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Nicolaus Copernicus [Mikolaj Kopernik] (1473-1543)

Polish astronomer, mathematician, economist, and physician. In his principal work "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" ("On the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs") which was published in 1543 (the year of his death), he presented a description of a heliocentric planetary system (in which the planets, including the Earth , revolve around the Sun). This was in opposition to the geocentric system (in which everything including the Sun and planets revolve around the Earth ), developed by the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy, and almost universally accepted for some fifteen hundred years before Copernicus.

The work of Copernicus had a major impact on the science and philosophy of the times after his death. Called the "Copernican revolution," it became one of the cornerstones in the development of modern science, in particular physics and astronomy.

However, Copernicus still assumed, following the Ptolemaic system, circular orbits of planets. This forced him to retain epicycles and other elements complicating his heliocentric system. Also, it did not lead to improvement of the accuracy of prediction of planet positions. As a result, Copernicus' main arguments were more of a philosophical than physical nature. Only further progress in observation techniques (such that the invention of the telescope by Galileo and, using the telescope, the discovery of Jovian moons and the phases of Venus , as well as an observation of phases of Mercury  by Hevelius in 1644) provided stronger physical evidence. Final formulation and confirmation of the Copernican system resulted from introduction of elliptical planetary orbits by Kepler, and from the discovery by Newton of fundamental laws of mechanics and gravitation.

A diagram of orbits of Solar System  planets (including the fixed stars sphere) from the work of Copernicus "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium." [Source: The Galileo Project at Rice University.]

More information about Copernicus can be found in his biographies in The Catholic Encyclopedia, and on the city of Torun site .

Named after Copernicus were :

• one of the largest craters (107 km diameter) on the near side of the Moon ,
• a large crater (292 km diameter) on Mars ,
• an asteroid 1322 Coppernicus (note that in the name of this asteroid, Copernicus is spelled with two "p"s, in accordance with German spelling of his name),
• an American satellite OAO-3 Copernicus (launched in 1972),
• a Soviet-Polish satellite Kopernik 500 (Interkosmos 9; launched in 1973).

[ZK]

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