COPERNICUS, NICOLAUS

born Feb. 19, 1473, Torun, Pol. died May 24, 1543, Frauenberg, East Prussia [now Frombork, Pol.]) (Latin), German-Prussian dialect Niklas Koppernigk, Polish Mikolaj Kopernik Polish astronomer noted as the proponent of the view of an Earth in daily motion about its axis and in yearly motion around a stationary Sun, a hypothesis that had profound effects on the science and philosophy of succeeding centuries. Copernicus received his university education at Krakw (149194?) in Poland and at Bologna and Padua in Italy (14971503). In 1503 he returned to Poland and took up residence in Frauenburg, where in 1497 he had been elected a canon of the cathedral, a post ensuring lifelong financial security. In 1497 he also made the first of his few recorded astronomical observations. Becoming increasingly dissatisfied with Earth-centred ideas of the universe, he spent years developing the theory that Earth and the other planets revolved about a point in space near the Sun. From 1510 to 1514 Copernicus circulated the Commentariolus, a manuscript summary of his theory. Not until 1540 did he consent to the publication of his complete work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri VI (Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs). A finished copy is believed to have been brought to him on the last day of his life. Copernicus also published, in 1509, a Latin version of Greek epistles by Theophylact (fl. AD 610629), and an exposition of principles of currency reform for certain Polish provinces was written in 1525 but not published until 1816 at Warsaw. born Feb. 19, 1473, Torun, Pol. died May 24, 1543, Frauenburg, East Prussia [now Frombork, Pol.] Engraving from Christoph Hartknoch's book Alt- und neues Preussen (1684; Old and New Polish Mikolaj Kopernik Polish astronomer who proposed that the planets have the Sun as the fixed point to which their motions are to be referred; that the Earth is a planet which, besides orbiting the Sun annually, also turns once daily on its own axis; and that very slow, long-term changes in the direction of this axis account for the precession of the equinoxes. This representation of the heavens is usually called the heliocentric, or Sun-centred, systemderived from the Greek helios, meaning Sun. Copernicus's theory had important consequences for later thinkers of the scientific revolution, including such major figures as Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, and Newton. Copernicus probably hit upon his main idea sometime between 1508 and 1514, and during those years he wrote a manuscript usually called the Commentariolus (Little Commentary). However, the book that contains the final version of his theory, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri vi (Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs), did not appear in print until 1543, the year of his death. Additional reading Copernicus' complete works are collected in English translation in On the Revolutions, ed. and trans. by Edward Rosen (1978, reissued 1992); and Minor Works, ed. and trans. by Edward Rosen and Erna Hilfstein (1985, reissued 1992).Biographies include Angus Armitage, Copernicus: Founder of Modern Astronomy (1938, reissued 1990); and Edward Rosen, Copernicus and the Scientific Revolution (1984), both for the general reader; and the more scholarly biography in N.M. Swerdlow and O. Neugebauer, Mathematical Astronomy in Copernicus's De Revolutionibus, vol. 1 (1984).A general overview of Copernicus' ideas and their impact is presented in Thomas S. Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought (1957, reissued 1985). Robert S. Westman, Two Cultures or One? A Second Look at Kuhn's The Copernican Revolution, Isis, 85:79115 (March 1994), provides a critical reevaluation with a more recent bibliography. The series Studia Copernicana (1970 ), which offers a rich collection of scholarly studies on aspects of Copernicus' life, work, and later reception; and Robert S. Westman (ed.), The Copernican Achievement (1975), are recommended for advanced study. Owen Gingerich, The Great Copernicus Chase and Other Adventures in Astronomical History (1992), and The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler (1993), are useful for scholarly and general readers. J.L.E. Dreyer, A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler, 2nd ed. (1953), is an older but still useful work; it can be supplemented by Ren Taton and Curtis Wilson (eds.), Planetary Astronomy from the Renaissance to the Rise of Astrophysics, part A, Tycho Brahe to Newton (1989). Two challenging interpretations are Hans Blumenberg, The Genesis of the Copernican World (1987; originally published in German, 1975); and Fernand Hallyn, The Poetic Structure of the World: Copernicus and Kepler (1990; originally published in French, 1987). Robert S. Westman