Nicolaus Copernicus

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Nicolaus Copernicus.  Portrait from Toruń, beginning of the 16th century.
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Nicolaus Copernicus. Portrait from Toruń, beginning of the 16th century.

Nicolaus Copernicus (February 19, 1473May 24, 1543) was an astronomer. People know Copernicus for his theory that the Earth goes around the sun. They call that heliocentric, form helios - sun. He wrote (sun-centered) theory of the solar system in his epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres).

Copernicus was born in 1473 in the city of Toruń (Thorn), in Royal Prussia, a region of the Kingdom of Poland. He was taught in Poland and Italy, and spent most of his older life working and researching in Frombork (Frauenburg), Warmia, where he died in 1543.

Copernicus was one of the great polymaths of his age. He was a mathematician, astronomer, jurist, physician, classical scholar, governor, administrator, diplomat, economist, and soldier. During all these jobs, he treated astronomy like a hobby. However, his formula of how the sun rather than the earth is at the center of the universe is thought to be one of the most important scientific hypotheses history. Many people believe it was the beginning of modern astronomy. Also, his original Polish name is Mikołaj Kopernik.

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General
About De Revolutionibus
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German-Polish Cooperations

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