A short report on the scientific activities of Nicolaus Copernicus. Who is Copernicus? Nicolaus Copernicus: biography, discoveries. last years of life

This is how a new, Heliocentric Copernican system appeared.

A bold idea that revolutionizes people’s consciousness, as was consonant with the entire Renaissance era... It is especially interesting that he made all his conclusions without a telescope - it would be invented by another great astronomer, Galileo Galilei.

But the old one did not want to give up its positions without a fight. This affected Copernicus himself to a small extent - the revolutionary nature of his ideas was simply not understood during his lifetime. And there was plenty of other work to do - he was talented in many areas. A good doctor, a water supply designer, a reformer of the financial system in Poland, an organizer of the defense of his bishopric from the Teutonic Order: this is an incomplete list of his merits. We can also recall his contribution to the theory money circulation: It was Copernicus who noticed that with the simultaneous circulation of gold and copper coins, gold goes into savings, and copper remains in circulation, and concluded: “The worst money drives the best out of circulation.”

Merits

But the main thing remained the work on the Heliocentric system. If he published the first notes on his theory in 1503, and the book “On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres” was published in 1543, then it turns out that the work took forty years! It is symbolic that this treatise was published shortly before Copernicus’s death, as if summing up his life’s journey...
With his death, his ideas did not die; on the contrary, a heated discussion began around them. The Catholic Church banned the works of Copernicus, seeing heresy in them: is the Earth really not the center of the universe, but just one of the planets? What then to think about heaven and hell?

But this did not stop inquisitive minds - the result was the death of Giordano Bruno at the stake of the Holy Inquisition and the trial of Galileo Galilei.
It is noteworthy that, calling Copernicus’ theory a heresy, the Catholic Church allowed the use of his model in astronomical calculations. This paradox fixed the facts - Copernicus’ theory was more consistent with reality, although it undermined the biblical picture of the world.

It was the idea of ​​Nicolaus Copernicus that served as the catalyst for the first scientific revolution. Transfer from medieval view to the world, to the scientific - this is his historical merit.

Nicolaus Copernicus, a famous astronomer from Poland, was born on February 19, 1473. Being the fourth child in a merchant family, he received his primary education at school. During the plague epidemic, he lost his father and was subsequently under the protection of his uncle Lukasz.

Since 1491, Copernicus studied at the University of Krakow at the Faculty of Arts. Then he entered the Faculty of Law at the University of Bologna. There he studied civil and ecclesiastical law. Nikolai also studied medicine at the University of Padua. And at the University of Ferrara he received a doctorate in theology.

He made his first scientific and astronomical observation in 1497. And in the early thirties of the sixteenth century he completed work on the creation of the work “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres.” Nicolaus Copernicus pushed aside the generally accepted ideas about the geocentric system of the world. He put forward the theory that the Earth is not the fixed center of the world. The sun and other celestial bodies do not revolve around it. It's just the opposite. The Earth and other planets move around the Sun. And the movement of the Sun throughout the day across the sky is due to the fact that our planet rotates around its own axis. Thus, the heliocentric system of the world structure was born. Copernicus saw the first typographical version of his work while dying.

He died on May 24, 1543. In 1616, his book was included in the list of prohibited books. But this did not prevent the development of his idea, and science began to move in a new direction.

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Documentary video about the theory of Nicolaus Copernicus

(1473 —1543 )

Nicolaus Copernicus was born on February 19, 1473 in the Polish city of Toruń into the family of a merchant who came from Germany. He was the fourth child in the family. Elementary education He received it, most likely, at a school located near his home at the Church of St. John the Great. Until the age of ten, he grew up in an atmosphere of prosperity and contentment. Carefree childhood ended suddenly and quite early. Nicholas was barely ten years old when the “pestilence” - a plague epidemic, a frequent guest and a formidable scourge of humanity at that time, visited Toruń, and one of its first victims was Nicolaus Copernicus the father. Concerns about education and future fate Lukasz Wachenrode, the mother's brother, took over the nephew.

In the second half of October 1491, Nicolaus Copernicus, together with his brother Andrzej, arrived in Krakow and enrolled in the Faculty of Arts at the local university. After its completion in 1496, Copernicus went on a long journey to Italy.

In the fall, Nikolai, together with his brother Andrzej, found himself in Bologna, which was then part of the Papal States and famous for its university. At that time, the law faculty with the departments of civil and canonical, i.e., church law, was especially popular here, and Nikolai enrolled in this faculty. It was in Bologna Copernicus developed an interest in astronomy that defined him scientific interests. On the evening of March 9, 1497, together with the astronomer Domenico Maria Novara, Nicholas made his first scientific observation. After him, it became clear that the distance to the Moon when it is in quadrature is approximately the same as during a new or full moon. The discrepancy between Ptolemy's theory and the discovered facts amused me to think...

In the first months of 1498, Nicolaus Copernicus was confirmed in absentia as a canon of the Frombork chapter, a year later Andrzej Copernicus also became a canon of the same chapter. However, the very fact of receiving these positions did not reduce the financial difficulties of the brothers; life in Bologna, which attracted many wealthy foreigners, was no different cheapness, and in October 1499 the Copernicians found themselves completely without a livelihood. Canon Bernard Skulteti, who later met them several times in their life, came to their rescue from Poland.

Then Nikolai a short time returns to Poland, but just a year later he goes back to Italy, where he studies medicine at the University of Padua and receives a doctorate in theology from the University of Ferrara. Copernicus returned to his homeland at the end of 1503 as a comprehensively educated man. He first settled in the city of Lidzbark, and then took the position of canon. in Frombork, a fishing town at the mouth of the Vistula. Astronomical observations, begun by Copernicus in Italy, were continued, albeit on a limited scale, in Lidzbark. But with particular intensity he launched them in Frombork, despite the inconvenience due to the great latitude of this place, which made it difficult observations of the planets, and due to frequent fogs from the Vistula Lagoon, significant cloudiness and cloudy skies over this northern area.

The invention of the telescope was still far away, and Tycho Brahe’s best instruments for pre-telescopic astronomy did not exist, with the help of which the accuracy of astronomical observations was brought to within one or two minutes. The most famous instrument used by Copernicus was the triquetrum, a parallactic instrument. The second instrument used by Copernicus to determine the angle of inclination of the ecliptic, “horoscopes”, sundial, a type of quadrant.

Despite the obvious difficulties, in the “Small Commentary”, written around 1516, Copernicus had already given a preliminary statement of his teaching, or rather, his hypotheses at that time. He did not consider it necessary to provide mathematical proofs in it, since they were intended for a more extensive work on November 3 In 1516, Nicholas Copernicus was elected to the position of manager of the chapter's estates in the Olsztyn and Pieniżny districts. In the fall of 1519, Copernicus's powers in Olsztyn expired, and he returned to Frombork, but this time he was really unable to devote himself to astronomical observations to test his hypotheses. There was a war going on. with the crusaders.

At the height of the war, at the beginning of November 1520, Copernicus was again elected administrator of the chapter's estates in Olsztyn and Pienienzno. By that time, Copernicus turned out to be the eldest not only in Olsztyn, but in the whole of Warmia - the bishop and almost all members of the chapter, having left Warmia, were holed up in safe places Having taken command of the small garrison of Olsztyn, Copernicus took measures to strengthen the defense of the castle-fortress, taking care of installing guns, creating a supply of ammunition, provisions and water. Copernicus, unexpectedly showing determination and remarkable military talent, managed to defend himself from the enemy.

Personal courage and determination did not go unnoticed - soon after the truce in April 1521, Copernicus was appointed Commissioner of Warmia. In February 1523, before the election of a new bishop, Copernicus was elected general administrator of Warmia - this is the highest position he had to hold. In the autumn of the same year, after choosing a bishop, he is appointed chancellor of the chapter. Only after 1530 did Copernicus's administrative activities narrow somewhat.

Nevertheless, it was in the twenties that a significant part of the astronomical results of Copernicus accounted for. It was possible to carry out many observations. So, around 1523, observing the planets at the moment of opposition, that is, when the planet is opposite the Sun
point of the celestial sphere, Copernicus made an important discovery; he refuted the opinion that the position of planetary orbits in space remains fixed. The line of apses - a straight line connecting the points of the orbit at which the planet is closest to the Sun and most distant from it, changes its position compared to what was observed 1300 years earlier and recorded in Ptolemy’s Almagest. But most importantly, by the beginning of the thirties, work on the creation of a new theory and its presentation in his work “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” was basically completed. By that time, the system of the world structure proposed by the ancient Greek scientist Claudius Ptolemy had existed for almost one and a half millennia. It consisted in the fact that The Earth rests motionless in the center of the Universe, and the Sun and other planets revolve around it. Ptolemy’s theory did not explain many phenomena well known to astronomers, in particular the loop-like movement of planets across the visible sky. But its provisions were considered unshakable, since they were in good agreement with the teaching catholic church Long before Copernicus, the ancient Greek scientist Aristarchus argued that the Earth moves around the Sun. But he could not yet experimentally confirm his teaching.

Watching the movement celestial bodies, Copernicus came to the conclusion that Ptolemy's theory was incorrect. After thirty years of hard work, long observations and complex mathematical calculations, he convincingly proved that the Earth is only one of the planets and that all planets revolve around the Sun. True, Copernicus still believed that the stars motionless and located on the surface of a huge sphere, at a great distance from the Earth. This was due to the fact that at that time there were no such powerful telescopes with which one could observe the sky and stars. Having discovered that the Earth and the planets are satellites of the Sun, Copernicus was able to explain the apparent movement of the Sun across the sky, the strange entanglement in the movement of some planets, as well as the apparent rotation of the sky. Copernicus believed that we perceive the movement of celestial bodies in the same way as the movement various items on Earth when we ourselves are in motion. When we are sailing in a boat on the surface of a river, it seems that the boat and we are motionless in it, and the banks are floating in reverse direction. In the same way, to an observer on Earth, it seems that the Earth is motionless, and the Sun is moving around it. In fact, it is the Earth that moves around the Sun and makes a full revolution in its orbit during the year.

In the twenties, Copernicus gained fame as a skilled physician. He expanded the knowledge he acquired in Padua throughout his life, regularly getting acquainted with the latest medical literature. The fame of an outstanding physician was deserved - Copernicus managed to save many patients from severe and intractable ailments. And among his patients were all the contemporary bishops of Warmia, high-ranking officials of the Royal and Ducal Prussia, Tiedemann Giese, Alexander Skulteti, many canons of the Warmian Chapter. He often provided assistance and ordinary people. There is no doubt that the recommendations of his predecessors
Copernicus used it creatively, carefully monitoring the condition of patients and trying to understand the mechanism of action of the drugs he prescribed.

After 1531, his activity in the affairs of the chapter and its social activity, although back in 1541 he served as chairman of the chapter’s construction fund. Affected long years life. 60 years is an age that in the 16th century was considered quite advanced. But Copernicus' scientific activity did not stop. He did not stop practicing medicine, and his fame as a skilled physician grew steadily. In mid-July 1528, being present as a representative of the Frombork Chapter at the sejmik in Torun, Copernicus met the then famous medalist and metal carver Matz Schilling, who had recently moved to Toruń from Krakow. There is an assumption that Copernicus knew Schilling from Krakow, more Moreover, on his mother’s side he was distantly related to him.

In Schilling's house, Copernicus met his daughter, the young and beautiful Anna, and soon, when compiling one of his astronomical tables, in the title of the column devoted to the planet Venus, Copernicus outlined the sign of this planet with an outline of ivy leaves - the Schilling family mark, which was placed on all coins and medals minted by Anna's father... Being a canon, Copernicus had to observe celibacy - a vow of celibacy. But over the years, Copernicus felt more and more lonely, more and more clearly felt the need for a close and devoted being, and then he met Anna...

Years passed. They seemed to have become accustomed to Anna's presence in Copernicus's house. However, a denunciation followed to the newly elected bishop. During his illness, Dantiscus calls Doctor Nicholas and in a conversation with him, as if by chance, remarks that it would not be appropriate for Copernicus to have such a young and such a distant relative with him - he should find someone less young and more closely related.

And Copernicus is forced to “take action.” Anna will soon move into her own home. And then she had to leave Frombork. This undoubtedly darkened the last years of the life of Nicolaus Copernicus. In May 1542, Copernicus’s book “On the sides and angles of triangles, both plane and spherical,” with detailed tables of sines and cosines, was published in Wittenberg.

But the scientist did not live to see the time when the book “On the Rotations of the Celestial Spheres” spread throughout the world. He was dying when friends brought him the first copy of his book, printed in one of the Nuremberg printing houses. Copernicus died on May 24, 1543.

Church leaders did not immediately understand the blow to religion that Copernicus’ book dealt. For some time his work was freely distributed among scientists. Only when Copernicus had followers, his teaching was declared heresy, and the book was included in the “Index” of prohibited books. Only in 1835 did the Pope exclude the book of Copernicus from it and thereby, as it were, acknowledge the existence of his teaching in the eyes of the church.

Copernicus was the first to prove the inconsistency of the ancient ideas about the universe. His works served as a breakthrough in astronomy. We decided to remember and tell who Nicolaus Copernicus is.

Biography of Copernicus - briefly

February 19, 1473 A fourth child was born into the merchant family of Barbara Watzenrode and Nicolaus Copernicus. The baby was named after his father. Torun, the Prussian city where the family lived, became part of the Kingdom of Poland in 1466. The answer to the question in which country Copernicus was born is obvious - in Poland. Ethnic origin is difficult to determine. It is known that the mother was German, the father had either Polish or German roots.

Both parents died when Nikolai was 10 years old. The children remained in the care of Uncle Lukash, who served as a canon. Until his death, the future scientist was accompanied by his older brother Andrei. At the suggestion of the teacher, the brothers studied theology, Greek language, mathematics, medicine and astronomy at several universities in Europe.

Copernicus, as evidenced by his brief biography, received his diploma only in 1503. At the University of Krakow they did not give him the document. Other educational establishments Nikolai threw it himself. Having received an academic degree in Italy, he began to practice medicine in the city of Ferrari. In 1506 he returned to Poland. Uncle Lukash was already a bishop and made his nephew his confidant.

The activities of the clergyman in the biography of Nicolaus Copernicus do not prevent him from pursuing science. After the death of his teacher in 1512, he moved to Frombork and took up the duties of a canon.

One of the towers of the fortress is dedicated to the observatory. Here he brings together experience and thoughts. Nikolai is actively discussing the world model with friends and is closely involved in writing a book. He reveals ideas in letters. They served as notes for writing the “Small Commentary on Hypotheses Relating to Celestial Movements.”

Copernicus was burned at the stake

Some people believe that Nikolai Nikolaevich fell victim to the courts of the Inquisition. There is such an opinion, but it has no basis. How did Copernicus really die?

The model proposed by the scientist is not perfect, but it is simpler than that of its predecessor, Ptolemy. It is considered a revolutionary step in science. The theory spread quickly in the 1520s, even before the paper edition was published. Thanks to the student Rheticus, six books with the discoveries of Copernicus were published in 1543.

Whether the author saw these publications remains an open question. In May of the same year, he died of a stroke. Because the theory was propagated and developed by the followers of Copernicus, they were burned at the stake. Nikolai Nikolaevich himself avoided this fate. He simply did not live to see the times when the courts of the Inquisition got close to his works.

The books contradicted established ideas and church canons, but they were only recommended to be edited. Many publishing houses did not respond to the recommendations and released the text in full. Even after it was officially banned in 1616, Copernicus' theory was used to calculate the motion of the planets.

Copernicus' heliocentric system

The new astronomical model of the world is described in the following statements:

• Absence general center at orbits and spheres;
• The Sun is the center of the orbits of all planets, therefore the world; The Earth is the center of the Moon's orbit;
• the movement of the Sun is an effect of the movement of the Earth;
• The distance to the Sun is small relative to the distance to the fixed stars.

Nicolaus Copernicus, if we turn to his short biography, there are also other discoveries. In one of the works, the author talks about universal gravity. He represents heaviness as “a certain aspiration” and assumes that all spherical celestial bodies possess this property.

In economics, the Copernican-Gresham law is known. Two scientists, independently of each other, drew attention to the dependence of the circulation of money on the amount of savings. People accumulate more valuable ones (for example, gold), but inferior (copper) funds are in circulation.

The principle served as the basis for the development of a new monetary system in Poland.

Copernicus Museum in Warsaw

The museum was opened in 2005. There are approximately 450 interactive exhibits on display. In particular, there is a planetarium where the heliocentric model of the world is clearly demonstrated. In 2010, the institution received a new title. It all started with the opening of a robotics seminar.

Now this building in Warsaw is called the Copernicus Science Center. He is the largest scientific center in Poland and one of the largest in Europe. In 2011 a technology park, chemical, physical and biological laboratories were opened. Objects have been identified for study by children and youth, and meetings are held aimed at popularizing science.

In Warsaw, the Copernicus Museum was divided into several thematic parts:

• Roots of Civilizations– the gallery will tell about the history of mankind. Technologies allow us to plunge into the depths of centuries, produce archaeological excavations, create models of legendary buildings, conduct several experiments;
• man and environment – robotic collection represents the structure human body on an enlarged scale;
• Copernican sky– heliocentric system of the Copernican world;
• light zone– will initiate the observer into the laws of optics;
• world in motion– you can see the origins of some natural phenomena or feel their consequences.

There are many shortcomings in the scientific and philosophical ideas of N. Copernicus. However, they pushed subsequent scientists to create a more advanced model of the world. It is not without reason that Nikolai Nikolaevich’s achievements are considered a revolutionary step in scientific circles.

By the way, why do you think the intermediate stage between speculation and knowledge is so important in our development? Write in the comments.

The world's fundamental science is based on the guesses, theories and works of scientists who were sent from above to become discoverers. The Polish canon Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543) appeared to the world as such a unique person. The thinker’s guesses and predictions, formulated over more than half a century in only a few fundamental scientific works, brought many talented followers and popularizers of his theories to the medieval bonfire of the Inquisition. He was born in the 15th century - too early for alchemists and pseudoscientists to recklessly recognize the correctness of his scientific conclusions.

The breadth of his scientific horizons is truly unimaginable. He made his main works and discoveries in the fields of economics, mathematics and astronomy. At the University of Krakow, where he entered in 1491, the main emphasis was, naturally, on medicine and theology. But young Nikolai immediately found a branch of science that he liked - astronomy. Academic degree He failed to obtain one in Krakow, and from 1497 he continued his education at the University of Bologna. His astronomical observations were supervised by Domenico Novara. Copernicus was lucky to have a mentor in Bologna - he was lectured by the father of European medieval mathematics school Scipio del Ferro.

Works devoted to another field of science - economics - date back to the same period. “Treatise on Coins” (1519), “Monetae cudendae ratio” (1528).

Copernicus Fortress

Copernicus' education was completed in 1503 at the University of Padua. In those years, the worldview of a young admirer of astronomy began to take shape, which he could calmly practice by turning the northwestern tower of the Frombork fortress on the Baltic into an observatory.

Scientific works of Nicholas, dated beginning of XVI centuries, were devoted to a new theory of world construction - heliocentric. It was first presented in the monograph “Small Commentary...” (lat. Commentariolus). In 1539, Copernicus's student Georg von Rheticus simple and in clear language spoke in his book about the meaning of discovering a mentor. main book, on which Copernicus worked for more than forty years, was called “On the Rotation of the Celestial Bodies.” He constantly made corrections to it, based on increasingly accurate astronomical calculations.

Having read Ptolemy’s thoughts on the structure of the world for the first time, Copernicus immediately noticed that the conclusions of the scientific ancient thinker were very controversial, and the method of presentation was very complex and difficult to understand for the common reader. Copernicus' conclusion was clear - the center of the system is the Sun, around which the Earth and all the planets known at that time revolve. Some elements of Ptolemy’s theory still had to be recognized - the Pole could not know what the orbits of the planets were.

Work on fundamental postulates heliocentric system was first published by Georg Rheticus in Nuremberg in 1543 under the title “On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres.” Fearing persecution by the Inquisition, the book's publisher, theologian Andreas Osiander, wrote a preface to it. He called the theory a special mathematical technique designed to simplify the process of astronomical calculations. Copernicus's monograph as a whole resembles Ptolemy's Almagest, only there are fewer books - six instead of thirteen. Copernicus easily proved that the planets move reciprocally, that is, in circular orbits.

The mathematical part of the book contains information about the calculations of the location of stars, the Sun and planets in the sky. The principles of the Earth's orbit around the Sun were described by Copernicus using the rule of precession of the equinoxes. Ptolemy could not explain it, but Copernicus absolutely speaks about it from the point of view of kinematics. Copernicus mentions in his work the principles and laws of motion of the Moon and planets, and examines the nature and causes of solar eclipses.

The final theory of the heliocentric theory of the world of Nicolaus Copernicus was formed in the form of seven postulates that completely rejected the geocentric system. She had a huge influence on the formation of the worldview of the descendants of Copernicus in the study of the astronomical picture of the world.

Five hundred years of recognition

Copernicus' active scientific work continued until 1531. He focused on medicine, and, as far as possible, tried to finally prepare his scientific theory for publication. Historians and biographers of Copernicus do not agree on the question of whether he managed to see the book printed. On May 24, 1543, while in a coma, he died after a severe stroke. The remains of the burial of the brilliant Pole were discovered in Frombork Cathedral in 2005, identified and reburied with grandiose honors in the same place on May 20, 2010. Only in 1854 did Jan Baranowski publish the complete works of Copernicus in Polish language and in Latin.

Nicolaus Copernicus is immortalized by his descendants in hundreds of monuments and titles. Transuranium element Periodic table Mendeleev No. 112 is called “copernicium”. In the vastness of the Universe lives a small planet (1322) Copernicus.