Nicolaus Copernicus: Revolutionizing Our Understanding of the Cosmos
About 150 years after Christ, Ptolemy, a famous Egyptian scientist, made some calculations and gave some indications regarding the future position of the planets-constellations – which turned out to be very true. But because the earth was considered as the center in these calculations, Ptolemy himself could not understand some things why these constellations sometimes start moving away from their paths. (The Greek word for is ‘planet’, which originally means ‘wanderer’ – straying from its path.)
About 400 years before Ptolemy, the Samos-dwelling Aristarchus, a Greek astrologer, had proposed that the center of the universe was the sun, but this idea was so extraordinary at the time that Aristarchus’ astronomy was completely ignored.
Centuries passed and no later than 1540 AD, the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus realized that the complicated movements of the planets and constellations could be explained very simply, if we considered the sun to be a fixed point, and the earth and the stars. Consider Adi as its orbiting stars. Copernicus was a Polish astronomer, mathematician, scientist, physician, clergyman and politician. But it took another 150 years for the world to accept the theory of Copernicus, because this idea goes against our sense knowledge.
Nicolaus Copernicus was born on February 19, 1473, in the town of Tawion, Poland. Copernicus was the youngest of two sons and two daughters born to Nicolas Kopernid and Barbara Wakzenrod. (Nicolas Copernicus – the Latin version of the original ‘Nicolas Kouppernid.’) Copernicus’ parents were from respectable families in the city. Taurun was a prosperous trading center; And Nicholas’s father was not only a wealthy merchant, but a magistrate and the lifeblood of the city’s social life. When Nicholas was ten years old, his father died and the family members decided to get together. The children were now being raised by their maternal uncle, the Reverend Lucas Wakzenrod. Should be here.
Under the influence of Lucas, Nicholas also decided that when he grows up, I will also preach because he himself was a pastor, and a self-educated person. His education-initiation was thus made religious, according to the personal vow of the child himself.
At the age of 18, Nicholas entered the University of Czac in Poland. Cracow was the capital of Poland in those days, and was famous throughout Europe for its prosperity and culture. Students from abroad – from Germany, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden – were drawn by themselves to Cracow, where their education in Latin began. In those days, science was rendered in Latin only. In order to be considered literate, it became a prerequisite to master Latin first. Having mastered Latin, Nicholas started studying philosophy, astronomy, geometry and geography.
The study of astrology was very important in those days. Trade by sea was growing rapidly. Ships were getting bigger and bigger and had to travel farther and farther. When Copernicus was only 19 years old, Columbus crossed the ocean and discovered America. The entire Daromdar of the sea-voyage was based on astrological calculations. Another thing that became very important in those days was the creation of an accurate calendar – because the church festivals could not be celebrated properly in its absence.
Perhaps the story of Copernicus’ education may seem strange to us, he left the University of Cracow and entered the ‘Bologna School of Law’ in Italy. And after Bologna he arrived at the University of Padua, where his studies continued unabated. When in 1503 he received the title of ‘Doctor of Laws’ from the University of Ferrara. Then the students used to transfer from one university to another university and from the second to the third to study.
Nicholas returned home to Poland, but did not stay there long. He explained to Mama that studying medicine was essential for religious service, and it seems that the household was no longer in financial trouble, because – this time at the age of 30 – Nicholas returned to Pedua for further studies in medical school. .
In that era, there was a lot of interrelation between medicine and astrology Used to be close. It was believed that there are some secret relations between the parts of the body and the zodiac signs of the planets. Zodiac or Zodiac, is called the region in the universe where the Sun and other main constellations appear to revolve. Let’s give This area is divided into 12 parts of 30-30 degrees and each part has a different sign and omen, which is called the omen of the zodiac. Often every month the Sun comes to a completely different part of this region, but like the constellations, it wanders around in the zodiac in fun. Even today there are people who call themselves astrologers and will calculate your sun and constellations according to your date of birth, based on that horoscope, they will read your entire fortune (whole life) in advance.
While studying during these days, Nikolaus got a job as a minor priest in the church of Frauenberg. Copernicus’s own merit was no less in getting the job, where his pastor uncle’s prestige was the sum. In any case, he had come fully prepared for the position: he had been duly initiated in theology and philosophy, and had traveled several times to Italy, the center of Christianity in Italy- He had also obtained a doctorate in ecclesiastical law, was well-versed in wisdom, knew both Greek and Latin, and was well-versed in the famous philosophical, mathematical, and scientific texts of Greece and Rome.
At the age of 33, Copernicus’ education was finally over, and he returned to Poland to look after his old and sick maternal uncle. There was plenty of spare time in which he could have continued his studies and independent studies; The result of these independent studies was that he could give science a new perspective about the universe system. On the death of his maternal uncle, Copernicus returned to his job in Frauenberg. For a long time his mission of serving Dharma was left in the middle. After reaching here, he camped in a bastion in the wall of the church. This tower is still located today, and its name is ‘Copernicus Tower’; This was his observatory.
In the beginning, while counting the planets and studying the constellations, Copernicus also accepted the ancient Greek and Arabic calculations in the same form. But he still had in mind that some new calculations might prove more useful: for a doubt had arisen among the people.
It was believed that from that time to this time, there had been some change in the state of the universe. Copernicus’ instruments were not microscopic instruments; The celestial calculations they made were not expected to be any more accurate than those made by the Greeks 1,500 years ago; And today he is famous as a great scientist in the world, not because of his means and his calculations, but because of being able to conceive a new system of the universe on the basis of mathematics and philosophy, and through subtle thinking. Even after Copernicus, other astrologers like Tychobrahe and Yohannes Kepler came and they also made some amendments in his ‘predictions’, but the initiative and inspiration in this direction was given by Copernicus himself. ,
In the spring of 1539, a 25-year-old German youth, Georg Joachim Raticus, came to Copernicus’ place. Raticus was also a gifted mystic in his own right and, at the young age of 28, had already received a professorship at the University of Wittenberg. Copernicus, now an old man, was overjoyed to meet Raticus; And Raticus also spent more than two years with Copernicus, studying his scientific discoveries and manuscripts. And it was Raticus who urged Copernicus that these great discoveries should be published, and it was Raticus who was the first to send the original manuscript (of Copernicus’s principles) to be printed in Germany. The full name of this book is ‘Revolutionibus Arbium Celestium’ (Divine Revolutions of the Universe which in short we know today as ‘Revolutions’).
Unfortunately, when the book first came out of print and into the hands of Copernicus—and it is the book which the world of science remembers as a peer of Newton’s Principia—he was in no condition to make any Can think anything clear on the matter. He was dying. He was a victim of seizures. The brain was hurt from within. And his heart was no less sick.
A brief introduction to ‘Revolutions’ – can only leave a few hints as to the greatness of its author. The central point of Copernicus’ theory is that if the universe is to be presented in a general picture, considering the Sun as the center, it has to be assumed that our Earth revolves around it like a planet.
Still working. The secret of our change of seasons is hidden in these orbits of the earth. Copernicus was the first to make it clear that the position of the stars in the sky, as seen from Italy, could never be the same as seen from Egypt. From the latter we cannot see the same stars that we can see from the southern hemisphere. If a lamp is fixed on the mast of a ship, as the ship moves towards the sea, the flame of the lamp will slowly fade away and disappear after some time: it will appear as if it is entering the water. He tied these facts in a trick and proved that the earth is round.
Copernicus went even deeper into this matter, discussing why these stars and constellations sometimes appear to deviate from their orbits – sometimes moving forward suddenly, and sometimes backward for no reason at all. They turn around and stop walking completely in between. He clearly showed that if the sun is considered as the center of this activity of the constellations, then this visible irregularity in their orbits completely vanishes. The fault was in our approach, not in our visits to inanimate constellations.
Following Ptolemy’s installations, Copernicus also came to the same conclusion with the help of his mathematics that this disorganization in planetary travel is probably due to considering their movement in a circle or in several circles, because only by accepting the establishment of circles We come to the conclusion that the orbits of the constellations are periodic. Copernicus also proved that there is no need to consider the Earth as the center of the universe – that is, it is not necessary that it is really the center of this entire planetary system – so long as it is clear to us that all these circles It is not possible for our human-intelligence to cross over and in this profusion of ‘circles’ perhaps the distance between the real center of the universe and the earth does not have any importance. We can easily understand Copernicus’ point – if we draw a circle of 12 inches in diameter and place a small point inside it, at a distance equal to 16th of an inch from the center of the circle. Now the observer of this small point will feel himself to be the center of the circle.
Copernicus has written a very subtle interpretation of the activity of the Earth, Moon and other constellations in ‘Revolutions’. page by page in a book There are diagrams, in which the path of each constellation is marked. And at the same time tables of calculations are presented, by which the reader can ‘predict’ a lot about the relative distance and position of the constellations from the earth. There were indeed some mistakes left in these ‘predictions’, which were corrected by Kepler. There were two reasons for this. One is that Copernicus’s instruments were not microscopes. Secondly, as proved by Kepler, the orbits of the constellations are in fact somewhat elliptical rather than pure circles. Nevertheless, there was sufficient accuracy in these calculations, on the basis of which a new, more accurate, calendar – the Gregorian calendar – could be created.
The field of inventions of Copernicus, like many great men of his era, was not limited to science. Poland was then divided into many small principalities; Somewhere the economy was not stable. Every day there used to be a fight between the two princely states somewhere; The result of which would have been that the prices of things would have gone up for the people. Copernicus also knew that both fake and genuine coins were in circulation, and also that people hid genuine coins and were running their business with fake coins. The result of the study of this fact was that after many years, economics got a new rule in the form of ‘Gresham’s law’.
Copernicus wrote a book through which he advised that the same coin should be used in every principality of Poland – everywhere that coin should have the same weight, and it should have the same shape. And for this it was also necessary that all the old coins should be handed over to the government first. The profiteers vehemently opposed Copernicus, and Copernicus’ advice could not be put into practice. It is a matter of great surprise that in almost these circumstances, when Sir Isaac Newton was invited by the British government to improve the country’s economic condition, Newton also gave literally the same advice to the leaders of the country, and fortunately for Britain, Newton The advice was accepted.
Copernicus is not the first person in history to have considered the Sun as the center of the universe. Centuries ago, a Greek astrologer-Samos resident Aristarchus had established this principle. But in confirmation of the theory, he could not present a series of arguments based only on facts. Nature seems to have left this secret only for Copernicus to discover.
had kept it hidden in his heart for so long, as it was only after 1800 years after Aristarchus that the intellect of man could accept its truth. How beautifully Copernicus formulated the theory: