Copernicus

Copernicus: The First Modern Astronomer By Jordan Springer Around four-thirty in the afternoon on February 19, 1473, a legend by the name of Nicolaus Copernicus was born to copper merchant Mikolaj and Barbara Kopernik. Out of four kids, Nicolaus was the youngest. His family lived in Torun, Poland, which is about 115 miles from Warsaw. His mother was a Watzelrode, a significant Torun family of German descent. When Nicolaus was ten, his dad died, but luckily, Lukasz Watzelrode, Nicolaus’ uncle helped out the family. Nicolaus had a very busy education. He went to four universities, starting in Poland and ending in Italy. In between his first two universities and his last two, Nicolaus attended the Catholic Church’s jubilee in Rome. While he was there, Copernicus studied church law until 1501. Thanks to his uncle, Copernicus got a job in the church. However, he decided to study more before he started his job and attended his fourth and final university. He was then supposed to become a canon in a town called Frombork. However, his uncle Bishop Lukasz asked him to be his personal secretary for a few years before he became a canon. During the day, Copernicus had plentiful work. By night, though, he considered the sky. Through his studies, both in school and out Copernicus came up with a ground-breaking theory. Unlike most astronomers of the time, Copernicus thought that the sun was at the center of the universe, not the earth. However, there was more to his theory than just changing it from geocentric (earth-centered) to heliocentric (sun-centered). Another thing Copernicus thought differently of than his fellow astronomers was the stars. His idea was that instead of the Earth standing still and the stars going around us like in the old theories, the Earth spun and the stars stood still. Copernicus’ model also told the correct space and order of the planets. One of reason’s Copernicus’ theory was so impressive was because they didn’t have many advanced tools to study space back then. In fact, while Nicolaus was attending the University of Krakow, Christopher Columbus was discovering America! After the death of his uncle, Copernicus moved on to become a canon. Copernicus slowly came up with his theories over his lifetime. He spent his free time studying the stars and wrote a book, “//Commentarilolus//” (Latin for small commentary) which was a summary of his theory. He completed it around 1514. However, he continued to modify his work for years. His second work, “//De revolutionibus orbium coelestium//” (on the revolutions of the heavenly spheres) was published in 1543. It’s thought that Copernicus was holding a copy of this book when he died on May 24, 1543. Unfortunately for Copernicus, his work didn’t go over well. It was mocked, and because it didn’t suggest that Earth was at the center of the Universe, //De revolutionibus orbium coelestium// was banned by the Catholic Church for almost three centuries. However, Jonathan Kepler and others worked on it in the 17th century, helping to make it what we know today.