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Nicolaus Copernicus
| Nicolaus Copernicus | |
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Portrait, 1580, Toruń Old Town City Hall
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| Born | 19 February 1473 Toruń (Thorn), Royal Prussia, Kingdom of Poland |
| Died | 24 May 1543 (aged 70) Frombork (Frauenburg), Prince-Bishopric of Warmia, Royal Prussia, Kingdom of Poland |
| Fields | Mathematics, astronomy, canon law, medicine, economics |
| Alma mater | Kraków University Bologna University University of Padua University of Ferrara |
| Known for | Heliocentrism Copernicus' Law |
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Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was an astronomer. People know Copernicus for his ideas about the sun and the earth. His main idea was that our world is heliocentric (helios = sun). His theory was that the sun is in the middle of the solar system, and the planets go around it. This was published in his book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres).
Birthplace of Copernicus in Toruń (Kopernika Road #15, left). Together with the house at #17 (right), it forms the Muzeum Mikołaja Kopernika.
Copernicus was born in 1473 in the city of Thorn (Toruń), in Royal Prussia, a mainly German-speaking region that a few years earlier had become a part of the Kingdom of Poland. He was taught first in Cracow and then in Italy, where he graduated as a lawyer of the church. He studied also medicine to serve his fellow clerics. Copernicus spent most of his life working and researching in Frauenburg (Frombork), Warmia, where he died in 1543.
Copernicus was one of the great polymaths of his age. He was a priest, mathematician, astronomer, doctor, jurist, physician, classical scholar, governor, administrator, diplomat, economist, and soldier. During all these jobs, he treated astronomy as a hobby. However, his formula of how the sun, rather than the earth, is at the center of the solar system, is still one of the most important scientific hypotheses in history. It was the beginning of modern astronomy.
Images
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Copernicus' maternal uncle, Lucas Watzenrode the Younger
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German-language letter from Copernicus to Duke Albert of Prussia, giving medical advice for George von Kunheim (1541)
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Collegium Maius, Kraków
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Nicolaus Copernicus Monument in Kraków
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"Here, where stood the house of Domenico Maria Novara, professor of the ancient Studium of Bologna, NICOLAUS COPERNICUS, the Polish mathematician and astronomer who would revolutionize concepts of the universe, conducted brilliant celestial observations with his teacher in 1497–1500. Placed on the 5th centenary of [Copernicus's] birth by the City, the University, the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna, the Polish Academy of Sciences. 1473 [—] 1973."
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Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God, by Matejko. In background: Frombork Cathedral.
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Copernicus's translation of Theophylact Simocatta's Epistles. Cover shows coats-of-arms of (clockwise from top) Poland, Lithuania and Kraków.
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Copernicus' tower at Frombork, where he lived and worked; reconstructed since World War II
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Frombork Cathedral mount and fortifications. In foreground: statue of Copernicus
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Copernicus Monument in Warsaw designed by the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen
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Copernicus with medicinal plant
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Photograph of a 16th-century portrait of Copernicus — the original painting was looted, and possibly destroyed, by the Germans in World War II during the occupation of Poland.
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Frombork Cathedral
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Casket with Copernicus' remains, St. James' Cathedral Basilica, Olsztyn, March 2010
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Copernicus' 2010 grave, Frombork Cathedral
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1735 epitaph, Frombork Cathedral. A 1580 epitaph had been destroyed.
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Tusi couple
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Copernicus
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Ptolemy and Copernicus, ca. 1686, at King Jan Sobieski's library, Wilanów Palace: an early Copernicus depiction
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U.S. postage stamp on 500th anniversary of Copernicus's birth (1973)