The 5 W's and Examples

NICOLAS COPERNICUS (1473-1543)

icolas Copernicus had many roles, such as a physician, a lawyer, a church administrator, a diplomat, a mathematician, a linguist, and an artist. Of course, he would have to be a mathematician and an artist to hypothesize what our solar system looked like.

Copernicus graduated at the University of Cracow and then spent a decade studying in Italy. Even after studying in Italy and taking to his careers, he continued to study astronomy in his spare time.

De Revolutionibus Orbium Celestium

Later, Copernicus wrote a book on his theories of our solar system. The name of his book was De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium meaning 'On the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs'. This book was dedicated to Pope Paul III. His book was not published until the year after he was killed.

De Revolutionibus had an anonymous letter to the reader. It stated that the the book was 'just a hypothesis', not a stable fact to live by-this note was put in by Andreas Osiander, a lutheran mathematician. The origional book was lost and not found until the early nineteenth century.

Copernicus' book was divided into six sections:

-the daily rising and setting of the sun was the consequence of the daily rotation of the earth on it's axis.

-the elementary mathematical technique of astronomy

-the detailed motions of the earth's movement

-the moon

-the planets

His theory was opposed at first as being contrary to the teaching of scripture. It was later said to be heretical by the Roman Inquistion.

The Solar System Today

Copernicus' theories are still used today, all over the world. In the twenty- first century, we are expected to be living in space. Our sattelites,that help us determine the weather, are in space; the sun, where we get our energy from, is the center of our solar system; in fact, our planet is in space!

Copernicus wasn't very far off when he hypothesized our solar system. He said, and showed, that the sun was in the center and the nine plaanets evolved around it in perfect circles. That's where he messed up; the planets do evolve around the sun, but not in perfect circles. The planets acually have sort of oval paths, in fact Neptune (the eighth planet) and Pluto's (the ninth planet) paths acually cross over for a certian period of time.

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