If the Polish canon (member of the clergy) Copernic began studying art, medicine and studied economics, he was passionate about astronomy, which he studied at the University of Bologna. Back in Poland, he remains a canon but devotes himself in parallel to this science. He discovers that, contrary to the common thought inherited from Ptolemy who advocates geocentrism (who says that the Earth would be the center of the universe), it is the Earth which turns on itself with the other planets, around the Sun . He therefore advocates heliocentrism. He also claims that the Moon is a satellite of Earth. He therefore circulated his first theories secretly and in Latin in 1512-1513 to scientists and a few initiates, in his manuscript De hypothesibus motuum caelestium a se constitutis commentariolus . But his complete theory will only be published posthumously to avoid the wrath of the Church in 1543, in his work De revolutionibus orbium caelestium . He will still see the first copy just before dying on May 24, 1543. He is the father of modern astronomy.
February 19, 1473 - May 24, 1543
Status
Canon
Doctor
Mathematician
Economist
Astronomer