550th birthday of Nicolaus Copernicus 2023.
19 February 2023 marks the 550th anniversary of the birth of the eminent scientist and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who not only made one of the most important discoveries in history, but also started a scientific revolution that changed the way we see the world. He is an extremely important figure for the history of both Poland and the world.
Polish astronomer who proposed that the planets have the Sun as the fixed point to which their motions are to be referred; that Earth is a planet which, besides orbiting the Sun annually, also turns once daily on its own axis; and that very slow long-term changes in the direction of this axis account for the precession of the equinoxes. This representation of the heavens is usually called the heliocentric, or “Sun-centred,” system—derived from the Greek helios, meaning “Sun.” Copernicus’s theory had important consequences for later thinkers of the Scientific Revolution, including such major figures as Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, and Newton.
As a Renaissance man, Nicolaus Copernicus was involved in many fields of science; astronomy, astrology, mathematics, economics, cartography and philology.
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