Nicolaus Copernicus Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Nicolaus Copernicus - Essay Examplewas aw ar of this and could not present any observational proof in his manuscript, relying instead on arguments around what would be a more complete and elegant system. From publication until about 1700, few astronomers were convinced by the Copernican system, though the word of honor was relatively widely circulated (around 500 copies are known to still exist, which is a large number by the scientific standards of the time). Many astronomers, however, accepted slightly aspects of the theory at the expense of former(a)s, and his model did have a large influence on later on scientists such as Galileo and Johannes Kepler, who adopted, championed and (especially in Keplers case) sought to improve it. Galileos observation of the phases of Venus produced the first observational severalize for Copernicus theory.The Copernican system can be summarized in seven propositions, as Copernicus himself collected them in a Compendium of De revolutionibus that was found and published in 18781. Orbits and celestial spheres do not have a unique, common, revolve around. 2. The center of the Earth is not the center of the Universe, but only the center of the Earths mass and of the lunar orbit. 3. All the planets prevail along orbits whose center is the Sun, therefore the Sun is the center of the World. (Copernicus was never certain whether the Sun moved or not, claiming that the center of the World is in the Sun, or near it.) 4. The distance mingled with the Earth and the Sun, compared with the distance between the Earth and the fixed stars, is very small. 5. The daytime motion of the Sun is only apparent, and represents the effect of a gyration that the Earth makes every 24 hours around its axis, always parallel to itself. 6. The Earth (together with its Moon, and just like the other planets) moves around the... Copernicus major work, was the result of decades of labor. It opened with an originally anonymous preface by Andreas Osiander, a theologian friend of Copernicus, who urged that the theory did not necessarily have implications outside the limited realm of astronomy. Copernicus actual moderate began with a letter from his (by then deceased) friend, the Archbishop of Capua, urging Copernicus to publish his theory. Then, in a lengthy introduction, Copernicus dedicated the book to Pope Paul III, explaining his ostensible motive in writing the book as relating to the inability of sooner astronomers to agree on an adequate theory of the planets, and noting that if his system increased the accuracy of astronomical predictions it would allow the perform to develop a more accurate calendar (calendar reform then being an important hesitancy and one of the major reasons for Church funding of astronomy.