Nicolaus Copernicus (
February 19,
1473 –
May 24,
1543) was the first
astronomer to formulate a scientifically based
heliocentric cosmology that displaced the
Earth from the center of the universe. His epochal book,
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (
On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), is often regarded as the starting point of modern
astronomy and the defining
epiphany that began the
Scientific Revolution.
Although Greek, Indian and Muslim savants had published heliocentric hypotheses centuries before Copernicus, his publication of a scientific theory of heliocentrism, demonstrating that the motions of celestial objects can be explained without putting the Earth at rest in the center of the universe, stimulated further scientific investigations, and became a landmark in the history of modern science that is known as the Copernican Revolution.
Among the great polymaths of the Renaissance, Copernicus was a mathematician, astronomer, physician, classical scholar, translator, Catholic cleric, jurist, governor, military leader, diplomat and economist. Among his many responsibilities, astronomy figured as little more than an avocation — yet it was in that field that he made his mark upon the world.
Nicolaus Copernicus was born on February 19, 1473, in a house on St. Anne's Street (now Copernicus Street) in the city of Torun (Thorn). Torun was situated on the Vistula River in the Royal Prussia region of the Kingdom of Poland.[1] Nicolaus was named after his father, who about 1458 had moved from Kraków to Torun. The father was a wealthy copper trader who had become a respected citizen of Torun. Nicolaus's mother, Barbara Watzenrode (died after 1495), had been born into a wealthy merchant family that was part of the patrician class in Torun.
