Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)

Abstract As we celebrate the birthday of Copernicus, we symbolically bring to an end the first half-millenium of ‘modern science’. Copernicus is the first of the ‘greats’ of our epoch, men who strove to restore and advance the natural sciences, and also succeeded in their endeavour. Copernicus was truly a great scientist, in the way he combined complete technical mastery with superb theoretical daring. In his time and for decades after, the idea of the Earth’s moving was patently ridiculous, contrary to commonsense, to accepted physics, and to sacred scripture. By his commitment to this idea, Copernicus was inspired to produce a masterpiece of astronomy in which it was embedded. Out of this flowed the many consequences, including a century of debate, that we now call ‘the Copernican Revolution’. In the course of this were established the presuppositions and style of our modern physical science; hence our indirect indebtedness to Copernicus is very great indeed.