Who Was Nicolaus Copernicus?
by Matt Williams
on July 5, 2015
Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God, by Matejko. Credit: frombork.art.pl
When it comes to understanding our place in the universe, few
scientists have had more of an impact than Nicolaus Copernicus. The
creator of the Copernican Model of the universe (aka. heliocentrism),
his discovery that the Earth and other planets revolved the Sun
triggered an intellectual revolution that would have far-reaching
consequences.
In addition to playing a major part in the Scientific Revolution of
the 17th and 18th centuries, his ideas changed the way people looked at
the heavens, the planets, and would have a profound influence over men
like Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Sir Isaac Newton and many others.
In short, the “Copernican Revolution” helped to usher in the era of
modern science.
Early Life:
Copernicus was born on February 19th, 1473 in the city of Torun
(Thorn) in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. The youngest of four
children to a well-to-do merchant family, Copernicus and his siblings
were raised in the Catholic faith and had many strong ties to the
Church.
His older brother Andreas would go on to become an Augustinian canon,
while his sister, Barbara, became a Benedictine nun and (in her final
years) the prioress of a convent. Only his sister Katharina ever married
and had children, which Copernicus looked after until the day he died.
Copernicus himself never married or had any children of his own.
Nicolaus Copernicus portrait from Town Hall in Torun (Thorn), 1580. Credit: frombork.art.pl
Born in a predominately Germanic city and province, Copernicus
acquired fluency in both German and Polish at a young age, and would go
on to learn Greek and Italian during the course of his education. Given
that it was the language of academia in his time, as well as the
Catholic Church and the Polish royal court, Copernicus also became
fluent in Latin, which the majority of his surviving works are written
in.
Education:
In 1483, Copernicus’ father (whom he was named after) died,
whereupon his maternal uncle, Lucas Watzenrode the Younger, began to
oversee his education and career. Given the connections he maintained
with Poland’s leading intellectual figures, Watzenrode would ensure that
Copernicus had great deal of exposure to some of the intellectual
figures of his time.
Although little information on his early childhood is available,
Copernicus’ biographers believe that his uncle sent him to St. John’
School in Torun, where he himself had been a master. Later, it is
believed that he attended the Cathedral School at Wloclawek (located 60
km south-east Torun on the Vistula River), which prepared pupils for
entrance to the University of Krakow – Watzenrode’s own Alma mater.
In 1491, Copernicus began his studies in the Department of Arts at
the University of Krakow. However, he quickly became fascinated by
astronomy, thanks to his exposure to many contemporary philosophers who
taught or were associated with the Krakow School of Mathematics and
Astrology, which was in its heyday at the time.
A comparison of the geocentric and heliocentric models of the universe. Credit: history.ucsb.edu
Copernicus’ studies provided him with a thorough grounding in
mathematical-astronomical knowledge, as well as the philosophy and
natural-science writings of Aristotle, Euclid, and various humanist
writers. It was while at Krakow that Copernicus began collecting a large
library on astronomy, and where he began his analysis of the logical
contradictions in the two most popular systems of astronomy.
These models – Aristotle’s theory of homocentric spheres, and Ptolemy’s mechanism of eccentrics and epicycles – were both
geocentric
in nature. Consistent with classical astronomy and physics, they
espoused that the Earth was at the center of the universe, and that the
Sun, the Moon, the other planets, and the stars all revolved around it.
Before earning a degree, Copernicus left Krakow (ca. 1495) to travel
to the court of his uncle Watzenrode in Warmia, a province in northern
Poland. Having been elevated to the position of Prince-Bishop of Warmia
in 1489, his uncle sought to place Copernicus in the Warmia canonry.
However, Copernicus’ installation was delayed, which prompted his uncle
to send him and his brother to study in Italy to further their
ecclesiastic careers.
In 1497, Copernicus arrived in Bologna and began studying at the
Bologna University of Jurists’. While there, he studied canon law, but
devoted himself primarily to the study of the humanities and astronomy.
It was also while at Bologna that he met the famous astronomer Domenico
Maria Novara da Ferrara and became his disciple and assistant.
An illustration of the Ptolemaic geocentric system by Portuguese cosmographer and cartographer Bartolomeu Velho, 1568. Credit: bnf.fr
Over time, Copernicus’ began to feel a growing sense of doubt towards
the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic models of the universe. These included
the problematic explanations arising from the inconsistent motion of the
planets (i.e.
retrograde motion,
equants,
deferents and epicycles), and the fact that Mars and Jupiter appeared to be larger in the night sky at certain times than at others.
Hoping to resolve this, Copernicus used his time at the university to
study Greek and Latin authors (i.e. Pythagoras, Cicero, Pliny the
Elder, Plutarch, Heraclides and Plato) as well as the fragments of
historic information the university had on ancient astronomical,
cosmological and calendar systems – which included other (predominantly
Greek and Arab) heliocentric theories.
In 1501, Copernicus moved to Padua, ostensibly to study medicine as
part of his ecclesiastical career. Just as he had done at Bologna,
Copernicus carried out his appointed studies, but remained committed to
his own astronomical research. Between 1501 and 1503, he continued to
study ancient Greek texts; and it is believed that it was at this time
that his ideas for a new system of astronomy – whereby the Earth itself
moved – finally crystallized.
The Copernican Model (aka. Heliocentrism):
In 1503, having finally earned his doctorate in canon law,
Copernicus returned to Warmia where he would spend the remaining 40
years of his life. By 1514, he began making his
Commentariolus
(“Little Commentary”) available for his friends to read. This
forty-page manuscript described his ideas about the heliocentric
hypothesis, which was based on seven general principles.
These seven principles stated that: Celestial bodies do not all
revolve around a single point; the center of Earth is the center of the
lunar sphere—the orbit of the moon around Earth; all the spheres rotate
around the Sun, which is near the center of the Universe; the distance
between Earth and the Sun is an insignificant fraction of the distance
from Earth and Sun to the stars, so parallax is not observed in the
stars; the stars are immovable – their apparent daily motion is caused
by the daily rotation of Earth; Earth is moved in a sphere around the
Sun, causing the apparent annual migration of the Sun; Earth has more
than one motion; and Earth’s orbital motion around the Sun causes the
seeming reverse in direction of the motions of the planets.
Andreas Cellarius’s illustration of the Copernican system, from the Harmonia Macrocosmica (1708). Credit: Public Domain
Thereafter he continued gathering data for a more detailed work, and
by 1532, he had come close to completing the manuscript of his magnum
opus –
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres). In it, he advanced his seven major arguments, but in more detailed form and with detailed computations to back them up.
However, due to fears that the
publication of his theories would lead to condemnation from the church
(as well as, perhaps, worries that his theory presented some scientific
flaws) he withheld his research until a year before he died. It was only
in 1542, when he was near death, that he sent his treatise to Nuremberg
to be published.
Death:
Towards the end of 1542, Copernicus suffered from a brain
hemorrhage or stroke which left him paralyzed. On May 24th, 1543, he
died at the age of 70 and was reportedly buried in the Frombork
Cathedral in Frombork, Poland. It is said that on the day of his death,
May 24th 1543 at the age of 70, he was presented with an advance copy of
his book, which he smiled upon before passing away.
In 2005, an archaeological team conducted a scan of the floor of
Frombork Cathedral, declaring that they had found Copernicus’ remains.
Afterwards, a forensic expert from the Polish Police Central Forensic
Laboratory used the unearthed skull to reconstruct a face that closely
resembled Copernicus’ features. The expert also determined that the
skull belonged to a man who had died around age 70 – Copernicus’ age at
the time of his death.
These findings were backed up in 2008 when a comparative
DNA analysis was made from both the remains and two hairs found in a book Copernicus was known to have owned (
Calendarium Romanum Magnum, by Johannes Stoeffler). The DNA results were a match, proving that Copernicus’ body had indeed been found.
Copernicus’
2010 grave in Frombork Cathedral, acknowledging him as a church canon
and the father of heliocentricism. Credit: Wikipedia/Holger Weinandt
On May 22nd, 2010,
Copernicus was given a second funeral
in a Mass led by Józef Kowalczyk, the former papal nuncio to Poland and
newly named Primate of Poland. Copernicus’ remains were reburied in the
same spot in Frombork Cathedral, and a black granite tombstone (shown
above) now identifies him as the founder of the heliocentric theory and
also a church canon. The tombstone bears a representation of Copernicus’
model of the solar system – a golden sun encircled by six of the
planets.
Legacy:
Despite his fears about his arguments producing scorn and
controversy, the publication of his theories resulted in only mild
condemnation from religious authorities. Over time, many religious
scholars tried to argue against his model, using a combination of
Biblical canon, Aristotelian philosophy, Ptolemaic astronomy, and
then-accepted notions of physics to discredit the idea that the Earth
itself would be capable of motion.
However, within a few generation’s time, Copernicus’ theory became
more widespread and accepted, and gained many influential defenders in
the meantime. These included Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), who’s
investigations of the heavens using the telescope allowed him to resolve
what were seen at the time as flaws in the heliocentric model.
These included the relative changes in the appearances of Mars and
Jupiter when they are in opposition vs. conjunction to the Earth.
Whereas they appear larger to the naked eye than Copernicus’ model
suggested they should, Galileo proved that this is an illusion caused by
the behavior of light at a distance, and can be resolved with a
telescope.
1973
Federal Republic of Germany 5-mark silver coin commemorating 500th
anniversary of Copernicus’ birth. Credit: Wikipedia/Berlin-George
Through the use of the telescope, Galileo also discovered
moons orbiting Jupiter,
Sunspots, and the imperfections on the Moon’s surface, all of which
helped to undermine the notion that the planets were perfect orbs,
rather than planets similar to Earth. While Galileo’s advocacy of
Copernicus’ theories resulted in his house arrest, others soon followed.
German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) also
helped to refine the heliocentric model with his introduction of
elliptical orbits.
Prior to this, the heliocentric model still made use of circular
orbits, which did not explain why planets orbited the Sun at different
speeds at different times. By showing how the planet’s sped up while at
certain points in their orbits, and slowed down in others, Kepler
resolved this.
In addition, Copernicus’ theory about the Earth being capable of
motion would go on to inspire a rethinking of the entire field of
physics. Whereas previous ideas of motion depended on an outside force
to instigate and maintain it (i.e. wind pushing a sail) Copernicus’
theories helped to inspire the concepts of gravity and inertia. These
ideas would be articulated by
Sir Isaac Newton, who’s
Principia formed the basis of modern physics and astronomy.
Today, Copernicus is honored (along with Johannes Kepler) by the
liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) with a feast day on
May 23rd. In 2009, the discoverers of chemical element 112 (which had
previously been named ununbium) proposed that the International Union of
Pure and Applied Chemistry rename it copernicum (Cn) –
which they did in 2011.
Mosaic image of the Copernicus Crater on the Moon, taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, . Credit: NASA/LRO
In 1973, on the 500th anniversary of his birthday, the Federal
Republic of Germany (aka. West Germany) issued a 5 Mark silver coin
(shown above) that bore Copernicus’ name and a representation of the
heliocentric universe on one side.
In August of 1972, the
Copernicus –
an Orbiting Astronomical Observatory created by NASA and the UK’s
Science Research Council – was launched to conduct space-based
observations. Originally designated OAO-3, the satellite was renamed in
1973 in time for the 500th anniversary of Copernicus’ birth. Operating
until February of 1981, Copernicus proved to be the most successful of
the OAO missions, providing extensive X-ray and ultraviolet information
on stars and discovering several long-period pulsars.
Two craters, one located on the
Moon, the other on
Mars, are named in Copernicus’ honor. The European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA) is currently conducting the
Copernicus Program.
Formerly known as Global Monitoring for Environment and Security
(GMES), this program aims at achieving an autonomous, multi-level
operational Earth observatory.
On February 19th, 2013, the world celebrated the 540th anniversary of
Copernicus’ birthday. Even now, almost five and a half centuries later,
he is considered one of the greatest astronomers and scientific minds
that ever lived. In addition to revolutionizing the fields of physics,
astronomy, and our very concept of the laws of motion, the tradition of
modern science itself owes a great debt to this noble scholar who placed
the truth above all else.
