Who is Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus (February 19, 1473 - May 24, 1543) was the first astronomer to formulate a scientifically based heliocentric cosmology that displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. His epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), is often regarded as the starting point of modern astronomy and the defining epiphany that began the Scientific Revolution.

Although Greek, Indian and Muslim savants had published heliocentric hypotheses centuries before Copernicus, his publication of an observation-based, mathematically-supported scientific theory of heliocentrism, demonstrating that the motions of celestial objects can be explained without putting the Earth at rest in the center of the universe, was a landmark in the history of modern science that is known as the Copernican Revolution.

Among the great polymaths of the Renaissance, Copernicus was a mathematician, astronomer, physician, classical scholar, translator, Catholic cleric, jurist, governor, military leader, diplomat and economist. Amid his extensive responsibilities, astronomy figured as little more than an avocation — yet it was in that field that he made his mark upon the world.

Copernicus was born in the city of Toruń (Thorn) on the Vistula River, in the Royal Prussia region of the Kingdom of Poland, on February 19, 1473. He was educated at Kraków, Bologna, Padua and Ferrara, and spent most of his working life within the prince-bishopric of Warmia (Ermeland), in the town of Frombork (Frauenburg), on the shore of the Baltic Sea, where he died on May 24, 1543.

Copernicus's home town of Toruń (Thorn) was a meeting point of many cultures. During the Middle Ages, in the 7th-13th centuries, it had been the site of an ancient Polish settlement. It was an important inland port of the Hanseatic League, and a member of the Prussian Confederation of cities. Toruń had been founded as an outpost of the Teutonic Knights, but had become independent after the 1410 Battle of Grunwald. About two decades before Copernicus's birth, a secession had led to the Thirteen Years' War and the Peace of Toruń of 1466; Prussia's western part had willingly become part of Poland under the Polish king as "Royal Prussia," while the eastern part would remain under the administration of the Catholic Teutonic Order as a Polish fief until 1525. Though Prussia eventually assimilated into German culture, the native Old Prussian language and cultural traditions were still alive in Copernicus's time. Prussian subjects variously of a German Duke and a Polish King, the citizens of Toruń were also subjects of the Catholic Church during the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation.

In 1491 Copernicus enrolled at the Kraków Academy (now Jagiellonian University), where he probably first encountered astronomy with Professor Albert Brudzewski. Astronomy soon fascinated him, and he began collecting a large library on the subject. Copernicus's library would later be carried off as war booty by the Swedes during "the Deluge" and is now at the Uppsala University Library.

In 1505 Copernicus moved to Frombork (Frauenburg), a town in the Prince-Bishopric of Warmia north and downstream of Toruń on the Vistula Lagoon. The Bishopric of Warmia, within Royal Prussia, though subject to the Polish crown, enjoyed substantial autonomy, with its own Diet, army, monetary unit and treasury. Some time before his return to Warmia, he received a position at the Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross in Wrocław (Breslau), Silesia, Bohemia, which he held for many years and only resigned for health reasons shortly before his death. Copernicus remained for the rest of his life a burgher of Warmia (Bishopric of Warmia). During the Protestant Reformation he remained a loyal subject of the Catholic Prince-Bishops and the Catholic Polish King when in 1525 Duke Albert and the Duchy of Prussia became a secular entity where monarch and burghers alike adopted Protestantism. Throughout his life he performed astronomical observations and calculations, but only as time permitted and never in a professional capacity. Wikipedia Article

• Works by Nicolaus Copernicus at Project Gutenberg
• De Revolutionibus, autograph manuscript — Full digital facsimile, Jagiellonian University
• (Polish) Copernicus's letters to various celebrities, among others the King Sigmundus I of Poland

• Nicolaus Copernicus 
• Copernicus in Torun
• Nicolaus Copernicus Museum in Frombork
• Portraits of Copernicus: Copernicus's face reconstructed; Portrait; Nicolaus Copernicus
• Copernicus and Astrology — Cambridge University: Copernicus had - of course - teachers with astrological activities and his tables were later used by astrologers.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• Find-A-Grave profile for Nicolaus Copernicus
• 'Body of Copernicus' identified — BBC article including image of Copernicus using facial reconstruction based on located skull
• Copernicus and Astrology
• Nicolaus Copernicus on the 1000 Polish Zloty banknote.
• Parallax and the Earth's orbit
• Copernicus's model for Mars
• Retrograde Motion
• Copernicus's explanation for retrograde motion
• Geometry of Maximum Elongation
• Copernican Model

• The Copernican Universe from the De Revolutionibus
• De Revolutionibus, 1543 first edition — Full digital facsimile, Lehigh University
• The front page of the De Revolutionibus
• The text of the De Revolutionibus
• A java applet about Retrograde Motion
• The Antikythera Calculator (Italian and English versions)
• Pastore Giovanni, ANTIKYTHERA E I REGOLI CALCOLATORI, Rome, 2006, privately published

• (Italian) Copernicus in Bologna — in Italian
• Chasing Copernicus: The Book Nobody Read — Was One of the Greatest Scientific Works Really Ignored? All Things Considered. NPR
• Copernicus and his Revolutions — A detailed critique of the rhetoric of De Revolutionibus
• Article which discusses Copernicus's debt to the Arabic tradition

• (German)(Polish) German-Polish school project on Copernicus
• (German)(English)(Polish) Büro Kopernikus - An initiative of German Federal Cultural Foundation
• (German)(Polish) German-Polish "Copernicus Prize" awarded to German and Polish scientists (DFG website)

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