Let’s take a look at the life story, studies and works of Nicolaus Copernicus, who made an important contribution to the formation of modern astronomy with his studies on astronomy.
There is also an enlightened and bright period in the history of humanity, which fears new knowledge and discovery and acts with dogmatic truths: Renaissance. A bright age of the greatest advances in the arts and sciences. Of course, there are also the creators of this period, where the greatest works and inventions in many fields such as astronomy, geography, mathematics, physics, chemistry, anatomy, engineering, painting, sculpture, architecture were found: Kepler, Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Michelangelo, Galileo, many more. and the subject of our article. Copernicus.
Despite all the difficulties of the period in the field of astronomy, he continued his studies without giving up, dealt with science from other dimensions, shed light on the astronomical discoveries to be made in the future thanks to his studies and inspired many scientists. Who is Copernicus, what works did he do, what are his works Let’s take a closer look.
Who is Nicolaus Copernicus?
Nicolaus Copernicus was born in 1473 in the 15th century Renaissance; Catholic bishop, preoccupied with mathematics, astronomy, cartography and languages, known as the father of modern astronomy and heliocentric model of the universe a Polish man with great work in the acceptance of he is an astronomer. He was born in the Thorn region of the Kingdom of Poland, as the fourth and youngest child of a wealthy merchant father and a wealthy mother. Nicolaus Copernicus, who had to go to his uncle after losing his father at a young age, started his education life in Poland; His uncle, Lucas Watzenrode, stood by Copernicus in all his educational and career needs.
In the 15th century, when Copernicus lived, the terms astrology, astronomy and mathematics were used almost interchangeably; its main purpose was to provide the theoretical tool and movement integrity for describing the sky order. This method generally referred to anyone who studied the sky using mathematical techniques.
Giovanni Pico’s attack on the foundations of astrology formed the background of Copernicus’ research, and also formed the main historical considerations. The second longstanding dispute that Pico didn’t mention had to do with the status of planetary models. At the same time, since ancient times, astronomical modeling and surveys of the sky have been made as planets move with angular advances on them using fixed radii at a fixed distance from their centers of motion. European astronomers Earth is at the center of the universe well Ptolemaic geocentric system This view was also adopted by most ancient philosophers and Bible writers, despite the opposing studies of Aristarchus and Biruni.
What work did Nicolaus Copernicus do?
Copernicus, including the world in the Milky Way He argued that all the planets in the universe move in the orbit of the sun. According to Copernicus, the Earth rotates daily around its axis as well as the sun’s axis, and the gradual shifts in this axis bring about the seasons. Copernicus explained this thesis between 1508 and 1514. “Little Comment” He wrote a short astronomical treatise that formed the basis of the heliocentric system called (Commentariolus). In the review, he accurately revealed the order of all known planets, including Earth, relative to the sun, and predicted their orbits relatively accurately.
This heliocentric theory, suggesting that the sun and other planets revolve around the earth Ptolemaic It replaced the (ground-centered) theory. After Copernicus’ trip to Italy, he argued that the Ptolemaic system was not sufficient to study all aspects of nature. This method was not mathematically suitable. But at the time of Copernicus, the Church was adopting the Ptolemaic geocentric theory. Because that was the biblical definition of the cosmos.
However “Little Comment” until the end of Copernicus’s life. not published until 1543. Because the information he obtained caused new problems as well as solutions. Since the earth was considered the center of the universe, heavy objects were always assumed to fall to the ground, Copernicus did not know how to adapt this to a heliocentric system. So he retained the old belief that circles ruled the heavens, but his evidence showed that even in a heliocentric universe, planets and stars do not orbit the sun in circular orbits. This thesis had the obvious disadvantage of not being able to explain changes in the apparent brightness of planets, since their distance from the center is always the same. So the disadvantage was that it observed the planets as giant transparent spheres and did not deal with the concept of gravity.
This theory is 17 century. at the beginning With Galileo, Kepler developed and popularized. However, since it was a period in which scientific research was met with punishment, Galileo was sentenced in exchange for developing this theory. Despite the clergy of that period, of course, information could not be chained, and in the 17th century. at the end Newton’s celestial mechanics from his work in the field and “Principia Mathematica” (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) after its publication Copernican Theory accepted by academics. First, it spread rapidly in non-Catholic countries, and at the end of the 18th century, the Solar System (Heliocentric) universe model was accepted by almost the whole world.
Works of Copernicus:
- On The Revolutions
- Commentary
- Three Treatises on Copernican Theory
- Das neue Weltbild
- Nicolai Copernici Torinesnsis De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium Libri VI
- On The Revolutions: Manuscript
- Monetae Cudendae Ratio
- Das Neue Weltbild: Drei Tecte: Lateinich-Deutsch
Names that influenced university life and ideas:
After the death of his father, Copernicus continued his education life, undertaken by his uncle, in the liberal arts department of the “University of Krakow” in Krakow. In this chapter astronomy and astrology but like many students of that time, he left school without graduating. He went to his uncle, who was in Italy and had a doctorate in law at the University of Bologna, and like his uncle. He continued his education at the University of Bologna.. Although his academic period here did not last long, he lived in the same house with the university’s chief astronomer, Domenico Maria de Novara. Novara, annual for the city was publishing astrological prophecies; He made predictions that included all social groups but concentrated on the fate of Italian princes and their enemies. Copernicus was an assistant and witness in these broadcasts; His involvement in the production of Novara’s annual forecasts meant that he was intimately familiar with the practice of astrology.
Since Novara was trained in Copernicus astronomy, she introduced him to two books surrounding the problem of the future: Johann Muller written by “Epitoma in Almagestum Ptolemaei” and Giovanni Pico written by “Disputationes terus astrologinm divinatricenm” (Discussions Against Divination Astrology). Written by Johann Müller, the book was a summary of the foundations of Ptolemy’s astronomy and was concerned with corrections and critical expansions of some of the major planetary models. This was the book that would lead Copernicus to turn to and gain insight into the heliocentric hypothesis. What Giovanni Pico wrote was a skeptical attack on the foundations of astrology and the destructive attitude that reflected back to the 17th century. There were accusations in Pico’s criticism that astronomers and astrologers disagreed on the arrangement of the planets, and that astrologers were unsure of the strength of the planets.
Only 27 observations of Copernicus recorded in his entire life are known; much about eclipses, alignments, and conjunctions of planets and stars. Copernicus made his first recorded observation. “De revolutionibus” He did it in Bologna on March 9, 1497. in your book the lunar eclipse and “The brightest star in the bull’s eye” known as Aldebaran recorded its star. When he published this observation in 1543, he had fully confirmed the apparent size of the moon’s diameter, making it the basis of a theoretical claim. But he was using this method in 1947 to check the phases of the moon derived from the Alfonsine charts to aid Novara’s 1498 divination. Copernicus’ views on the basic structure of the universe to a new philosophy It was transformed under Kepler and Galileo.
The death of Copernicus: his ideas survived his death
Nicolaus Copernicus was born on May 24, 1543 in Frombork, Poland, which would cause great controversy and save him from the anger of some religious leaders who would condemn his observations as heresy. having a brain hemorrhage passed away to life. Legend has it that when he was on his deathbed, he saw a published copy of his work. It wasn’t fair either. His work was published a year after his death. and provided resources to shed light on future scientists and evolve into today’s solar system.
when you die no name on the tombstone Copernicus with a black granite tombstone on a cathedral in Poland in 2010 reburied. Before its 500th anniversary, namely in 1972, NASA “Copernican” launched its satellite called space, and the satellite studied interstellar matter during its 8-year operation.