever changed the place of humans in the universe. Copernicus's theories disagreed with the church’s idea that humans had a superior position to everything around them. His theories could lead men to think that they were simply part of nature and not superior to it. His ideas disagreed with the theories of the powerful churchmen of the time. They did not like Copernicus’s theories and tried to keep them from spreading. Copernicus’s ideas did spread to others. His final theory did not appear until 1543 in a book called On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs. Two Italian scientists of Copernicus’s time accepted his theory enthusiastically. As a result they went through a lot of personal injury from the powerful church. Galileo Galilei was tried for blasphemy in 1633, and was forced on his knees to give up all belief in Copernican theories. He was sentenced to prison for the rest of his life. The other scientist, Giordano Bruno, even went farther than Copernicus. He suggested that space was unlimited and that the sun and its planets were just one of many similar systems. He said there might even be other populated worlds with living beings equal or possibly superior to us. Bruno was tried for blasphemy, condemned, and burned at the stake in 1600. Copernicus died in 1543 and never knew the argument his work caused. He died from a stroke on May 24, 1543, in Frombork, Poland. Copernicus was buried in the Frombork Cathedral. His book, On the Revolutions (De revolutionibus orbium coelestium), was dedicated to Pope Paul III and published in 1543 in Nuremberg, as Copernicus lay on his deathbed. Legend says that the first printed copy of the book was put in Copernicus's hands the same day of his death. He is said to have awakened from his coma, looked at his book, and died peacefully. Nicholaus Copernicus University in Torun was started in 1945 and is named after him. Copernicus’s theory about the sun as the center of the solar system is considered one of the most important discoveries ever. It is the basic starting point of modern astronomy and modern science itself. Astronomy is the study of matter in outer space. Copernicus’s theory began the scientific revolution, a time when there were very large and sudden changes in science. In 2004 a group of archaeologists searching for his body failed to find it. The search for his body will continue in 2005.