Quarter 1 Biography Project

Biography of Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus was born on 1473 and died on 1543. Nicolaus was born in Torun, Poland, when he was twelve, Copernicus's parents died. Copernicus was admitted to a church by his uncle, who was a priest. His uncle gave him an education and Copernicus attended University at Cracow. Copernicus went to Italy, despite his full-time career at his church, cathedral of Frauenberg. At Italy Copernicus studied church law, while also studied astronomy. He witnessed his first astronomical event in 1497, where he saw the moon pass a start named Aldebaran. After that in 1500, he witnessed a spectacular event, it was a lunar eclipse. In 1512, Copernicus built an "observatory", which was a tower with no roof. Copernicus later created his own model and called it the Heliocentric Model, and had a book called De Revolutionibus. Copernicus states that celestial bodies around earth only appear to circle earth because earth is spinning, moving every day for the whole year.

            Nicolaus in 1514, fabricated his book De Revolutionibus, which was later published only because of Rheticus's constant begging, even though Nicolaus's book had a summary of it, that Rheticus made earlier. One of Copernicus's early supporters, Erasmus Reinhold, made important changes to De Revolutionibus and Copernicus's first set of practical planetary tables, Tabulae Pruticae. De Revolutionibus was unpopular, this is because it went against the bible, this is because De Revolutionibus states that the Earth was not in the center of the solar system, however Copernicus says that the Sun is. A guy named Osiander was making changes to Copernicus's book. Once under pressure by Martin Luther, who was fully against the Copernican theory, Osiander made a preface that gained immense Copernicus look like a fool. Osiander stated that this heliocentric theory was not actually being presented as a fact. Osiander did not sagn his name under this preface, making it seem like Copernicus wrote it and was tearing apart his own theory.. Nicolaus Copernicus's book did not do well in his era, but in the future it helped many other astronomers such as Galileo, Kepler, and Brahe. Kepler revealed the truth behind the preface and resurrected Copernicus's theory of the heliocentric model.

            De Revolutionibus helped Galileo contradict Aristotle's Ptolemaic System, which was the Earth being in the middle of the Solar System. Galileo was able to contradict the Ptolemaic system when he saw, Jupiter's moons through his telescope. This contradicted Ptomemaic and supported the Heliocentric system because it was known worldwide, that the celestial bodies circled Earth.

            Nicolaus started this astronomy revolution, that made everyone rethink about their ancestors' theories. One could say the Nicolaus was the matchstick of the revolution. Nicolaus was able to think outside the box making people from the present and future relate to Copernicus's theory. Copernicus had almost died from a stroke, and is said that he was able to see his first copy of his book, De Revolutionibus.