A Short Biography of Nicholas Copernicus

Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) was the astronomer who first formulated the sun-centered (heliocentric) theory of the solar system in his book, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium which was published in the year that he died.

Copernicus was born in 1473 in the city of Toruń (Thorn) in Royal Prussia which was then an autonomous province of the Kingdom of Poland. He was educated in Poland and Italy and spent most of his working life in Frombork (Frauenburg), Royal Prussia, as a canon of the cathedral chapter. In his spare time he considered the cosmic aspects of planetary movement. To him Ptolemy's system of epicycles seemed inappropriate in what he believed should be a simple system designed by God. The results of his work culminated in an unwelcome theory that the planets revolved around the sun. These new theories were quite successful, however, in that they gave better predictions of celestial movements of the planets.

Copernicus's postulates seven points about planetary movements in his book. They are:

1. There is no one center in the universe.

2. The earth's center is not the center of the universe.

3. The center of the universe is near the sun.

4. The distance from the earth to the sun is insignificant when compared with the distance to the stars.

5. The rotation of the earth accounts for the perceived movement of the stars.

6. The annual cycle of the sun is caused by the earth revolving around the sun.

7. The apparent retrograde motion of the planets is caused by the movement of the observer on earth.

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