Kopernik biography
Home / Scientists & Inventors / Kopernik biography
There he studied Latin, mathematics, astronomy, geography and philosophy. His scientific method, though determined by the horizons of contemporary knowledge and belief, was yet ideally objective. i Tehn.(1)(42)(1972), 9-16, 94, 103.
2.3 On the Revolutions
The Commentariolus was only intended as an introduction to Copernicus’s ideas, and he wrote “the mathematical demonstrations intended for my larger work should be omitted for brevity’s sake…” (MW 82).
While in Rome he observed an eclipse of the Moon which took place on 6 November 1500. Finally, by 1540 he was ready.
Astronom.
20(1)(1989), 25-28.A Jesuit himself, he incorporated astronomy into the Jesuit curriculum and was the principal scholar behind the creation of the Gregorian calendar. He now had more time than before to devote to his study of astronomy, having an observatory in the rooms in which he lived in one of the towers in the town's fortifications.
It is true that astrology required that medical students acquire some grounding in astronomy; nevertheless, it is likely that Copernicus studied astrology while at the University of Padua.[2]
Copernicus did not receive his medical degree from Padua; the degree would have taken three years, and Copernicus had only been granted a two-year leave of absence by his chapter.
Although he made some astronomical observations, he was immersed in church politics, and after his elderly uncle became ill in 1507, Copernicus was his attending physician. Internat. He called Copernicus a ‘second Ptolemy’ (quoted in Westman 1975, 307) and appreciated both the elimination of the equant and the creation of a planetary system.
There is no record that he ever graduated from Padua. ül. However, despite attending the Diet and arguing strongly for his sensible proposals, they were not acted on. Hist. His uncle Lucas Watzenrode was still determined that Copernicus should have a career in the Church and indeed this was a profession which would allow security for someone wanting to pursue leaning.
It was consequently considered implausible by the most of his contemporaries, and by most astronomers and natural philosophers until the middle of the seventeenth century. Mat.
78(1953), 297-304.