Nicolaus Copernicus

Picture
     Nicolaus Copernicus was born February 19, 1473 in Thorn Poland. Nicolaus was the son of a wealthy merchant, but once his father had died, he moved in with his mothers brother or his uncle. He was close to the Catholic Church because his uncle happened to be a bishop to the local church. For three years he studied Mathematics and Astronomy at the University of Krakow. Soon after his studies he went to Bologna, Padua, and Ferrara in Italy to conduct studies in Law and Medicine.
Picture
     In Nicolaus time, people believed in the Geocentric Model of the solar system which was the theory that the sun orbited the earth. This theory had flaws however. One flaw in this theory was that planets appear to move in one direction, go retrograde for a period of time, and move in the original direction. This was one reason that this model could not work for if it did, planets would need to appear to maintain the same direction.
Picture
     Copernicus belived the Heliocentric Model, the theory that the eath as well as the rest of the solar system orbits the sun. Copernicus published a book called De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium near his death in 1543. Although his friends urged him to put out his book once he had finnished, he refused to because he was afraid of being scorn.  He also had created a 40 page manuscript which he shared with his friends about his hypothosies of the Heliocentric Model in 1514. 
Picture
     In Copernicus book, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, he stated many things that now are common sense but in his time this opposed what everyone thought. One thing he said was that the earth in not the center of the universe, nor the solar system, however it is a center of gravity and the lunar sphere.  A second thing he said was that all planets rotate the sun, making the sun the center of the universe or solar system. Another thing he said was that in comparison to the earth the sun in massive but because of its dictance the sun appears small. Something else he said was that the earth, like the other planets, revolve around the sun, and that the sun appears to move across the sky because the earth roates, meaning the earth has more than one motion. These are the things Copernicus wrote about in his book.
Sources
Website(s):
Image(s): 
Video(s):


This webpage was ceated by Sean C. in Wisconsin. I choose Nicolaus Copernicus because I love astronomy and thought that he was very impotant feild because of his Heliocentric Model.