Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus


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Nicolaus Copernicus

Nikolaus Kopernikus.jpg

Portrait, 1580, Toruс Old Town City Hall
 

Born
19 February 1473
Toruс (Thorn), Royal Prussia, Kingdom of Poland

Died
24 May 1543 (aged 70)
Frombork (Frauenburg), Prince-Bishopric of Warmia, Royal Prussia, Kingdom of Poland

Fields
Mathematics, astronomy, canon law, medicine, economics

Alma mater
University of Krakуw
University of Bologna
University of Padua
University of Ferrara

Known for
Heliocentrism
Copernicus' Law
Signature
 

Nicolaus Copernicus (German: Nikolaus Kopernikus; Polish: About this sound Mikoіaj Kopernik (help·info); 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a heliocentric model of the universe which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center.[a]

The publication of Copernicus' book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), just before his death in 1543, is considered a major event in the history of science. It began the Copernican Revolution and contributed importantly to the scientific revolution.

Copernicus was born and died in Royal Prussia, a region of the Kingdom of Poland since 1466. Copernicus had a doctorate in canon law and, though without degrees, was a physician, polyglot, classics scholar, translator, governor, diplomat, and economist who in 1517 set down a quantity theory of money, a principal concept in economics to the present day, and formulated a version of Gresham's law in the year 1519, before Gresham