Nicolaus Copernicus is widely recognized as the founder of modern astronomy and one of the most influential figures in the history of science.

A Polish scholar and astronomer, Copernicus introduced the heliocentric principle—later known as the Copernican Principle or Copernican Theory—which proposed that the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun. This revolutionary idea fundamentally transformed humanity’s understanding of the universe and laid the groundwork for modern astronomical science.

Nicolaus Copernicus, also known as Mikolaj Kopernik, was born on February 19, 1473, in Toruń, Poland. His father was a merchant from Kraków, and his mother came from a wealthy family. He was the youngest of four children. His brother Andreas was an Augustinian priest, while his sister Barbara became a Benedictine nun. His other sister, Katharina, married the governor of Thorn. After his father died at an early age, Copernicus took responsibility for supporting the remaining five children. He never married.

After completing his basic education, Copernicus continued his studies in 1492 at the Kraków Academy in Poland, where he specialized in mathematics, astronomy, and optics. In addition, he pursued medical studies with the aim of becoming a physician. During his leisure time, he painted and translated Greek poetry into Latin.

At the insistence of his uncle, Copernicus traveled to Italy, where he studied for six years at some of the most prestigious universities of the period, including Bologna, Padua, and Ferrara. His studies encompassed astronomy, mathematics, law, and medicine. After spending some time in Rome as a professor of mathematics, he returned to Poland and assumed a high-ranking position within the Church. Alongside his ecclesiastical duties, he served in various governmental roles and at times represented his country as a diplomat. Despite these responsibilities, astronomy remained his true passion.

The culmination of nearly thirty years of uninterrupted work, his masterpiece De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (“On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”), was published at the urging of his friends. The first printed copy reached Copernicus while he lay on his deathbed, in the final days of his life.

In this work and in his earlier treatise Commentariolus (“A Commentary on the Hypotheses of the Motions of Celestial Bodies”), Copernicus explained in detail his views on astronomy. Published in 1543, shortly before his death, these writings presented a systematic heliocentric model of the cosmos. His astronomical knowledge was unparalleled for his time, building upon Babylonian observations and the theoretical achievements of ancient Greek astronomers.

Until the seventeenth century, the dominant astronomical framework was the Ptolemaic system, which placed the Earth motionless at the center of the universe. According to this model, the Moon, Sun, planets, and stars were embedded in a series of nested crystalline spheres rotating around the Earth. This geocentric view was not only philosophically comforting but also supported by religious doctrine. However, from a scientific standpoint, it was overly complex and internally inconsistent.

Copernicus, influenced during his student years by earlier critics of Ptolemaic theory—especially his teacher Novara at the University of Bologna—grew increasingly dissatisfied with this system. He sought a simpler and more coherent explanation of celestial motions, turning to an ancient hypothesis proposed by Aristarchus in the third century BCE, which placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the cosmic system.

Although this hypothesis contradicted both established doctrine and common sense, Copernicus initially regarded it primarily as a mathematical tool for achieving greater geometric harmony in astronomical models. In the preface to his book, he emphasized not the absolute physical truth of the system but its mathematical consistency.

Copernicus concluded that the apparent rising and setting of the Sun, Moon, and stars was caused by the Earth’s rotation on its own axis. In his model, the Earth rotated daily on its axis and revolved annually around the Sun, while the other planets also orbited the Sun.

Although his system was not entirely accurate—he still believed the Sun to be fixed at the center of the universe with the stars immobile beyond—it represented a monumental leap forward. Later discoveries revealed that the Sun is merely one of countless stars, all in constant motion throughout space.

The Copernican Theory rests on two fundamental assumptions: first, that the celestial spheres carrying the planets revolve around the Sun rather than the Earth; and second, that the Earth is not stationary at the center of the universe but rotates on its axis and orbits the Sun. These assumptions were driven primarily by observational evidence.

Despite its revolutionary nature, the Copernican system faced strong resistance during Copernicus’s lifetime. Its limitations and inaccuracies were later addressed in the seventeenth century by the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. Nevertheless, Copernicus’s realization that the Earth is not the center of the universe marked a decisive turning point in scientific thought.

Nicolaus Copernicus died on May 24, 1543, at the age of seventy, in Frombork, Poland, leaving behind a legacy that permanently transformed humanity’s understanding of the cosmos.

Source: Biyografiler.com