Nicolas Copernicus, the icon of the scientific revolutions

The Earth is a planet of a number of planets orbiting the Sun. 

This is nothing but an ordinary piece of information that is known by the young before the old, and there is no argument about it, but it was a revolution that shook all the corners of the world, which for many centuries has adhered to the principle of the centrality of the Earth, and any saying that is otherwise considered heretical would have to be the most punishing.

It is the Copernicus Revolution, that priest who had basically undermined the priesthood of his time, and the world that refused to yield to the great legacy of Aristotle, and of Ptolemy the Great, who strove with his search for years and years, hangs more in the sky than his steps on earth, until he proves his theory and acknowledges its bet, and then declares it publicly: People, the sun is the center of the system, not the earth.

Copernicus died without knowing its trace in the course of history, when he founded that great renaissance, and that new world… The Post-Copernicus World.

In Italy

Italy was present in the present of science and knowledge, and when Copernicus moved to it in 1496, he joined a religious program at a university there, where he met with the astronomer, Domenico Maria Novara, with him for a while, exchanging scientific views on astronomy and the movement of celestial bodies.

After a period of medical studies at another university in Italy, Copernicus had to drop out of school and join the church for a position, arranged by his uncle.

Back in Poland, a church priest, Copernicus chose to live in a zodiac, for about 30 years, devoted to his heavenly research, in order to prove his revolutionary theory.
Copernican Revolution.

The emergence of the so-called Copernican Revolution, relative to Copernicus, has led to a major shift in the view of the universe, because the Earth that has been for centuries the center of the universe is no longer, and it has become just a planet in a group orbiting the Sun, the center of this tiny system.

This scientific revolution paved the way for major discoveries by the scientists of those eras, including Kepler, Galileo, and Newton.

Through the efforts of scientists who benefited from the decision of Copernicus, the world has come to explain many of the cosmic phenomena related to the movement of planets and celestial bodies, the laws of this movement, in addition to the terrestrial phenomena which are affected by it, such as the tides and their relation to the gravity of the moon.

All of this accumulated cognitive balance owes a lot of credit to Copernicus, so that it's becoming so common for scientists, scholars and thinkers in different fields to call this term 'copernican' on every revolution or idea that makes a radical change in any aspect of knowledge.

Confronting the Church

Since Aristotle, it has been decided in mainstream science that the Earth is the center of the universe, and it's fixed, it's orbiting the objects, and Ptolemy came in the second century C.E. to develop a model developed on the same basis, the centrality of the Earth.

This “Aristotelian” flag has moved to the religious arena to become a Muslim in the church, after appropriate religious amendments were made, and in so doing, the church has granted religious authority for this “wrong” theory, putting every skeptic in front of accusations of heresy, and subjecting him to the punishment of exiting the church.

The church's acceptance of this idea was based on its suitability for seeing humans on Earth as the central part of creation, and that everything in the universe is being harnessed to serve them, which made church scientists in those times assume that this required that Earth be the center of the universe as well.

Hence, the shock that the theory of the sun's centrality has caused in religious circles, as well as in science, especially since Copernicus was a priest in the church.
It took a while for the Church to reconsider its position and admit that the theory it adopted was wrong.

Charges

Copernicus was not spared the charge of the originality of his discoveries, until some historians have said that all he had come up with, except the theory of the centrality of the sun, were transferred to others, including the scientists of the Maragheh Astronomical Observatory founded by Naseer Eldeen Tousi in 1259.

Some scholars have even pointed out that the mathematical details of the Copernicus Astronomical Model are identical to the Son of the Shatiq, the Damascus astronomer who lived between 1304 and 1375 A.D. and was famous for the solar clock he called the “Mediator” and made to control prayer time.

Some reported that Copernicus had benefited greatly and essentially in his model from the Son of Shatir's photo-montages, pointing to the finding by historians of manuscripts in Arabic for Ben al-Shatir in Poland.

Facts and information

Astronomer Aristarchus Samousi, who lived in the third century B.C., preceded Copernicus in assuming the centrality of the sun, before the theories of Ptolemy imposed their control, but the Copernicus model was much more accurate and detailed,I establish evidence, and I am more accepted by the church later.

Copernicus' theories have not been without inaccurate conclusions in his research, including his assumption that planetary orbits are round, which was later refuted by astronomer Johannes Kepler, who asserted that they are elliptical orbits.

Copernicus published two books that carried his ideas and theories and stirred up a lot of controversy in the scientific and religious circles. 

The first book is “The Little Commentary,” published between 1508 and 1514, and the second is “A Message in the Rotation of Celestial Bodies,” which is the basis of astronomy and the 1543 edition. Copernicus dedicated his second book to Pope, This ban is later lifted.

Critics have pointed to shortcomings in Copernicus's theories, including his inability to explain the displacement of the celestial body's position when seen across different lines of view, as well as why the earth rotates around the sun.

Copernicus' second book, The Universal, did not sell more than 400 copies when it was published. It is now one of the most important astronomy books in history.

Copernicus excelled in a number of sciences, besides astronomy, he was a physicist, translator and economist, and he spoke Latin, Italian, German, Polish and Greek.

Because of his church obligation, a priest, Copernicus never married during his life.
When he died from a stroke, Copernicus was found lying in bed, with a copy of his second book in hand.

Message in celestial bodies

Between 1508 and 1514, Copernicus had put forward his preliminary views, which reflected his new perspective on astronomy, without mentioning his name, out of fear of the wrath of the church and accusing him of heresy. 

The expansion of his theory, its details, and its attribution to him was only then made when he published his book, "A Message in Celestial Bodies,” which brought all that massive scientific revolution in astronomy. 

It is the basis Modern astronomy. This book came to light in 1543, the year of the death of Copernicus. It was even printed in the city of Nuremberg just an hour before his death!.

Some 150 years after that date, the revolutionary views of Copernicus began to force their validity and take their place in the scientific and religious community gradually, until this “heresy” became a place of consensus and praise, and that “heresy” became a firm foundation for remote generations.
The path to victory for the Copernican theory was not paved,

This astronomer Giordano Bruno, when he publicly stated that the theory was a fact, was chased here and there, until he was arrested in Venice and held in prison for six years, then burned alive. 

Galileo, who believed in the Copernican theory after research and studies in which the telescope was used, proved it in practice, provoked the Church's wrath, prevented him from teaching or discussing his predecessor's theory, was tried hard, 

And was forced to reject the theory more than once, just as he was prevented from circulating books referring to the movement of the Earth and its circulation, and the ban on theory, scientists and books was lifted only in 18 35 A.D.,                                                                                                                    After the sacrifices of a great number of scholars and thinkers who defended what they were convinced of in terms of opinions and theories, in the face of the tyranny of society and the fossilized minds of the dominant power.

Copernicus model

Copernicus developed a specific and precise model of the celestial body system, the solar system, centered on the sun, to reverse the model that the famous Greek astronomer Ptolemy of the second century C.E. developed earlier in the theories of the great Greek philosopher Aristotle.

Copernicus asserted that the Earth is not the center of this system, but the Sun. He stated that every planet has its own orbit in which the dimensions and speed of movement of the planet are determined by the distance between the planet and the Sun.

He also confirmed that the stars are fixed and do not move, and that they appear to us as the Earth moves around itself.

About history

Copernicus was born on ‏ 19, 1437 in the Polish city of Turin, on the border with Germany, and was the youngest son of his father, a copper merchant, who died in the mid-1940s.

The orphan boy Copernicus moved to live under his uncle the priest who raised him and taught him the best education. Although he received the priesthood, he did not show much interest in this field. At university, Copernicus studied painting, mathematics and medicine, before dedicating his life to his great passion, astronomy and the mysteries of the universe.

Copernicus in the belly of books

Copernicus has gained the attention of scholars, both old and new, not only because of his revolutionary theory, but also because of his reputation as a scientist and a cleric who has had to confront religious and scientific power with what he believes in, as well as the interest of historians and researchers in the original ideas and theories put forward by Copernicus,

Some have said that he was a fraud for the inheritance of some of his ancestors.
Here we are referring only to two books, one of which is a model for the study of the legacy of Copernicus, entitled “From Copernicus to Einstein” by Hans Reichbach, and the translation and study of Dr. Hussein Ali, which sheds light on the theories of the two great worlds and on the revolutionary advantage of their scientific opinions.

The book, which belongs to the science philosophy books, explains the theories of both Copernicus and Einstein, and their scientific opinions that have emerged in their time. The book also doesn't overlook the philosophical side of Copernicus, and so does Einstein.

We also refer to an important book, The Questions of Copernican, by Robert West man, a professor of history and head of the Department of Scientific Studies at the University of California, San Diego, in which West man presents the defense of Nicholas Copernicus in 1543, publicly about his assumption that the Earth is a planet, and that the Sun is a body resting near the center of the Universe. 

The book tries to answer many questions such as: Why did Copernicus make this bold proposal? What is the importance of that? Copernicus' theory raises the central question of the history of science,

The story of the struggle over the credibility of astrology that broke out in Italy, and the role of Copernicus, who sought to preserve astrology while reshaping its astronomical foundations.

Weston also explains Copernicus' efforts to make astronomy a crucial subject in modern scientific activity, and stops at the sixteenth century between 1490 and 1610, a period that has provided a new framework for understanding the great shifts in natural philosophy in the century that followed.

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