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Nicolaus Copernicus (February 19, 1473 – May 24, 1543) was a Polish astronomer of German descent who is remembered for providing the first modern formulation of a heliocentric (sun-centered) theory of the solar system in his epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.

Copernicus was one of the great polymaths of his age. He was a Catholic divine, a mathematician, astrologer, astronomer, jurist, physician, classical scholar, governor, administrator, diplomat, economist and soldier. Amid his extensive responsibilities, he treated astronomy as an avocation. However, his formulation of how the sun rather than the earth is at the center of the universe is considered one of the most important scientific hypotheses in history. It came to mark the starting point of modern astronomy and, in turn, of modern science, encouraging young astronomers, scientists and scholars to take a more skeptical attitude toward established dogma.

Historical background to the question of Copernicus' nationality

The father of Copernicus, also named Nicolaus and probably Koppernigk, had been a citizen of Kraków, then the capital of Poland, but left this city in 1460 to move to Toruń (Thorn). This city was part of the Hanseatic League, as well as the Prussian Confederation which, some years before Copernicus' birth, staged an uprising (which shortly led to the Thirteen Years' War when they asked Polish king to join Prussia to his kingdom) to gain independence from the Teutonic Knights who had ruled the area for two hundred years, imposing high taxes which were hindering the economic development in the province. With the Second Treaty of Thorn in 1466, the city as well as Prussia's western part called Royal Prussia became part of the Kingdom of Poland, which had supported the uprising, while the eastern part remained under administration of the Teutonic Order to become Ducal Prussia later on.

Copernicus, called Mikołaj Kopernik in Polish and Nikolaus Kopernikus in German was born in Toruń (Thorn) and spent most of his working life in Royal Prussia which enjoyed substantial autonomy as part of the lands of the Polish Crown - it had its own Diet, treasury and monetary unit (to which Copernicus' contributed) and armies. He also oversaw the defense of Allenstein/Olsztyn at the head of forces of the Polish king when the troops of Albert of Brandenburg besieged the castle.

In the 19th century, with the rise of German nationalism, attempts were made to claim that Copernicus was exclusively a German and to discount his connection with Poland, however after 1945 those attempts have greatly diminished. In a mirror image of this, some Poles attempted to claim Copernicus exclusively and attempted to downplay his possible German ethnic origin. It is quite possible that his family was ethnically German, and Copernicus was certainly fluent in the German language, while no direct evidence of the extent to which he knew Polish has survived. His main language for written communication was Latin. However, Copernicus was a citizen of the Kingdom of Poland throughout his entire life and a loyal subject of the Polish Kings. Hence today he is generally considered to be Polish by virtue of his citizenship. At the same time, it must be remembered that during Copernicus' lifetime nationality played a much less significant role that it did later, and people generally did not think of themselves primarily as Poles or Germans . Therefore, in a modern context, Copernicus may be viewed as an ethnically-German Polish citizen.

Copernicus Biography

Copernicus was born in 1473 and ten years old when his father, a wealthy businessman, copper trader and respected citizen of Thorun, died. Little is known of Copernicus' mother, Barbara Watzenrode, who appears to have predeceased her husband. Copernicus' maternal uncle, Lucas Watzenrode, a church canon and later Prince-Bishop governor of Warmia, reared him and his three siblings after the death of Copernicus' father. His uncle's position helped Copernicus in the pursuit of a career within the church, enabling him to devote time for his astronomy studies. Copernicus had a brother and two sisters:

Andreas became a canon at Frombork (Frauenburg)
Barbara became a Benedictine nun
Katharina married a businessman and city councillor, Barthel Gertner

In 1491 Copernicus enrolled at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, where he probably encountered astronomy for the first time, taught by his teacher Albert Brudzewski. This science soon fascinated him, as shown by his books which were later carried off as war booty by the Swedes during "The Deluge", to the Uppsala University Library). After four years at Kraków, followed by a brief stay back home at Toruń, he went to Italy, where he studied law and medicine at the universities of Bologna and Padua. His bishop-uncle financed his education and wished for him to become a bishop as well. However, while studying canon and civil law at Ferrara, Copernicus met the famous astronomer, Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara. Copernicus attended his lectures and became his disciple and assistant. The first observations that Copernicus made in 1497, together with Novara, are recorded in Copernicus' epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.

In 1497 Copernicus' uncle was ordained Bishop of Warmia, and Copernicus was named a canon at Frombork (Frauenburg) Cathedral, but he waited in Italy for the great Jubilee of 1500. Copernicus went to Rome, where he observed a lunar eclipse and gave some lectures in astronomy or mathematics.

He would thus have visited Frombork only in 1501. As soon as he arrived, he requested and obtained permission to return to Italy to complete his studies at Padua (with Guarico and Fracastoro) and at Ferrara (with Giovanni Bianchini), where in 1503 he received his doctorate in canon law. It has been supposed that it was in Padua that he encountered passages from Cicero and Plato about opinions of the ancients on the movement of the Earth, and formed the first intuition of his own future theory. His collection of observations and ideas pertinent to his theory began in 1504.

Having left Italy at the end of his studies, he came to live and work at Frombork. Some time before his return to Warmia, he had received a position at the Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross in Wrocław (Breslau), Silesia, which he would resign a few years before his death. Through the rest of his life he made astronomical observations and calculations, but always in his spare time and never as a profession.

Copernicus worked for years with the Prussian Diet on monetary reform and published some studies about the value of money; as governor of Warmia, he administered taxes and dealt out justice. It was at this time (beginning in 1519, the year of Thomas Gresham's birth) that Copernicus came up with one of the earliest iterations of the theory now known as Gresham's Law. During these years he also travelled extensively on government business and as a diplomat, on behalf of the Prince-Bishop of Warmia.

In 1514 he made his Commentariolus — a short handwritten text describing his ideas about the heliocentric hypothesis — available to friends. Thereafter he continued gathering evidence for a more detailed work. During the war between the Teutonic Order and the Kingdom of Poland (1519–1524) Copernicus successfully defended Allenstein (Olsztyn) at the head of royal troops besieged by the forces of Albert of Brandenburg.

In 1533 Albert Widmannstadt delivered a series of lectures in Rome, outlining Copernicus' theory. These lectures were watched with interest by several catholic cardinals, including Pope Clement VII. By 1536 Copernicus' work was already in definitive form, and some rumors about his theory had reached educated people all over Europe. From many parts of the continent, Copernicus received invitations to publish. In a letter, dated Rome, 1 November, 1536, Cardinal Nicola Schönberg of Capua wrote, asking Copernicus to communicate his ideas more widely and requesting a copy for himself; "Therefore, learned man, without wishing to be inopportune, I beg you most emphatically to communicate your discovery to the learned world, and to send me as soon as possible your theories about the Universe, together with the tables and whatever else you have pertaining to the subject." Some have suggested that this note may have made Copernicus leery of publication, while others have suggested that this letter indicates that the Church wanted to ensure that his ideas were published.

In spite the insistence of many, Copernicus kept delaying the final publication of his book; a main reason for it was probably the fear of criticism for his revolutionary work by the establishment. He was still completing his masterpiece (even if he was not convinced that he wanted to publish it) when in 1539 Georg Joachim Rheticus, a great mathematician from Wittenberg, arrived in Frombork. Philipp Melanchthon had arranged for Rheticus to visit several astronomers and study with them. Rheticus became a disciple of Copernicus' and stayed with him for two years, during which he wrote a book, Narratio prima, outlining the essence of the theory.

In 1542, in Copernicus' name, Rheticus published a treatise on trigonometry (later included in the second book of De revolutionibus). Under strong pressure from Rheticus, and having seen that the first general reception of his work had not been unfavorable, Copernicus finally agreed to give the book to his close friend Tiedemann Giese, bishop of Chełmno (Kulm), to be delivered to Rheticus for printing in Nuremberg (Nürnberg).

Legend says that the first printed copy of De revolutionibus was placed in Copernicus' hands on the day he died, so that he could take farewell of his opus vitae. He supposedly woke from a stroke-induced coma, looked at his book, and died peacefully.

Copernicus was buried in Frombork Cathedral. Archeologists searching for his remains had failed to locate them, though they had found interesting graves from various periods. On November 3, 2005, archeologists announced that in August they had recovered Copernicus' skull (see Grave below).

Kamil

hey waddup alberto

Quotes

Goethe:

"Of all discoveries and opinions, none may have exerted a greater effect on the human spirit than the doctrine of Copernicus. The world had scarcely become known as round and complete in itself when it was asked to waive the tremendous privilege of being the center of the universe. Never, perhaps, was a greater demand made on mankind — for by this admission so many things vanished in mist and smoke! What became of our Eden, our world of innocence, piety and poetry; the testimony of the senses; the conviction of a poetic — religious faith? No wonder his contemporaries did not wish to let all this go and offered every possible resistance to a doctrine which in its converts authorized and demanded a freedom of view and greatness of thought so far unknown, indeed not even dreamed of."

Copernicus:

"For I am not so enamored of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them. I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgement of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavor to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God. Yet I hold that completely erroneous views should be shunned. Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heaven as its center would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.

"For when a ship is floating calmly along, the sailors see its motion mirrored in everything outside, while on the other hand they suppose that they are stationary, together with everything on board. In the same way, the motion of the earth can unquestionably produce the impression that the entire universe is rotating.

"Therefore alongside the ancient hypotheses, which are no more probable, let us permit these new hypotheses also to become known, especially since they are admirable as well as simple and bring with them a huge treasure of very skillful observations. So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it. Farewell."

Declaration of the Polish Senate issued on 12th of June 2003.

"At the time of five hundred thirty anniversary of birth and four hundred sixty date of death of Mikołaj Kopernik,the Senat of Republic of Poland expresses its highest respect and praise for this exceptional Pole, one of the greatest scientists in the history of the world. Mikołaj Kopernik, world famous astronomer, author of the breakthrough work "O obrotach sfer niebieskich" is the the one who "Held the Sun and moved Earth". He distinguished himself for the country as exceptional mathematician, economist, lawyer, doctor and priest, as well as defender of the Olsztyn Castle during Polish-Teutonic war. May memory about his achievements last and be a source of inspiration for future generations."

Grave

In August 2005, a team of archeologists led by Jerzy Gąssowski, head of an archaeology and anthropology institute in Pułtusk, discovered what they believe to be Copernicus' grave and remains, after scanning beneath the floor of Frombork Cathedral. The find came after a year of searching, and the discovery was announced only after further research, on November 3. Gąssowski said he was "almost 100 percent sure it is Copernicus". Forensic experts used the skull to reconstruct a face that closely resembled the features — including a broken nose and a scar above the left eye — on a Copernicus self-portrait . The experts also determined that the skull had belonged to a man who had died about age 70 — Copernicus' age at the time of his death.

The grave was in poor condition, and not all the remains were found. The archeologists hoped to find relatives of Copernicus in order to attempt DNA identification.

References

^ Encylopedia Britannica Online Edition,
^ Columbia Encyclopedia Sixth Edition,
Diemut Majer, Non-Germans Under the Third Reich: The Nazi Judicial and Administrative System in Germany,
Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland,

Angus Armitage (1951). The World of Copernicus, New York, Mentor Books. ISBN 0846409798.
David C. Goodman and Colin A. Russell, eds. (1991). The Rise of Scientific Europe, 1500-1800. Dunton Green, Sevenoaks, Kent: Hodder & Stoughton: The Open University. ISBN 034055861X.
Thomas Kuhn (1957). The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674171004.
Owen Gingerich (2004). The Book Nobody Read, Penguin Books. ISBN 0143034766.

External links

German-Polish Cooperations in tradition of Copernicus

[[Category:Mathematicians|Copernicus, Nicolaus

Categories:

Historical background to the question of Copernicus' nationality

Copernicus Biography

Kamil

Quotes

Grave

See also

References

External links

External links to sources

External links about Copernicus

External links about De Revolutionibus

External links related to Copernicus legacy

German-Polish Cooperations in tradition of Copernicus