Public Lectures for the Session 2001-2002 held in Room E7 of the Renold Building, UMIST.
Delivered to the Manchester Astronomical Society

18th October 2001

'Nicholas Copernicus'.

Dr Allan Chapman
Wadham College, Oxford.

Nicholas Copernicus was born into a wealthy family in Torun, Poland, in 1473. In his very entertaining lecture Dr Chapman wanted to dispel the 'fog of Enid Blyton rubbish' that Copernicus felt threatened by catholic persecution regarding his observations and views of the solar system. Nothing was further from the truth. From early days, he was at the forefront of Renaissance astronomy.

Fourteenth century astronomy was still based on the ideas of Greek philosophers, particularly those of Ptolemy that had been accepted for well over fifteen hundred years. Yet new observation showed variation with historical predictions based on the Aristotlean idea that the heavenly bodies revolved around a stationary Earth. Even the best attempts to explain the discrepancies and to press the observations into matching 'theory' had merely complicated the issue. Yet the errors still accumulated despite modern translations from original Greek texts and attempts at reinterpretation.

Copernicus was educated at Krakow before going to Bologna and Padua universities to qualify as a lawyer, doctor and clergyman in the Catholic Church. He was subsequently appointed Canon of Frombork. Astronomy was a hobby, which he pursued at his own very well appointed observatory. He soon confirmed earlier Greek theories of the universe, particularly those of Paramenides and Hicetas, 700 years before Ptolemy suggesting the Earth orbiting a Sun-centred universe. Yet he didn't publish, not because he feared the wrath of the Church - he knew where he stood in that respect - but because in challenging the old philosophies he feared ridicule from fellow scientists.

Copernicus first proposed his ideas in 1514 in Commentarius, but it was not until Joachim Rheticus published a more widely read precise of Copernicus' work which far from being ridiculed was quickly taken up by the astronomical literati, that he finally agreed to publish in Germany his most important work, Des Revolutionibus. This was shortly before his death in 1543. Within a hundred years, his theories had been amply confirmed, by the observations of Tycho Brahe and the telescopic observations of Galileo and finally by the laws of planetary motion as defined by Johannes Kepler.

Synopsis by Kevin J. Kilburn (Secretary)

Maintained by Michael Oates
Page modified 28 October, 2006