Copernicus' Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began

This is a light and entertaining book that covers the Life of Copernicus. It provides a lot of details about his life and how his famous book came into being. The book also discuses the various political and religious influences that shaped Copernicus' life, although in the end I found him a bit of a cipher. This is not the author's fault, he does a very good of providing all of the extant information about his subject - it is just that we do not know why he did not follow in his uncles footsteps and become a prosperous bishop, instead opting to remain a church canon (a lesser order than that of a priest), or if he had Protestant sympathies, or how religious he actually was. The book also discusses the charge that he had a mistress, in spite of his vow of celibacy, but little else about his personal life.The book traces Copernicus' education and his work as an administrator of church property, a judge (he was a doctor of canon law), a military commander (part of his administrative duties), an astrologer and astronomer, and as a doctor (also one of the subjects he studied, but it was mostly concerned with the use of astrology to predict the most propitious time for treatment). I learned that he actually published his idea of the heavens decades before the publication of his masterwork (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), which contained all of the details supporting his ideas. The book also details the lives of many of Copernicus' fellow canon's, his superiors and most of all that of Georg Joachim Rheticus, the man most responsible for getting Copernicus to finally publish his master work.The book contains numerous maps that help illustrate the complex political situation in the land of Copernicus' birth and where he spent most of his life. However, there are no figures that help explain his cosmology, and this is why I cannot give the book five stars. The description of his earth-centered system is brief, fragmentary and overly simplified. The reader is left with the impression that it was essentially the same as our current concept of the solar system, but this is not exactly true. Because he incorrectly assumed that the planets revolved around the sun in circular orbits, at a constant rate of speed, he was forced to retain the Ptolemaic concept of epicycles, making his system as complex as that of Ptolemy, without improving its accuracy.This is a very good book if all you are interested in it the story of Copernicus' life, with a very simplified introduction to his cosmology. But, it is of less value if you want more of the specifics of his system.

Copernicus' Secret is a good, but not great book, so i give it 4 stars, which is also the average of the 22 previous reviewers. One bonus is its brevity, 196 pages with relatively large type. One could read it in a few hours. The Secret was just enough for me, who has a general knowledge of the progress of science in the early modern era, but not much specifically about Copernicus, nor did i want too much.The book consists of 18 brief chapters, the first 2 pre-Copernicus, the last 2 post-Copernicus, the 14 in between telling the story of his life. The major theme of the book was how Copernicus' major work, On the Revolutions (of the Heavenly Spheres), almost did not get published, due to the author's fear of being taunted or persecuted, for upending Ptolemy's doctrine that the sun revolved around the earth. There is even a dash of romance, with the aging canon (non-priestly cleric) having some sort of dalliance with his former housekeeper; perhaps this is the secret referred to in the biography's title? Copernicus' magnum opus was then saved for history by Rheticus, whom Copernicus inexplicably omitted from the acknowledgements; is this the Secret?This book again illustrated for me how much physical science is a religion of sorts. Astronomy has a 'Bible,', the works of Ptolemy being the Old Testament, the works of Copernicus as the New. The names of Ptolemy, Aristotle, Peurbach, Regiomantanus, Copernicus, Rheticus, Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton serving as prophets, bearers of the Tradition, the hierarchy, and at least Galileo as martyr. Repcheck's characterization of the Galileo affair is tendentiously brief. His work was only proven in the 19th century, which is all that the church asked of him, to publish his findings as an hypothesis, not a dogma. Yet all of the above were Christian believers to varying decrees. All agreed that the 'heavens' were both physical and spiritual, their beauty proclaiming the intelligence and goodness of their Creator. Yet paradoxically all of the above were also involved in the para-science of astrology.Overall, Copernicus' Secret is worth your time and money.

The book gives the reader a clear and interesting portrait of life among the clerical and scientific societies of the time.The effects that the Reformation and Gutenberg's invention had on society at large and specifically on the scientists of the time was interesting, although not totally new to this reader. The problems encountered in publishing "On the Revolutions.." were well narrated and kept my interest in the story.I did find three problems with the book. First , like other reviewers have commented, I expected to gain more insight into how Copernicus arrived at his model of the universe. Mr. Repcheck did not provide us with this insight.Second, when discussing Kepler, Mr. Repcheck fails to mention that before accepting the Copernican model, Kepler built a geocentric model using platonic solids. It was only after this model failed that he [ Kepler] embraced the Copernican theory.Third , there is an error near the end of the book when Mr. Repcheck introduces Galileo. Here he mentions that Galileo was born three years after Kepler. This is obviously an error since Galileo was born in 1564 and Kepler in 1571. .All in all , the book is an interesting read .

2009 was the International Year of Astronomy, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Galileo's use of the telescope to first observe the night skies. In particular, planets were now recognised as being worlds like our own. 2009 is also the 400th anniversary of Johannes Kepler's mathematical explanation of how the planets moved, in elliptical orbits around the sun, not the earth, as previously thought for the past 1500 years. But both of these scientists owed their pursuasions to Nicholas Copernicus who, in 1543, had been the first to suggest a heliocentric planetary system (albeit with the planets moving in circular orbits)...an idea desperately close to heresay in a Catholic world-view that took the next two thirds of a century of increasingly refined observation and calculation to prove right.Repcheck's book admirably explains Copernicus' Secret: How the Scientific Revolution began, and how what started as one man's idea blossomed with the support of a handful of Central European natural philosophers in the shadow of an anti-Lutherian backlash. Well written and with copious notes and references for the researcher, this is a highly recommended read.Kevin J Kilburn FRAS. Secretary, the Society for the History of Astronomy

Given the helicopter perspective provided by most histories of the period, it is difficult to find much intimate history of inland Europe in the early 16th century, which enhances the value of human detail that fills this book. Attention is paid to the individuals amongst whom Copernicus moved, allowing their rapport with him to furnish you with a sense of what the man was like and the kind of political habitat that surrounded him. Since it is short and written in a fresh style - with short sentences, a natural biographical flow and no complicated technical demands made of the reader - I would argue that everyone who has used Copernicus as a search term in Amazon will enjoy it. I can't remember finishing a book so quickly.

I really enjoyed this book and although I knew of Copernicus the importance of his discovery had never impacted on me. The author perhaps overstated his case but that's his perogative. Why 4 stars? Because there was too little {none} science. But a very good account of his life and times.

I enjoyed this book very much. The way it is written had me captivated - and the history of the science was so interesting. Makes one really appreciate the breadth of knowledge in many walks of life, and the genius of Copernicus.