Nicolaus Copernicus
"I can easily conceive, most Holy Father, that as soon as some people learn that in this
Book which I have written concerning the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, I ascribe certain motions to the earth, they will cry out at once that I and my theory should be rejected."
- Nicolaus Copernicus
1543, To Pope John Paul III, Dedication to The Revolutions of Heavenly Bodies.
The youngest of four children, Nicolaus Koppernigk was born February 19, 1473 to Barbara Watzenrode and Nicolaus Koppernigk. His father, also named Nicolaus Koppernigk was a wealthy copper merchant who had relocated his family from Kracow to Torun. Technically German, when Torun ceded to Poland, Copernicus became a Polish citizen, thus his first language was German but he also spoke Latin fluently as well as some Polish. During his education at Krakow he changed his name to the Latin form, Nicolaus Copernicus. This would be the name that would be remembered for his brilliant works.
In 1483, when Nicolaus was 10 years old his father died. His mother’s brother, his uncle, took guardianship of him and his three siblings. His uncle, Lucas Watzenrode, was a well- respected Cleric who would eventually become bishop of Warmia. His uncle valued both the church and education and made it a priority that Nicolaus receive a good education as well as advancing in the church.
Nicolaus stayed in Torun, and finished his elementary education there. In 1488 he went to Wloclawek cathedral school where he got his proper humanist education. In 1491, he enrolled in the University of Kracow. It is believed that this university ignited Nicolaus’ interest in astronomy, astrology and mathematics. Records from the library during his stay confirm his budding interests ...
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...iander to light.
Over the next 50 years Copernicus’s book would slowly make its way across Europe. In 1566 a second edition was published without the false preface. The church denounced the book and Copernicus for “going against the bible”, but eventually began to accept it and allow it to be taught. Copernicus’s work was profound and changed the direction of Astronomy. It dared to challenge the notion that the Earth was the center of the universe, and that heavenly matter was unchanging and perfect. Over the next several hundred years Brahe would observe, Kepler and Newton would pour over the numbers and they would find the Copernicus’s model had underlying truths, some flaws, but with tweaking and vigilant observations of the celestial motions it would be the basis that lead them to the model we know today. Bringing forth what we know as the Copernican Revolution.
First of all, what Copernicus was trying to say about Orbit and the Earth that
Julius Caesar was born either on July 12th or July 13th of July 100 BC in Rome, Italy. Nobody knows for sure which day. He was born into the Julian clan. His full name is Gaius Julius Caesar. Although Caesar's family was closely associated with the Marian faction in Roman politics, his family would be considered middle class of today’s standards. Caesar married Cornelia around the age of 18. Cornelia was the only woman in Caesar's life to give birth to a legitimate child. While married to Cornelia, the dictator Sulla ordered Caesar to divorce Cornelia, Caesar refused, so Sulla put Caesar on the list of people to be executed. For this Caesar went into hiding. Caesar was eventually pardoned for the action. (McManus, 2011)
Alexander went to study with Thomas Deane, a convert to Catholicism who lost his position at Oxford as a result of his religious beliefs. After the Pope family moved to Bin field Alexander became self-taught.
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The first record of the movement of the planets was produced by Nicolaus Copernicus. He proposed that the earth was the center of everything, which the term is called geocentric. Kepler challenged the theory that the sun was the center of the earth and proposed that the sun was the center of everything; this term is referred to as heliocentric. Kepler’s heliocentric theory was accepted by most people and is accepted in today’s society. One of Kepler’s friends was a famous person named Galileo. Galileo is known for improving the design and the magnification of the telescope. With improvement of the telescope Galileo could describe the craters of the moon and the moons of Jupiter. Galileo also created the number for acceleration of all free falling objects as 9.8 meters per second. Galileo’s and Kepler’s theories were not approved by all people. Their theories contradicted verses in the bible, so the protestant church was extremely skeptical of both Galileo and Kepler’s
Named after Nicolaus Copernicus the Copernican principle states that Earth is not situated in a favored or central position in the universe (Bondi, 1952). It is a shift from the Ptolemaic system which states that the earth is at the center of the universe and dates back to the 16th and 17th century. The Copernican principle is one of the primary principles in astronomy. It states that the sun is the center of the solar system. Copernicus was not satisfied with the earlier system and created a heliocentric model which demotes Earth from its central role in the universe (Kuhn, 1957). The Copernican principle implies that the universe appears isotropic in all directions from Earth which also implies that the universe is homogenous everywhere. This statement contradicts with modern astronomy which observes that the universe is ...
Copernicus was a scientist and philosopher whose theory proposed that the sun was stationary, and the heavens orbit around the sun. Galileo tried to convince the Church not to abolish the Copernican theory but was told that he was not to entertain such thoughts with others.... ... middle of paper ... ...(n.d.).
When his grandfather died, Nostradamus was sent to Avignon to study. He already showed a great interest in astrology and it became common talk among his fellow students. He upheld the Copernican theory that the world was round and circled around the sun more than 100 years before Galileo was prosecuted for the same belief.
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Leonhard Euler was born in Basel, Switzerland on 15 April 1707. His father, Paul Euler, studied theology at the University of Basel. Paul Euler became a Protestant minister and married Margaret Brucker. Leonhard Euler was born in Basel, but the family moved to Riehen when he was a one year old. It was in Riehen, not far from Basel, that Leonhard was raised. Paul Euler had a college education and, in turn, had some mathematical training. He was able to teach his son elementary mathematics along with other subjects (Leonhard Euler).
Over the course of the years, society has been reformed by new ideas of science. We learn more and more about global warming, outer space, and technology. However, this pattern of gaining knowledge did not pick up significantly until the Scientific Revolution. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the Scientific Revolution started, which concerned the fields of astronomy, mechanics, and medicine. These new scientists used math and observations strongly contradicting religious thought at the time, which was dependent on the Aristotelian-Ptolemy theory. However, astronomers like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton accepted the heliocentric theory. Astronomical findings of the Scientific Revolution disproved the fact that humans were the center of everything, ultimately causing people to question theology’s role in science and sparking the idea that people were capable of reasoning for themselves.