Nicolaus Copernicus

 

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), considered as the founder of modern astronomy, was born into a wealthy family in Thorn, Poland on February 19, 1473. He was the son of Nicolaus, a well-to-do merchant, and Barbara Watzenrode, who also came from a leading merchant family. His writings cover various subjects including astronomy, economics, mathematics, canon law, medicine and politics. He proposed that the sun was stationary within the center of the universe and therefore the earth revolved around it. He was fluent in Latin, German, Polish, Greek and Italian, and had some knowledge of Hebrew.

Early Life And Education

Nicolaus Copernicus.

Certain facts about Copernicus’s adolescence are well established, although a biography written by his ardent disciple Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514–74) is unfortunately lost. per a later horoscope, Nicolaus Copernicus was born on February 19, 1473, in Toruń, a city in north-central Poland on the Vistula River south of the main Baltic seaport of Gdańsk. His father, Nicolaus, was a well-to-do merchant, and his mother, Barbara Watzenrode, also came from a number one merchant family. Nicolaus was the youngest of 4 children. After his father’s death, sometime between 1483 and 1485, his mother’s brother Lucas Watzenrode (1447–1512) took his nephew under his protection. Watzenrode, soon to be bishop of the chapter of Varmia (Warmia), saw to young Nicolaus’s education and his future career as a church canon. (See Researcher’s Note for information about Copernicus’s nationality.)

Between 1491 and about 1494 Copernicus studied liberal arts—including astronomy and astrology—at the University of Cracow (Kraków). Like many students of his time, however, he left before completing his degree, resuming his studies in Italy at the University of Bologna, where his uncle had obtained a doctorate in jurisprudence in 1473. The Bologna period (1496–1500) was short but significant. For a time Copernicus lived within the same house because the principal astronomer at the university, Domenico Maria de Novara (Latin: Domenicus Maria Novaria Ferrariensis; 1454–1504). Novara had the responsibility of issuing annual astrological prognostications for town, forecasts that included all social groups but gave special attention to the fate of the Italian princes and their enemies. Copernicus, as is understood from Rheticus, was “assistant and witness” to a number of Novara’s observations, and his involvement with the assembly of the annual forecasts implies that he was intimately acquainted with the practice of astrology. Novara also probably introduced Copernicus to 2 important books that framed his future problematic as a student of the heavens: Epitoma in Almagestum Ptolemaei (“Epitome of Ptolemy’s Almagest”) by Johann Muller (also referred to as Regiomontanus, 1436–76) and Disputationes adversus astrologianm divinatricenm (“Disputations against Divinatory Astrology”) by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94). the primary provided a summary of the foundations of Ptolemy’s astronomy, with Regiomontanus’s corrections and significant expansions of certain important planetary models that may are suggestive to Copernicus of directions resulting in the heliocentric hypothesis. Pico’s Disputationes offered a devastating skeptical attack on the foundations of astrology that reverberated into the 17th century. Among Pico’s criticisms was the charge that, because astronomers disagreed about the order of the planets, astrologers couldn't make certain about the strengths of the powers issuing from the planets.

Only 27 recorded observations are known for Copernicus’s entire life (he undoubtedly made quite that), most of them concerning eclipses, alignments, and conjunctions of planets and stars. the primary such known observation occurred on March 9, 1497, at Bologna. In De revolutionibus, book 4, chapter 27, Copernicus reported that he had seen the Moon eclipse “the brightest star within the eye of the Bull,” Alpha Tauri (Aldebaran). By the time he published this observation in 1543, he had made it the premise of a theoretical claim: that it confirmed precisely the size of the apparent lunar diameter. But in 1497 he was probably using it to help in checking the new- and full-moon tables derived from the commonly used Alfonsine Tables and employed in Novara’s forecast for the year 1498.
In 1500 Copernicus spoke before an interested audience in Rome on mathematical subjects, but the precise content of his lectures is unknown. In 1501 he stayed briefly in Frauenburg but soon returned to Italy to continue his studies, now at the University of Padua, where he pursued medical studies between 1501 and 1503. At now medicine was closely allied with astrology, because the stars were thought to influence the body’s dispositions. Thus, Copernicus’s astrological experience at Bologna was better training for medicine than one may think today. Copernicus later painted a self-portrait; it's likely that he acquired the mandatory artistic skills while in Padua, since there was a flourishing community of painters there and in nearby Venice. In May 1503 Copernicus finally received a doctorate—like his uncle, in canon law—but from an Italian university where he had not studied: the University of Ferrara. When he returned to Poland, Bishop Watzenrode arranged a sinecure for him: an in absentia teaching post at Wrocław. Copernicus’s actual duties at the bishopric palace, however, were largely administrative and medical. As a church canon, he collected rents from church-owned lands; secured military defenses; oversaw chapter finances; managed the bakery, brewery, and mills; and cared for the medical needs of the opposite canons and his uncle. (Despite serving as a canon, Copernicus didn't become a priest.) Copernicus’s astronomical work came about in his spare time, except these other obligations. He used the knowledge of Greek that he had acquired during his Italian studies to organize a Latin translation of the aphorisms of an obscure 7th-century Byzantine historian and poet, Theophylactus Simocattes. The work was published in Cracow in 1509 and dedicated to his uncle. it had been during the last years of Watzenrode’s life that Copernicus evidently came up with the concept on which his subsequent fame was to rest.
Copernicus’s reputation outside local Polish circles as an astronomer of considerable ability is clear from the actual fact that in 1514 he was invited to supply his opinion at the church’s Fifth Lateran Council on the critical problem of the reform of the calendar. The civil calendar then in use was still the one produced under the reign of full general, and, over the centuries, it had fallen seriously out of alignment with the particular positions of the Sun. This rendered the dates of crucial feast days, like Easter, highly problematic. Whether Copernicus ever offered any views on the way to reform the calendar isn't known; in any event, he never attended any of the council’s sessions. The leading calendar reformer was Paul of Middelburg, bishop of Fossombrone. When Copernicus composed his dedication to De revolutionibus in 1542, he remarked that “mathematics is written for mathematicians.” Here he distinguished between those, like Paul, whose mathematical abilities were ok to grasp his work et al. who had no such ability and for whom his work wasn't intended.

Planetary observations:

Copernicus made three observations of Mercury, with errors of −3, −15 and −1 minutes of arc. He made one of Venus, with an error of −24 minutes. Four were made of Mars, with errors of 2, 20, 77, and 137 minutes. Four observations were made of Jupiter, with errors of 32, 51, −11 and 25 minutes. He made four of Saturn, with errors of 31, 20, 23 and −4 minutes.

Other observations

With Novara, Copernicus observed an occultation of Aldebaran by the moon on 9/3/1497. Copernicus also observed a conjunction of Saturn and the moon on 4/3/1500. He saw an eclipse of the moon on 6/11/1500.

Copernican system

Christian Aristotelian cosmos

Predecessors

Philolaus (c. 480–385 BCE) described an astronomical system within which a Central Fire (different from the Sun) occupied the centre of the universe, and a counter-Earth, the Earth, Moon, the Sun itself, planets, and stars all revolved around it, in this order outward from the centre.[86] Heraclides Ponticus (387–312 BCE) proposed that the world rotates on its axis.[87] Aristarchus of Samos (c. 310 BCE – c. 230 BCE) was the primary to advance a theory that the planet orbited the sun.[88] Further mathematical details of Aristarchus' heliocentric system were found out around 150 BCE by the Hellenistic astronomer Seleucus of Seleucia. Though Aristarchus' original text has been lost, a reference in Archimedes' book The Sand Reckoner (Archimedis Syracusani Arenarius & Dimensio Circuli) describes a piece by Aristarchus during which he advanced the heliocentric model.

Geocentric (Ptolemaic system) v/s Heliocentric model of universe

Classical astronomy followed principles established by Aristotle. According to 16^th century cosmology, formulated by the Alexandrian astronomer and mathematician Potelmy, it is assumed that Earth is stationary and at the center of the universe. The sun, moon, stars, planets and other celestial bodies all orbited Earth. 

Copernicus felt that Ptolomy’s theory was incorrect. Copernicus decided that he could achieve his goal only through a heliocentric model. He thereby created an idea of a universe during which the distances of the planets from the sun bore an immediate relationship to the dimensions of their orbits. All his observations of the heaven were made using naked eye. He didn’t had the tools to prove his theories.Copernicus’s heliocentric idea was very controversial at that time; nevertheless, it had been the beginning of a change within the way the planet was viewed, and Copernicus came to be seen as the initiator of the Scientific Revolution.

 In his hand-written book Commentariolus - The Little Commentary he put forward his new vision of the Universe. He thought people should shift from geocentric model to heliocentric model of the universe. 

Copernicus cited Aristarchus of Samos in an early unpublished manuscript of De Revolutionibus (which still survives), though he removed the reference from his final published manuscript.

Copernicus was probably aware that Pythagoras's system involved a moving Earth. The Pythagorean system was mentioned by Aristotle.

Copernicus owned a replica of Giorgio Valla's De expetendis et fugiendis rebus, including a translation of Plutarch's relation to Aristarchus's heliostaticism.

In Copernicus' dedication of On the Revolutions to Pope Paul III—which Copernicus hoped would dampen criticism of his heliocentric theory by "babblers... completely unaware of [astronomy]"—the book's author wrote that, in rereading all of philosophy, within the pages of Cicero and Plutarch he had found references to those few thinkers who dared to maneuver the planet "against the standard opinion of astronomers and almost against wisdom."

The prevailing theory during Copernicus's lifetime was the one that Ptolemy published in his Almagest c. 150 CE; the world was the stationary center of the universe. Stars were embedded during a large outer sphere which rotated rapidly, approximately daily, while each of the planets, the Sun, and therefore the Moon were embedded in their own, smaller spheres. Ptolemy's system employed devices, including epicycles, deferents and equants, to account for observations that the paths of those bodies differed from simple, circular orbits centered on the planet.

Copernicus

Copernicus' Commentariolus summarized his heliocentric theory. It listed the "assumptions" upon which the theory was based, as follows:

1. There is no one center of all the celestial circles or spheres.
2. The center of the earth is not the center of the universe, but only the center towards which heavy bodies move and the center of the lunar sphere.
3. All the spheres surround the sun as if it were in the middle of them all, and therefore the center of the universe is near the sun.
4. The ratio of the earth's distance from the sun to the height of the firmament (outermost celestial sphere containing the stars) is so much smaller than the ratio of the earth's radius to its distance from the sun that the distance from the earth to the sun is imperceptible in comparison with the height of the firmament.
5. Whatever motion appears in the firmament arises not from any motion of the firmament, but from the earth's motion. The earth together with its circumjacent elements performs a complete rotation on its fixed poles in a daily motion, while the firmament and highest heaven abide unchanged.
6. What appear to us as motions of the sun arise not from its motion but from the motion of the earth and our sphere, with which we revolve about the sun like any other planet. The earth has, then, more than one motion.

7. The apparent retrograde and direct motion of the planets arises not from their motion but from the earth's. The motion of the earth alone, therefore, suffices to explain so many apparent inequalities in the heavens.

De revolutionibus itself was divided into six sections or parts, called "books":

1. General vision of the heliocentric theory, and a summarized exposition of his idea of the World
2. Mainly theoretical, presents the principles of spherical astronomy and a list of stars (as a basis for the arguments developed in the subsequent books)
3. Mainly dedicated to the apparent motions of the Sun and to related phenomena
4. Description of the Moon and its orbital motions
5. Exposition of the motions in longitude of the non-terrestrial planets
6. Exposition of the motions in latitude of the non-terrestrial planets

-Anagha Vinod