WEBVTT - Copernicus 0:00:01.160 --> 0:00:04.120 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:13.680 Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:18.000 I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. Tracy, I 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.479 had an interesting discussion with one of our colleagues recently 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:23.239 where I mentioned this person that we're covering today, and 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:25.080 so no, I'm thinking about doing that, but I'm worried 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.320 it will be one of those things that everybody grows 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:32.600 and says, I know that, huh, And she said astronomer 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:35.080 and I said, Okay, we need to do that episode 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:40.800 because it is one of those things that Copernicus has 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:43.360 name recognition. Some people even know some of the basics 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:46.480 of his work, like his big claim to fame historically 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:48.640 is that he placed the Sun more or less at 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:50.400 the center of the Solar system and at the center 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:54.080 of the universe in astronomical modeling. But for the record, uh, 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:55.760 we should point out that he was not the first 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:57.560 person to think of that. That was going on as 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:00.520 far back as the third century BC went as Starkus 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:04.039 of Samos, who was an ancient Greek mathematician and astronomer, 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.560 made the same assertion. But while Aristarchus is writing on 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:11.720 the sizes and distances of the Sun and moon survived 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.839 the perils of time. His work on a heliocentric model 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:17.360 of the solar system did not. So we only know 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:20.640 about that part of of his work because Plutarch referenced 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.319 it in his writing. So that's why Copernicus gets a 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:25.280 lot of the attention in this arena, because we have 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:28.000 his writings. Uh. And we're going to talk today about 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:31.560 Copernicus and his life and his work, how his science 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:33.520 was in some ways very dangerous, and there are also 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:37.040 probably some surprising aspects of his life because it was 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:41.000 really a lot more varied than just astronomy. So the 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.240 man we eventually came to know as Kapernicus was born 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:48.440 Mikolai Kopernik Uh. He was named after his father and 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:53.600 was born in Taurun, Poland, on February fourteen, seventy three. 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:55.920 As we said, he was named after his father. His 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:59.640 mother's name was Barbara Watson Road. He was their fourth 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:03.520 child wild and the family was quite comfortable. Their family 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:08.200 business wasn't competrating. Yeah, they did quite well. But when 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.040 and I'm gonna go ahead and switch to the more 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:15.040 standard pronunciation of his name, Nicolaus Copernicus. It will get 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.080 to when he changed that in just a moment, But 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.320 when he was still a young boy. In fourteen eight three, 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:23.239 his father died and his maternal uncle, Lucas vatsen Rode, 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.760 who would eventually become Bishop of Varmia, took over the 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:29.799 role of patriarch. And this was a really significant turn 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.880 of events for Copernicus. Obviously, the loss of a parent 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.160 is immense, but it was also important because his uncle 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.080 really prized education and made it one of his goals 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.360 that Nicolas would be well educated. And he was also 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:44.880 very well respected in the church, and he would use 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.400 his position to ensure that Copernicus had a stable career. 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:51.800 At the age of eighteen, Copernicus went to the University 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:54.600 of Krakau, but even though he would become a famous 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:59.480 historical figure in astronomy, his studies also included mathematics and painting. 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:01.880 This was also the period where he made the switch 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:04.079 to using the Latin version of his name that we're 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.240 more familiar with. As Latin was the language of European 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.799 universities at the time, this was not an uncommon practice, 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:17.639 not as one might originally conclude, a mark of pretentiousness. Yeah, 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:20.800 you'll see parttically a lot of scientists and astronomers like 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:22.960 they'll be listed by a name that sounds like their 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:26.440 Latin name, and then you'll see their their birth name, 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.040 which is you know, some as more European or or 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:33.959 whatnotum very very common. So, thanks to his uncle's connections 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:37.280 as well as his own education, Copernicus who got a 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:39.600 job at the Cathedral Chapter and from Bourg as a 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.840 canon in fo and the Cathedral Chapter was basically a 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.120 corporate entity that managed the various needs and duties and 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:51.200 finances associated with governing the diocese, and the clerics who 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.160 worked there served under the bishop in fulfilling that mission. 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:58.160 This was basically an ideal job for Copernicus that allowed 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:02.360 him to continue academic richment with no limitations, although he 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.200 had to astend to his duties as his primary focus, 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:08.560 but any free time he had he could devote to study, 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.360 and he was able to take leaves of absence to 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:16.320 focus exclusively on learning. Perhaps not surprisingly, he hung onto 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:19.919 this job for the rest of his life. Yeah. I 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.640 don't know why, but when I was doing the research 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.159 for this, that seemed so sort of mind blowing to 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.440 me that can you imagine getting one job when you're eighteen, 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:30.960 and that being your job forever. Yeah, I feel like 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.080 my job has been my job forever, even though I 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:38.680 was thirty when I started. Yeah, but that is really 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:40.960 it speaks a lot to his uncle's influence and his 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:45.240 uncle's um ability to kind of set these things up 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:47.000 for him, that he was set for life because of 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.719 the work of his uncle. But before he moved into 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.000 that position, he spent two years in schooling. So in 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.000 four he went to the University of Bologna, where his 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:58.320 uncle had also gone, and he was there to study 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.960 religious law, and this made sense given his job, of course, 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.279 But this time at Bologna would also lead to a 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.599 really pivotal meeting in his life, because he met Italian 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.480 scientist and astronomer Domenico Maria Navara, who was a professor 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:16.560 at the university and who was also boarding Copernicus. Not 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.440 only did this form a close friendship, but it also 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:25.440 undoubtedly influenced Copernicus is thinking about astronomy. Malvara thought differently 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:28.839 than a lot of other astronomers at times, specifically about 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:32.279 the work of Claudius Ptolemy. Novara may have been the 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:37.640 first person Copernicus was exposed to who actually questioned Ptolemy's work, 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:40.440 Which isn't to say that no one else was doing it, 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:43.960 but there wasn't a lot of people doing it, and 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.400 they certainly weren't talking about it openly very often. It 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:49.880 was kind of a dangerous subject to bring up. Yeah. Uh. 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:52.480 And he also began learning Greek while he was at Bologna, 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:54.919 which would serve him later on when he began to 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:57.880 study the work of Ptolemy and other Greek astronomers, because 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.280 a lot of their work had not been trans lated 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:04.040 into Latin at that time. His ongoing Greek studies included 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:07.280 translating a collection of letters in Greek that were written 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.520 by author Aphilactus Semicada, and he would eventually publish his 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.360 translation after a decade of work on it, which was 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:18.880 his only other published work outside of his astronomy writing. Ever, 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.520 a curious learner, Copernicus also studied medicine for a time. 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:26.440 He attended the University of Padua beginning in fifteen o one, 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.600 but he couldn't finish his work there belief of absence 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.559 that he had taken to do it actually ended before 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:34.800 he could finish his studies, so he basically ran out 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:39.000 of time. Yeah, he actually didn't finish most of his 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.600 educational courses, like he never graduated from any of these schools, 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:46.000 but he got enough learning that he was still considered 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.599 pretty much uh adequate, if not expert, in most of 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:52.560 those fields. One of the points of note, however, was 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:54.640 that the study of the heavens was still part of 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:59.200 his curriculum while he was in medical school. Sort of. Uh. 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:01.280 It was at that point its standard to include the 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.400 study of astrology in Italy's medical schools. This was in 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:08.400 the early sixteenth century, as medical astrology was at that 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.600 time believed to be a valuable diagnostic and treatment tool. 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.600 The idea there was that doctors could use their knowledge 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.840 of the patient's birthdate to make determinations about their constitution 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.600 and to determine courses of treatment based on celestial conditions 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.120 at any given time, and to predict how individual cases 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:30.160 and even larger scale issues like epidemics might behave based 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:33.120 on positions of heavenly bodies. So I imagine he did 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:35.880 very well in that course, considering that he probably already 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:39.920 understood how the cosmos is working better than most other students. 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:43.880 But I am just conjecturing there. Even as he tackled 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:47.080 new subjects such as medicine and astronomy. He continued to 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.360 study canon law and he attended the University of Ferrara 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.440 in fifteen o three to get his doctorate on the subject. 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:56.640 After this, he returns to Poland and lived with his uncle. 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:00.320 He was elderly at this point and required care, who 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.680 lived in the bishop's episcopal palace and served as his 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.960 uncle's physician while also busying himself with the work of 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:11.120 the church. And while his uncle may have thought that 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.239 he was grooming Copernicus to take over the position of bishop, 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:19.000 Copernicus chosen instead to leave the episcopal palace in because 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:21.720 the many jobs that were required of him there were 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.880 cutting too deeply into his astronomy studies, which were really 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:28.240 really kind of the focus of his heart. He stayed 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:30.360 at his residence that he moved to in the chapter 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.360 of Fromborg for the rest of his life. Those years 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.200 living in his uncle's court were formative in terms of 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:40.080 his understanding of the cosmos. He stayed there for seven years, 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:43.200 and throughout he was studying astronomy, although not enough for 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.240 his taste. He wanted more. The exact date that he 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:49.720 began working on his heliocentric theory is unknown, but there 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.840 have been some theories that his exit from his uncle's 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.880 home was concurrent with this idea. And we know that 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:00.079 at some point he came into contact with Epitome of 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:04.960 the Almagest, which was a book written by Reggio Montanas, 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:09.679 who was born Johannes Mueller von Koenigsberg. And that's another 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:12.520 case where we know him as Reggio Montana's because he 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:14.640 took his Latin name for a lot of his publishing 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:18.560 and his his formal training. Uh. Yeah, there are some 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:20.480 theories that he kind of got this idea in his 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:23.320 head about heliocentrism and was like, I gotta get out 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:24.800 of here. I gotta go work on my own stuff 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:26.520 on my own and I can't be focused on everybody 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:30.320 else's needs. Um, and that's what potentially catalyzed his his 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:36.360 desire to move out. Totally different interpretation was that he, uh, 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.440 he wanted to start studying a helio centric view of 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:41.719 the universe and his uncle threw him out. M M. 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.079 We don't know, and we'll talk a little bit about 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:47.479 why we don't know at the end of the podcast. 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.040 But yeah, there's a there's some some some question marks 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.360 around sort of what really catalyzed that exit. And we 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:56.080 are going to take a little side trip because we 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.800 have to lay some groundwork and talk about Ptolemy and 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:01.640 the Almagest for con text. But first we are going 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:03.240 to pause and have a word from one of our 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:11.520 fantastic sponsors. So at this point, as I said before 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:13.200 the break, we're doing a little side trip. We're going 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:16.560 to talk about Ptolemy. So, working in Alexandria in the 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:19.640 second century, Ptolemy developed a model of the universe that's 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:23.800 called the geocentric or earth centric model. And the idea 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:26.440 of the Ptolemic system was that our planet Earth was 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:29.319 the center of the known universe, and that it was stationary, 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:32.960 and that the Sun, Moon, Stars, and other planets revolved 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:36.960 around it. Beginning from the Earth at the center. Ptolemy's 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.200 model placed the Moon in the tightest orbit around the planet, 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:44.560 and then Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.040 planets beyond that had not yet been identified, yeah, and 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.800 then the stars were kind of out past that. And 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.080 Ptolemy felt that mathematics could unravel the mysteries of the 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:57.640 movements of the heavenly bodies so while his model was 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:00.360 not correct, he really did make some re the big 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:03.840 strides in terms of analyzing and measuring astronomical data and 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:05.800 how we should be doing it. And keep in mind 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.120 he was doing all of this work without the benefit 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:11.080 of a telescope. So over the course of about twenty 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:15.680 five years, Ptolemy made astronomical observations and compiled data, which 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:18.000 culminated in the writing of his book known as The 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:23.720 Almagist circa one fifty uh C. Having studied astronomy, I 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.679 want to note that the math and the explanation you 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:28.840 have to come up with to make the movements of 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.880 the planet you can see match this theory is freely 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:36.960 convoluted and complicated, like just it's absurd, which is what 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:41.040 really drove a lot of astronomers after him to be like, wait, wait, 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.760 something's messed up here. We're having to do a lot 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:50.959 of weirdness to make this model work. Uh, it's bizarre. Um. So, 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.439 while there had been some questions and criticism raised about 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:58.240 the accuracy of Ptolemy's observational claims over the centuries, he's 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.200 really continued to be lauded throughout history as a math 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.680 master mathematician because as I said, the maths required to 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:10.280 explain his planetary model is complicated. Yeah, it makes me 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.480 wonder if math wasn't so sort of natural to him 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:15.400 that he was like, oh, we can figure this out. 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:17.880 And it's kind of like if you ever recall doing 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:21.600 proofs in geometry and school, there was all that always 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.280 that kid sometimes me that was not smart. But like 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:26.520 I did the proof the long, weird way, and to 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:28.640 me that made more sense than often the shorter way, 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:31.480 because it's like, no, no, that doesn't. I feel like 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:33.200 his was kind of like that, like no, no, no, 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:35.240 we'll just work this out. We'll add in some more 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:39.199 numbers over here and it'll all be fine. But there 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:42.040 was a more elegant way, and that's what people were 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.640 intuiting and what drove them to do their work. Uh. 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:47.080 And we have to mention the fact that it wasn't 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.560 as though these concepts of celestial arrangement were happening in 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.200 big bursts, as one astronomer or another would pick up 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:55.160 the idea and advance things like we have the big 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.400 names of astronomy we'll talk about like Ptolemy and Copernicus 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.240 and Galileo will come up. It's not as though like 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:03.959 nothing is going on in between the work of any 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:08.280 of these men. They're always entire societies happening. And before 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:11.760 Ptolemy there had been Aristotle who really established the principles 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.640 by which classical astronomy was observed, and there were other 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:17.800 Greek astronomers working during the time of Ptolemy. And while 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:21.400 Europe was going through its Middle Ages period, astronomy was 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.200 continuing to be studied and advanced in the Islamic world. 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:28.040 So it's always been on the table for scientists and mathematicians, 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:30.120 but we tend to kind of group it in these 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:33.560 big moments associated with certain people. Yeah. Well, and they're 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:38.560 also uh astronomical schools of thought in other parts of 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:41.520 the world too. But what we're talking, yeah, we're What 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:45.200 we're really talking about are the things that uh, that 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.839 these these particular scholars would have known about and had 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:53.200 access to Readio Montanas was a fifteenth century astronomer who 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:58.040 had been tasked with writing an abridged version of Ptolemy's Almagists, 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.079 But in his work on that prod deck, he recognized 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:06.359 inconsistencies in it, and he proposed alternative models to Mercury's 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:11.280 and Venus's orbits than those that Ptolemy had described. Yes, 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:13.600 as we were saying, he kind of went, this seems 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:15.800 like something's not right. There's a lot of math we 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:17.600 got to do to make this work. There's a whole 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:22.720 thing of like little epicycles within the orbits. It's very 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:25.960 co it's it is, it's very complicated. And so we 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:30.080 had talked before we went into that sidebar about Kapernicus 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.480 coming in contact with Reggio Montanus's work, and that work 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.400 shaped the way Kapernicus thought about astronomy, and it may 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:39.760 have been the key to the formation of his heliocentric 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:43.200 model of the Solar system. It's pretty widely believed that 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:46.160 sometime by fifteen o eight this approach to modeling the 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:50.160 Solar system was under development by Kapernicus. So, as we said, 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:54.240 he left his uncle's at so somewhere in those two years, 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:56.480 it does seem like he was really starting to feel 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.320 like he was onto something. And even as he worked, 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:01.760 he had to have known that this work, which was 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:06.320 a departure from Ptolemy, was radical in nature. Not only 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:11.160 was Ptolemy's view of the heavens a longstanding accepted scientific fact, 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.320 it was also what was endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church, 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:18.840 the very same church that employed Copernicus and for which 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.280 his uncle was a prominent bishop. Yeah, that seems like 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:28.240 awkwards um. And that employment, though, did continue to make 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:31.080 demands on his time. So even while he was working 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.640 all of that astronomy out, he was still serving as canon, 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:39.280 seeing to both the political and administrative and financial issues 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.120 for the church. And he even wrote an essay. This 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:43.880 is one of those factoids about him that I think 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:46.480 goes unnoticed a lot. He wrote this essay on the 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.440 debasement of currency as it related to coinage, which was 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:52.840 a problem that he constantly ran into while managing funds 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:55.520 as part of his job. And that work that he 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.480 wrote was later referenced by leaders in Poland and Prussia 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.960 as both of those countries world with their currencies destabilization. 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:06.040 In fifteen twelve, his uncle, the bishop died, and the 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:10.080 following year Copernicus, still devoted to learning more, built himself 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:14.520 an observatory. Yeah, that was completed in fifteen thirteen, and 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:18.880 then the following year he completed writing commentariolists, which translates 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.920 to small commentary. And this was not a lengthy tomb 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.440 It clocked in at just forty pages, but it gave 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:26.840 a description of what Copernicus believed to be a more 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:29.640 accurate model of the universe than what had come before it, 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:33.280 and he described that in seven axioms. The first was 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:35.720 that there is no one fixed point that is the 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:39.680 center of the universe. The second, which is pretty groundbreaking, 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:42.240 was that the Earth is not the center of the universe. 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.920 The third is that the Sun is near the center 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.080 of the universe. The fourth is that the distance from 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.200 the Earth to the Sun is imperceptible compared with the 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:56.280 distance to the stars, and that the universe was far 0:16:56.360 --> 0:17:00.080 more vast than they had ever conceived of before. The 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:02.800 fifth was that the rotation of the Earth is what 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:07.960 accounts for the apparent daily rotation of the stars. Sixth 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.600 was that the apparent annual cycle of movements of the 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:13.639 Sun is in fact caused by the Earth revolving around it. 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:18.320 And the seventh is that the apparent retrograde moved motion 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.119 of the planets, so when you're looking at the stars 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:23.720 from the Earth it seems like they are moving backwards 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.040 rather than forwards, is caused by the motion of the 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:31.000 Earth from which one is observing, So In addition to 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:35.280 those seven axioms, the Commentariola's hinted that Copernicus was also 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:39.439 going to publish his supporting mathematical formulas for them. He 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:43.680 also indicated that illustrating planetary motion required no more than 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:46.800 thirty four circles, which is a much smaller amount. Astracy 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.560 was referencing earlier than what had come before. He wrote 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.560 in the short manuscript his reason for breaking with the 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:58.680 accepted Ptolemaic model quote. Yet, the widespread planetary theories advanced 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:02.520 by Ptolemy and most their astronomers, although consistent with the 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:07.520 numerical data, seemed likewise to present no small difficulty. For 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.800 these theories were not adequate unless they also conceived certain 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.320 equalizing circles which made the planet appear to move at 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:18.520 all times with uniform velocity, neither on its defferent sphere 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:23.960 nor about its own epicycles center. Therefore, having become aware 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.439 of these defects, I often considered whether there could perhaps 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:30.919 be found a more reasonable arrangement of circles from which 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:35.200 every apparent irregularity would be derived, while everything in itself 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:38.480 would move uniformly as is required by the rule of 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:43.080 perfect motion. And this manuscript was circulated by the astronomer 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:45.439 to his colleagues as a sort of precursor to a 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:49.240 larger work than he expected to produce, and at the 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.119 time he didn't really get much in the way of 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:53.840 direct response. He didn't get a whole lot of feedback, 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:56.840 but there was certainly talk about him, if not to 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:00.399 him and his work, and the gossip was not particularly good. 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.720 His work was seen in the kindest terms as unconventional, 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.959 but mostly because it challenged such deeply held beliefs. It 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.159 was also considered flat out wrong, and one of the 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:13.840 criticisms that was leveled at his work and his writing 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.280 was that it really didn't provide an explanation for the 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.000 switch to the Earth to be orbiting around the Sun 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.280 when they all knew in their hearts that the Sun 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:26.320 orbited the Earth. He continued to work on astronomy for 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:28.399 the rest of his life, but again it wasn't his 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.840 only focus. After having served as his uncle's attending physician, 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:35.959 he continued that role for members of the chapter and 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:40.080 prominent members of the community, and when West Prussia went 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.439 to war against the Teutonic Knights in fifteen twenty, he 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:48.520 served in a leadership role it's basically a busy guy. Yeah, yeah, 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:51.919 he um. He had his hand in many pies, so 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.760 to speak. And in fifteen thirty nine, Austrian astronomer and 0:19:55.800 --> 0:20:00.440 mathematician George Joachi Rheticus visited Copernicus to study a nder him. 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:02.919 He was, if I remember correctly, he was kind of 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:06.120 touring and visiting a number of different scholars. And while 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.000 he did learn from Copernicus, Rheticus actually had some pretty 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:12.600 important things to teach Copernicus as well, in particular that 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:15.640 there had been great advancements in printing achieved in Germany, 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:19.000 and he showcased that by bringing mathematical texts with him 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:23.080 that were really really high quality. And Reheticus is credited 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.159 with convincing Copernicus that he should in fact publish his 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.080 life's work that he had been writing all of these years, 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.720 and he eventually supervised getting that book into print. We'll 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:35.679 talk about the last few years of copernicus Is life 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:38.320 and the publication of his life's work after we take 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:46.560 one more quick sponsor break. So, the book on the 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.440 Revolution of the Heavenly Spheares had been more or less 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:52.720 completed when Reheticus arrived for his visit to Copernicus in 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.560 fifteen thirty nine. It had in fact been complete for 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:59.960 quite some time. And while the issue of acceptance among 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:02.919 scholars in society is often cited as the reason for 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:07.920 hesitation to publish it, on Copernicus part moreover, he really 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:11.560 wasn't convinced that his work was complete. Rheticus wrote an 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:15.479 introductory document titled Naratio prima, in which he described the 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:19.879 contents of On the Revolutions, which published in fifteen forty 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:24.560 This document both uh pre preluded and praised the research 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:29.439 Copernicus had done, and further encouraged him to publish. On 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:33.159 the Revolutions finally did go to print in fifteen forty three, 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:36.600 and Copernicus dedicated the six volume work to Pope Paul 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:39.560 the Third. There's debate over whether he did that just 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:41.680 as sort of a political move to try to curry 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:44.280 favor with the Church, knowing that he was saying some 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:47.040 things that the Church wasn't gonna like or not. But 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:50.680 before the printing was completed, Redicus, who was, as we said, 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:53.400 overseeing all of it, was appointed to a new position, 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:56.639 and that was professor of mathematics at the University of Leipzig. 0:21:57.280 --> 0:21:59.480 And he had to leave. He couldn't finish the whole thing, 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:01.760 and he the remainder of the project in what he 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:06.520 thought were very safe hands. Those hands belonged to Andreas Osiander. 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:11.280 Andreas Osiander was a mathematician and an astronomer. He was 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:14.960 also a minister and a follower of Martin Luther, who 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:20.439 thought heliocentrism was heretical. So Osiander took advantage of the 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:24.040 fact that Copernicus was quite ill at the time and 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:25.679 that he was in charge of the book, and he 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:29.040 wrote an addition to the book's preface. This addition said quote, 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:32.280 since he, meaning the astronomer, cannot in any way attain 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:36.000 to the true causes, he will adopt whatever suppositions enable 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:39.199 the motions to be computed correctly from the principles of 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:41.800