Copernicus, Nicolaus (1473-1543), Polish astronomer, best known for his theory that the sun is at rest near the center of the universe and that the earth, spinning on its axis once daily, revolves annually around the sun. See Astronomy; Solar System. II Life Born in Thorn (now Torun) Copernicus went to Italy about 1495 to study medicine and law. In 1497 he began to study canon law at the University of Bologna while living in the home of a mathematics professor, who greatly stimulated Copernicus's geographical and astronomical interests. In 1500 Copernicus lectured on astronomy in Rome. He received a doctorate in canon law from Ferrara in 1503 and returned to Poland. Sometime between 1507 and 1515, he completed a short astronomical treatise, De Hypothesibus Motuum Coelestium a se Constitutis Commentariolus (known as the Commentariolus), not published until the 19th century, in which he laid down the principles of his new astronomy. After moving to Frauenburg in 1512, Copernicus began his major work, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, finished by 1530 but not published until just before his death in 1543. III The Copernican System and Its Influence As well as arguing that the earth rotates daily on its axis and revolves yearly around the sun, Copernicus held that the planets also circle the sun, and that the earth precesses on its axis, wobbling like a top, as it rotates. The Copernican system retained many features of the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, including solid, planet-bearing spheres and a finite outermost sphere bearing the fixed stars. Copernicus's calculations of astronomical positions were neither decisively simpler nor more accurate than those of his predecessors, and parts of his theory were adopted, while the radical core was ignored or rejected. There were only ten Copernicans between 1543 and 1600, the most famous of whom were Italian physicist Galileo and the German astronomer Johannes Kepler. By the late 17th century, with the rise of the system of celestial mechanics propounded by English mathematician Sir Isaac Newton, most major thinkers in England, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark were Copernicans.
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