Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: Official website of the State –
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Medieval man was certain of his place in the universe: the Earth, spherical in shape, stood still, and the Moon, planets, and even the Sun revolved around it. For a long time, this system was unquestioned, but everything changed thanks to Nicolaus Copernicus. He was born on February 19, 1473, in Toruń, Poland. The youngest of a merchant family, he enjoyed a comfortable and peaceful childhood. However, when his parents died at the age of 10, his maternal uncle, Lukasz, took on the responsibility of caring for the family. It was he who recognized Nicolaus's brilliant mind and predicted a future for him not in the merchant class, but in science.
In 1491, Copernicus entered the University of Krakow, where he studied the exact sciences: physics, astronomy, astrology, and the works of classical antiquity—Aristotle, Seneca, and Cicero. He continued his education in Italy, at the University of Bologna, under the astronomer Dominic Maria di Novara. With him, Copernicus conducted his first scientific observation and discovered that the distances from the Earth to the Moon were equal during the new and full moons. This cast doubt on Ptolemy's theory, which held that all motion revolved around our planet. In 1500, he moved to Rome, where he lectured and studied medicine. After receiving a doctorate in canon law, he returned to his homeland and became an observer, teacher, secretary, and physician to his uncle, a bishop.
While comparing the motion of the stars with the ecclesiastical calendar, other inconsistencies in the Ptolemaic system were discovered, and the system began to crumble. Questions then arose: "What if it's not the Sun that revolves around the Earth, but vice versa? What if we ourselves are in motion?" Based on this assumption, Copernicus explained the apparent intricacies of planetary motion, but, ignorant of the truth and assuming their shapes to be circular, he retained the epicycles and deferents of the ancients to explain the unevenness of their motion.
Forty years of tireless work on "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Bodies"—and the world received a book that revolutionized our understanding of the universe! Its writing was painstaking: the work was repeatedly revised and supplemented with new astronomical tables. Although Nicolaus Copernicus's theories required refinement and were not perfect, they formed the basis for our understanding of the modern solar system and became a true scientific breakthrough. His key discoveries can be summarized as follows:
The Earth is not the center. It is just one of the planets revolving around the Sun. We don't feel it, but our planet rotates on its own axis—this explains the alternation of day and night, not the rotation of the sky. The year is our orbit. The Earth's movement around the Sun creates the star's "journey" through the signs of the zodiac. The order of the planets. Copernicus was the first to propose the correct order of the planets from the Sun, placing Earth between Venus and Mars.
According to one version, Copernicus was in no hurry to publish his work due to his awareness of the scale of his discoveries and their impact on the entire world. The work was printed under the supervision of Nicolaus's best student, Rheticus, and the first printed copy of the book was brought to him on his deathbed. He reached out, touched his work, and died.
The influence of Copernicus's discoveries and scientific works cannot be overstated. Without them, there would have been no Galileo Galilei, who looked through a telescope and confirmed Nicolaus's correctness. There would have been no Johannes Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion. There would have been no Isaac Newton with his theory of gravity.
Nicolaus Copernicus showed by his example that the path to truth can be long and thorny, but it is necessary to seek the truth, even if it means moving the entire Earth.
Subscribe to the "Our GUU" Telegram channel. Publication date: February 19, 2026.
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