Читать книгу Astronomy in your pocket - Vladimir Vladimirovich Bereznyakovsky - Страница 8

Nicholas Copernicus can rightly be considered the man who stopped the Sun and moved the Earth, because he was the first in Europe to formulate and scientifically justify the heliocentric system of the world.

Orphaned early, Copernicus was educated in Italy. While studying at the University, Nicolaus Copernicus showed excellent results in mathematics and theology, but it was then that he became particularly interested in astronomy. After receiving a doctorate in Canon law, Copernicus returned to his native Poland at the age of 30. Copernicus made all his notes in Latin or German – there is not a single paper known that he made in Polish. Copernicus had a perfect command of the ancient Greek language. Moreover, the first translation of a text from ancient Greek into Polish was made by him.

The first works of Copernicus, revealing the mechanics of the celestial bodies, were freely distributed and even admired in Church circles, but as soon as the Church realized that his work “undermines the foundations”, the books were banned. The main statements in the Copernicus heliocentric system were as follows: the celestial spheres and orbits do not have a common center, as Aristotle claimed; the center of the Earth is only the center of mass and the center of the moon’s orbit, not the center of the Universe; the distance between the Earth and the fixed stars is much greater than the distance between the Earth and the Sun, and all the planets move in orbits centered on the Sun. These statements completely contradicted the prevailing idea of the structure of the universe at that time, according to which the Central position in the Universe is occupied by a stationary Earth, around which the Sun, Moon, planets and stars rotate. In 1616 under Pope Paul V, the Catholic Church officially banned the Copernican theory and the protection of the heliocentric system of the world, since this interpretation contradicts the Scriptures, although the heliocentric model was still allowed to be used for mathematical calculations of the movement of the planets. Copernicus was also one of the first to Express the idea of universal gravitation.

Contrary to popular belief, no one burned Nicholas Copernicus at the stake. He lived a long life, and died at home at the age of 70. The grave of the great scientist was discovered only in 2008, the authenticity of his remains was confirmed by a DNA test.