Copernicus: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Once an idea gets stuck solidly into the human mind, especially when that idea permeates throughout to a culture, society or a power structure, it can take quite a blast to dislodge it. Confirmation bias, one of the human condition's most insidious flaws, can make people deny even indisputable evidence that sits right in front of their eyes, clouded by wish fulfillment, tradition or emotional or political desires. To those now inundated with modern technology and the scientific method, it may seem preposterous that people ever thought that the Sun revolved around the Earth and that the Earth remained stationary. Many from those eras may have suspected it, but they lived in hideously dangerous times where spreading ideas could lead to a prolonged and gruesome death. This demonstrates to what extent organized and hierarchical social structures can influence even what people see, believe or confirm. Centuries ago, the most obvious evidence couldn't stand up to the power of the medieval church. Many at the time probably chose to simply believe prescribed truths than look reality, and their own impending mortality, in the face. This makes early astronomers, at least those who tried to speak up, who did see things that could threaten or embarrass their era's prevailing power, all the more heroic. They helped change humanity's self-conception and self-knowledge while giving it a better idea just where it stood in the vastness of nature and in the universe. Some people didn't like the results. Some, though thankfully a tiny minority, still don't.Of all the names that emerge from this vast cosmological history, Nicolaus Copernicus remains one of the most fondly and perpetually remembered. Yet few seem to know anything about the person Nicolaus Copernicus, apart from the popular platitude that "he said the earth revolved around the sun." Though true, his story goes beyond that and he fits into a long astronomical tradition of collecting observations, extracting facts from them and publishing results for the scrutiny of others. In some ways he actually accomplished less than some may think and some significant parts of his work went absolutely nowhere. Despite this, he stands as one of the most important and pivotal figures in all of world history, though it took considerable time for his reputation to blossom. Everyone should know more than just the name of this revolutionary figure who changed life for pretty much every single person on the planet. One great starting point is "Copernicus: A Very Short Introduction." The very accurate title of this 487th installment of the well-known Oxford series definitely delivers. Not too short, definitely not too long at under 100 pages, it focuses more on Copernicus himself than on his legacy, though slices of that inevitably appear as well. It tells the story that few know, likely because very little information actually exists on how Copernicus formulated his game-changing heliocentric configuration of the then known planets. More than anything, and this may surprise some readers, the book credits Copernicus less with heliocentrism and more with "inventing the solar system."Proceeding chronologically, the book begins with Copernicus's birth in 1473 in Torun, Poland, his father's death 10 years later and his uncle taking over patronage of the children. In an environment of some privilege, this uncle became bishop of Varmia and saw that Copernicus graduated from the University of Cracow in 1491, a school noted for astronomy because they employed two, yes two, professors in that department. A number of important books became available in print during that time, including Sacrobosco's "De Sphaera," the Alfonsine tables and Euclid's "Geometry." In 1495, his uncle appointed Copernicus for a position in the Varmian diocese, then he became an astronomer's assistant in Bologna while studying civil and church law and completed his studies in 1500, just in time to travel to Rome for the 1500th anniversary celebration of Christianity. A young Martin Luther also attended, so two world-changing and status quo shattering figures once inhabited Rome simultaneously. Returning to Frauenburg (known as Frombork today, but the author prefers to use "Frauenburg" throughout), he became a Canon, took a vow of celibacy and acted sort of like a member of a board of directors. Then he traveled to Rome to study medicine, for which he became renowned, and "Dr. Copernicus" emerged upon graduation in 1503. To save money for the then expected lavish graduation banquet, he temporarily relocated to Ferrara to graduate, a town where he had no friends expecting a lavish feast. Clever.In the 15th century, Copernicus sat at the end of a long astronomical tradition that the book delineates. This included knowledge of the varying rates of planetary motions throughout the year, retrograde motion, Ptolemy and his geometrical masterwork of cosmology "Almagest" and the astronomical tables that could, with enough data points, predict the location of celestial objects through extrapolation. History didn't much like Ptolemy's geocentric configuration, especially his "equant," introduced to "fix" retrograde motion but it messed things up even more. A diagram and an explanation in the book make this problem clearer. Such quandaries apparently led Copernicus to arrange the planets by their orbits, but no writings or even scribblings exist as to the process or method he used to gain this insight. It appears that his "invention of the solar system" will remain shrouded in historical mist. The epiphany must have bowled him over, because the new order of the planets solved so many long-standing problems and eliminated so many annoying eccentricities. Why didn't someone think of this before? The book provides one explanation: though strange to modern minds, the late medieval world deemed a spinning Earth impossible because if it spun with great speed wouldn't everything just fly off its surface? Times change.Some years passed while Copernicus served as an indentured servant to his uncle to work off his Italian travel debts. Very little information exists from this time, though he published a Latin translation of 85 "amusing and short" Greek epistles in 1509, but no one really knows why. Only 2 pages of marginal notes in a book show any astronomical work. Then, sometime around or before 1514, he wrote an outright heliocentric treatise known as "Commentariolus," or "The Little Commentary." Its 3rd, 6th and 7th postulates openly expounded a sun centered universe. But, probably for obvious reasons, he kept it only to himself and some friends. Nonetheless, he set out to collect the data he needed to support his ideas. It took him 20 years. He likely had an armillary sphere, a sundial and a "triquetum." He didn't have a telescope, of course. Following a small distraction of hordes of invading Teutonic Knights, Copernicus made the last observation he needed to compose his own "Almagest" on March 12, 1529. Now 56, administrative and medical duties still took a fair amount of his time, but his evolving heliocentric manuscript continued to expand.Meanwhile, over in Reformation-era Germany, an astronomer named Georg Joachim Rheticus heard of a "radical new cosmology" in Poland. Despite the very Catholic region's overt Lutheran ban, complete with death threats, Rheticus traveled to Varmia, arriving in 1539, delivered books and precious observations on Mercury, studied heliocentrism with Copernicus for two years and played a large role in the printing of his final work "De revolutionibus." Rheticus, with Copernicus's approval, published the "First Report" announcing heliocentrism to the world. Copernicus then entrusted Rheticus with finding a printer for "De revolutionibus" in 1541. Duties got in the way until 1542 when printing finally began in Petreius's Nuremberg print shop. Divided into 6 books, each one divided into chapters, the heliocentric model appears in chapter 10: "in the center of all rests the sun." Retrograde motion finally had a reasonable explanation and Copernicus argued that great distances separated the planets from the stars. Responding to a lucrative offer, Rheticus left the Lutheran theologian Andreas Osiander to oversee printing. Everything continued unabated, but sadly Copernicus had suffered a debilitating stroke in 1543 and so likely didn't fully comprehend the final proofs. As such, he likely didn't comprehend that Osiander had inserted some text suggesting that the book only served for "calculating purposes." Though aggravating, it may have actually saved the book from instant censure. Decades later, Kepler would make the system workable, as Copernicus relied on circular orbits and other concepts later deemed faulty.At the end of the final chapter, the author tells of his quest to find and examine all of the extant first editions of Copernicus's "De revolutionibus." It took some 30 years to see around 600 copies. He wanted to know if the book deserved the title "the book nobody read," coined by Arthur Koestler. Only a few copies showed annotations, possibly suggesting that few people actually read their copies. Regardless, the book's influence eventually spread and its legacy continues directly to the present day. Not only that, DNA analysis, as recently as 2010, identified the actual physical remains of Copernicus, now interred in Frombork Cathedral. Miraculously, a few hairs remaining in one of Copernicus's books provided the DNA to identify a skull buried in the Cathedral floor.A book as tiny as "Copernicus: A Very Short Introduction" can't tell the entire story, but it provides enough material to make this fascinating and immensely important medieval astronomer spring to life. Copernicus redefined the heavens and simultaneously challenged how the human species conceives of itself. The cosmos, it turns out, does not conform to our egos. Since heliocentric ideas took hold, we have had to re-evaluate our place and purpose in the universe. The modern world arguably begins to unfold as the implications of "De revolutionibus" reach the masses through wider literacy and movable type. Humanity would never be the same. Henryk Gorecki adequately expressed the monumental shift musically in his 1972 "Copernican" Symphony. The very short, but very good, "Copernicus: A Very Short Introduction" will give context not only to that ominous music, but also to the name that still lives on after half a millennium.

Disappointing.. The author did not even start by naming both parents. He did not discuss the nationality question at all which wikipedia settled very nicely. I was intetested mainly in how Copernicus came up with the heliocentric model... Not minor minor details of his life like his relationship with his uncle..Very disappointed with this book.

Highly authoritative and excellent account of Copernicus summarising decades of research by the author. Look no further.

Few names signify a change in worldview based on scientific discovery similar to Nicolaus Copernicus.His lasting achievement is the mathematic basis for a physical model of the solar system with the sun at its centre, making Earth one of several planets circling the sun.In his intellectual biography, Owen Gingerich calls this the “invention of the solar system” – the Copernican revolution.While most readers will be familiar with the general lines of this revolution, Gingerich takes a more personal focus on Copernicus and his intellectual development. This is a unique approach - not many details are known about Copernicus biography, and the text also demands some patients to follow through the astronomical and mathematical details. However, the mixture is really worthwhile to follow through, and avoids giving only tedious scientific facts or blowing up few biographic events.It is focused on Copernicus and does not dwell on the interpretation given by others on Copernicus in intellectual history (e. g. Freud).One thing that stands out from the reading is that we know sometimes more about Copernicus’ pupils than about the man himself. Certainly, in the end we are not “left feeling that we’re best friends” with Copernicus, as promoted on the back of the cover, or at least not as a person. However, this is a good place to summarise his intellectual revolution. And it is indeed a very short introduction, with 72 pages of text and 2 more technical appendices.This is also a book about THE book, Copernicus' “De revolutionibus”, and its reception.Here, a lot of information surely new to non-experts await the reader, e. g. the mixed responses by the apparently ultra-opposing clerics in different countries.The recent research to identify Copernicus remains reads like a true forensic detective story.Further details about the development of the heliocentric system can be found in the VSIs “History of Astronomy” and “The scientific revolution”.

Owen Gingerich è un ex astronomo (astrofisico) che da decenni si occupa di storia dell'astronomia, in particolare di Copernico, Keplero e Galileo.Questo libro è un po' il riassunto di tante opere dello stesso Gingerich, in particolare quelle che interessano Copernico e la storia del De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. Ne libro sono presenti anche esempi dei calcoli fatti da Copernico. Libro interessantissimo e molto leggibile, assolutamente da non perdere.

The book is quite impressive for a very short introduction. The step that Copernicus took are very interesting. It is though not very easy to understand in details at the first reading. It is not very clear for example why did Copernicus adjusted the size of epycycle. I also just missed some few things like serious scientific arguments that were raised against the copernican model of the de Revolutionibus like the size of the stars that are similar to astronomical units if I'm not mistaken.