Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. Tracy, I
Speaker 1: had an interesting discussion with one of our colleagues recently
Speaker 1: where I mentioned this person that we're covering today, and
Speaker 1: so no, I'm thinking about doing that, but I'm worried
Speaker 1: it will be one of those things that everybody grows
Speaker 1: and says, I know that, huh, And she said astronomer
Speaker 1: and I said, Okay, we need to do that episode
Speaker 1: because it is one of those things that Copernicus has
Speaker 1: name recognition. Some people even know some of the basics
Speaker 1: of his work, like his big claim to fame historically
Speaker 1: is that he placed the Sun more or less at
Speaker 1: the center of the Solar system and at the center
Speaker 1: of the universe in astronomical modeling. But for the record, uh,
Speaker 1: we should point out that he was not the first
Speaker 1: person to think of that. That was going on as
Speaker 1: far back as the third century BC went as Starkus
Speaker 1: of Samos, who was an ancient Greek mathematician and astronomer,
Speaker 1: made the same assertion. But while Aristarchus is writing on
Speaker 1: the sizes and distances of the Sun and moon survived
Speaker 1: the perils of time. His work on a heliocentric model
Speaker 1: of the solar system did not. So we only know
Speaker 1: about that part of of his work because Plutarch referenced
Speaker 1: it in his writing. So that's why Copernicus gets a
Speaker 1: lot of the attention in this arena, because we have
Speaker 1: his writings. Uh. And we're going to talk today about
Speaker 1: Copernicus and his life and his work, how his science
Speaker 1: was in some ways very dangerous, and there are also
Speaker 1: probably some surprising aspects of his life because it was
Speaker 1: really a lot more varied than just astronomy. So the
Speaker 1: man we eventually came to know as Kapernicus was born
Speaker 1: Mikolai Kopernik Uh. He was named after his father and
Speaker 1: was born in Taurun, Poland, on February fourteen, seventy three.
Speaker 1: As we said, he was named after his father. His
Speaker 1: mother's name was Barbara Watson Road. He was their fourth
Speaker 1: child wild and the family was quite comfortable. Their family
Speaker 1: business wasn't competrating. Yeah, they did quite well. But when
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go ahead and switch to the more
Speaker 1: standard pronunciation of his name, Nicolaus Copernicus. It will get
Speaker 1: to when he changed that in just a moment, But
Speaker 1: when he was still a young boy. In fourteen eight three,
Speaker 1: his father died and his maternal uncle, Lucas vatsen Rode,
Speaker 1: who would eventually become Bishop of Varmia, took over the
Speaker 1: role of patriarch. And this was a really significant turn
Speaker 1: of events for Copernicus. Obviously, the loss of a parent
Speaker 1: is immense, but it was also important because his uncle
Speaker 1: really prized education and made it one of his goals
Speaker 1: that Nicolas would be well educated. And he was also
Speaker 1: very well respected in the church, and he would use
Speaker 1: his position to ensure that Copernicus had a stable career.
Speaker 1: At the age of eighteen, Copernicus went to the University
Speaker 1: of Krakau, but even though he would become a famous
Speaker 1: historical figure in astronomy, his studies also included mathematics and painting.
Speaker 1: This was also the period where he made the switch
Speaker 1: to using the Latin version of his name that we're
Speaker 1: more familiar with. As Latin was the language of European
Speaker 1: universities at the time, this was not an uncommon practice,
Speaker 1: not as one might originally conclude, a mark of pretentiousness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll see parttically a lot of scientists and astronomers like
Speaker 1: they'll be listed by a name that sounds like their
Speaker 1: Latin name, and then you'll see their their birth name,
Speaker 1: which is you know, some as more European or or
Speaker 1: whatnotum very very common. So, thanks to his uncle's connections
Speaker 1: as well as his own education, Copernicus who got a
Speaker 1: job at the Cathedral Chapter and from Bourg as a
Speaker 1: canon in fo and the Cathedral Chapter was basically a
Speaker 1: corporate entity that managed the various needs and duties and
Speaker 1: finances associated with governing the diocese, and the clerics who
Speaker 1: worked there served under the bishop in fulfilling that mission.
Speaker 1: This was basically an ideal job for Copernicus that allowed
Speaker 1: him to continue academic richment with no limitations, although he
Speaker 1: had to astend to his duties as his primary focus,
Speaker 1: but any free time he had he could devote to study,
Speaker 1: and he was able to take leaves of absence to
Speaker 1: focus exclusively on learning. Perhaps not surprisingly, he hung onto
Speaker 1: this job for the rest of his life. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: don't know why, but when I was doing the research
Speaker 1: for this, that seemed so sort of mind blowing to
Speaker 1: me that can you imagine getting one job when you're eighteen,
Speaker 1: and that being your job forever. Yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: my job has been my job forever, even though I
Speaker 1: was thirty when I started. Yeah, but that is really
Speaker 1: it speaks a lot to his uncle's influence and his
Speaker 1: uncle's um ability to kind of set these things up
Speaker 1: for him, that he was set for life because of
Speaker 1: the work of his uncle. But before he moved into
Speaker 1: that position, he spent two years in schooling. So in
Speaker 1: four he went to the University of Bologna, where his
Speaker 1: uncle had also gone, and he was there to study
Speaker 1: religious law, and this made sense given his job, of course,
Speaker 1: But this time at Bologna would also lead to a
Speaker 1: really pivotal meeting in his life, because he met Italian
Speaker 1: scientist and astronomer Domenico Maria Navara, who was a professor
Speaker 1: at the university and who was also boarding Copernicus. Not
Speaker 1: only did this form a close friendship, but it also
Speaker 1: undoubtedly influenced Copernicus is thinking about astronomy. Malvara thought differently
Speaker 1: than a lot of other astronomers at times, specifically about
Speaker 1: the work of Claudius Ptolemy. Novara may have been the
Speaker 1: first person Copernicus was exposed to who actually questioned Ptolemy's work,
Speaker 1: Which isn't to say that no one else was doing it,
Speaker 1: but there wasn't a lot of people doing it, and
Speaker 1: they certainly weren't talking about it openly very often. It
Speaker 1: was kind of a dangerous subject to bring up. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he also began learning Greek while he was at Bologna,
Speaker 1: which would serve him later on when he began to
Speaker 1: study the work of Ptolemy and other Greek astronomers, because
Speaker 1: a lot of their work had not been trans lated
Speaker 1: into Latin at that time. His ongoing Greek studies included
Speaker 1: translating a collection of letters in Greek that were written
Speaker 1: by author Aphilactus Semicada, and he would eventually publish his
Speaker 1: translation after a decade of work on it, which was
Speaker 1: his only other published work outside of his astronomy writing. Ever,
Speaker 1: a curious learner, Copernicus also studied medicine for a time.
Speaker 1: He attended the University of Padua beginning in fifteen o one,
Speaker 1: but he couldn't finish his work there belief of absence
Speaker 1: that he had taken to do it actually ended before
Speaker 1: he could finish his studies, so he basically ran out
Speaker 1: of time. Yeah, he actually didn't finish most of his
Speaker 1: educational courses, like he never graduated from any of these schools,
Speaker 1: but he got enough learning that he was still considered
Speaker 1: pretty much uh adequate, if not expert, in most of
Speaker 1: those fields. One of the points of note, however, was
Speaker 1: that the study of the heavens was still part of
Speaker 1: his curriculum while he was in medical school. Sort of. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was at that point its standard to include the
Speaker 1: study of astrology in Italy's medical schools. This was in
Speaker 1: the early sixteenth century, as medical astrology was at that
Speaker 1: time believed to be a valuable diagnostic and treatment tool.
Speaker 1: The idea there was that doctors could use their knowledge
Speaker 1: of the patient's birthdate to make determinations about their constitution
Speaker 1: and to determine courses of treatment based on celestial conditions
Speaker 1: at any given time, and to predict how individual cases
Speaker 1: and even larger scale issues like epidemics might behave based
Speaker 1: on positions of heavenly bodies. So I imagine he did
Speaker 1: very well in that course, considering that he probably already
Speaker 1: understood how the cosmos is working better than most other students.
Speaker 1: But I am just conjecturing there. Even as he tackled
Speaker 1: new subjects such as medicine and astronomy. He continued to
Speaker 1: study canon law and he attended the University of Ferrara
Speaker 1: in fifteen o three to get his doctorate on the subject.
Speaker 1: After this, he returns to Poland and lived with his uncle.
Speaker 1: He was elderly at this point and required care, who
Speaker 1: lived in the bishop's episcopal palace and served as his
Speaker 1: uncle's physician while also busying himself with the work of
Speaker 1: the church. And while his uncle may have thought that
Speaker 1: he was grooming Copernicus to take over the position of bishop,
Speaker 1: Copernicus chosen instead to leave the episcopal palace in because
Speaker 1: the many jobs that were required of him there were
Speaker 1: cutting too deeply into his astronomy studies, which were really
Speaker 1: really kind of the focus of his heart. He stayed
Speaker 1: at his residence that he moved to in the chapter
Speaker 1: of Fromborg for the rest of his life. Those years
Speaker 1: living in his uncle's court were formative in terms of
Speaker 1: his understanding of the cosmos. He stayed there for seven years,
Speaker 1: and throughout he was studying astronomy, although not enough for
Speaker 1: his taste. He wanted more. The exact date that he
Speaker 1: began working on his heliocentric theory is unknown, but there
Speaker 1: have been some theories that his exit from his uncle's
Speaker 1: home was concurrent with this idea. And we know that
Speaker 1: at some point he came into contact with Epitome of
Speaker 1: the Almagest, which was a book written by Reggio Montanas,
Speaker 1: who was born Johannes Mueller von Koenigsberg. And that's another
Speaker 1: case where we know him as Reggio Montana's because he
Speaker 1: took his Latin name for a lot of his publishing
Speaker 1: and his his formal training. Uh. Yeah, there are some
Speaker 1: theories that he kind of got this idea in his
Speaker 1: head about heliocentrism and was like, I gotta get out
Speaker 1: of here. I gotta go work on my own stuff
Speaker 1: on my own and I can't be focused on everybody
Speaker 1: else's needs. Um, and that's what potentially catalyzed his his
Speaker 1: desire to move out. Totally different interpretation was that he, uh,
Speaker 1: he wanted to start studying a helio centric view of
Speaker 1: the universe and his uncle threw him out. M M.
Speaker 1: We don't know, and we'll talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: why we don't know at the end of the podcast.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's a there's some some some question marks
Speaker 1: around sort of what really catalyzed that exit. And we
Speaker 1: are going to take a little side trip because we
Speaker 1: have to lay some groundwork and talk about Ptolemy and
Speaker 1: the Almagest for con text. But first we are going
Speaker 1: to pause and have a word from one of our
Speaker 1: fantastic sponsors. So at this point, as I said before
Speaker 1: the break, we're doing a little side trip. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about Ptolemy. So, working in Alexandria in the
Speaker 1: second century, Ptolemy developed a model of the universe that's
Speaker 1: called the geocentric or earth centric model. And the idea
Speaker 1: of the Ptolemic system was that our planet Earth was
Speaker 1: the center of the known universe, and that it was stationary,
Speaker 1: and that the Sun, Moon, Stars, and other planets revolved
Speaker 1: around it. Beginning from the Earth at the center. Ptolemy's
Speaker 1: model placed the Moon in the tightest orbit around the planet,
Speaker 1: and then Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn,
Speaker 1: planets beyond that had not yet been identified, yeah, and
Speaker 1: then the stars were kind of out past that. And
Speaker 1: Ptolemy felt that mathematics could unravel the mysteries of the
Speaker 1: movements of the heavenly bodies so while his model was
Speaker 1: not correct, he really did make some re the big
Speaker 1: strides in terms of analyzing and measuring astronomical data and
Speaker 1: how we should be doing it. And keep in mind
Speaker 1: he was doing all of this work without the benefit
Speaker 1: of a telescope. So over the course of about twenty
Speaker 1: five years, Ptolemy made astronomical observations and compiled data, which
Speaker 1: culminated in the writing of his book known as The
Speaker 1: Almagist circa one fifty uh C. Having studied astronomy, I
Speaker 1: want to note that the math and the explanation you
Speaker 1: have to come up with to make the movements of
Speaker 1: the planet you can see match this theory is freely
Speaker 1: convoluted and complicated, like just it's absurd, which is what
Speaker 1: really drove a lot of astronomers after him to be like, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: something's messed up here. We're having to do a lot
Speaker 1: of weirdness to make this model work. Uh, it's bizarre. Um. So,
Speaker 1: while there had been some questions and criticism raised about
Speaker 1: the accuracy of Ptolemy's observational claims over the centuries, he's
Speaker 1: really continued to be lauded throughout history as a math
Speaker 1: master mathematician because as I said, the maths required to
Speaker 1: explain his planetary model is complicated. Yeah, it makes me
Speaker 1: wonder if math wasn't so sort of natural to him
Speaker 1: that he was like, oh, we can figure this out.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of like if you ever recall doing
Speaker 1: proofs in geometry and school, there was all that always
Speaker 1: that kid sometimes me that was not smart. But like
Speaker 1: I did the proof the long, weird way, and to
Speaker 1: me that made more sense than often the shorter way,
Speaker 1: because it's like, no, no, that doesn't. I feel like
Speaker 1: his was kind of like that, like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we'll just work this out. We'll add in some more
Speaker 1: numbers over here and it'll all be fine. But there
Speaker 1: was a more elegant way, and that's what people were
Speaker 1: intuiting and what drove them to do their work. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we have to mention the fact that it wasn't
Speaker 1: as though these concepts of celestial arrangement were happening in
Speaker 1: big bursts, as one astronomer or another would pick up
Speaker 1: the idea and advance things like we have the big
Speaker 1: names of astronomy we'll talk about like Ptolemy and Copernicus
Speaker 1: and Galileo will come up. It's not as though like
Speaker 1: nothing is going on in between the work of any
Speaker 1: of these men. They're always entire societies happening. And before
Speaker 1: Ptolemy there had been Aristotle who really established the principles
Speaker 1: by which classical astronomy was observed, and there were other
Speaker 1: Greek astronomers working during the time of Ptolemy. And while
Speaker 1: Europe was going through its Middle Ages period, astronomy was
Speaker 1: continuing to be studied and advanced in the Islamic world.
Speaker 1: So it's always been on the table for scientists and mathematicians,
Speaker 1: but we tend to kind of group it in these
Speaker 1: big moments associated with certain people. Yeah. Well, and they're
Speaker 1: also uh astronomical schools of thought in other parts of
Speaker 1: the world too. But what we're talking, yeah, we're What
Speaker 1: we're really talking about are the things that uh, that
Speaker 1: these these particular scholars would have known about and had
Speaker 1: access to Readio Montanas was a fifteenth century astronomer who
Speaker 1: had been tasked with writing an abridged version of Ptolemy's Almagists,
Speaker 1: But in his work on that prod deck, he recognized
Speaker 1: inconsistencies in it, and he proposed alternative models to Mercury's
Speaker 1: and Venus's orbits than those that Ptolemy had described. Yes,
Speaker 1: as we were saying, he kind of went, this seems
Speaker 1: like something's not right. There's a lot of math we
Speaker 1: got to do to make this work. There's a whole
Speaker 1: thing of like little epicycles within the orbits. It's very
Speaker 1: co it's it is, it's very complicated. And so we
Speaker 1: had talked before we went into that sidebar about Kapernicus
Speaker 1: coming in contact with Reggio Montanus's work, and that work
Speaker 1: shaped the way Kapernicus thought about astronomy, and it may
Speaker 1: have been the key to the formation of his heliocentric
Speaker 1: model of the Solar system. It's pretty widely believed that
Speaker 1: sometime by fifteen o eight this approach to modeling the
Speaker 1: Solar system was under development by Kapernicus. So, as we said,
Speaker 1: he left his uncle's at so somewhere in those two years,
Speaker 1: it does seem like he was really starting to feel
Speaker 1: like he was onto something. And even as he worked,
Speaker 1: he had to have known that this work, which was
Speaker 1: a departure from Ptolemy, was radical in nature. Not only
Speaker 1: was Ptolemy's view of the heavens a longstanding accepted scientific fact,
Speaker 1: it was also what was endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church,
Speaker 1: the very same church that employed Copernicus and for which
Speaker 1: his uncle was a prominent bishop. Yeah, that seems like
Speaker 1: awkwards um. And that employment, though, did continue to make
Speaker 1: demands on his time. So even while he was working
Speaker 1: all of that astronomy out, he was still serving as canon,
Speaker 1: seeing to both the political and administrative and financial issues
Speaker 1: for the church. And he even wrote an essay. This
Speaker 1: is one of those factoids about him that I think
Speaker 1: goes unnoticed a lot. He wrote this essay on the
Speaker 1: debasement of currency as it related to coinage, which was
Speaker 1: a problem that he constantly ran into while managing funds
Speaker 1: as part of his job. And that work that he
Speaker 1: wrote was later referenced by leaders in Poland and Prussia
Speaker 1: as both of those countries world with their currencies destabilization.
Speaker 1: In fifteen twelve, his uncle, the bishop died, and the
Speaker 1: following year Copernicus, still devoted to learning more, built himself
Speaker 1: an observatory. Yeah, that was completed in fifteen thirteen, and
Speaker 1: then the following year he completed writing commentariolists, which translates
Speaker 1: to small commentary. And this was not a lengthy tomb
Speaker 1: It clocked in at just forty pages, but it gave
Speaker 1: a description of what Copernicus believed to be a more
Speaker 1: accurate model of the universe than what had come before it,
Speaker 1: and he described that in seven axioms. The first was
Speaker 1: that there is no one fixed point that is the
Speaker 1: center of the universe. The second, which is pretty groundbreaking,
Speaker 1: was that the Earth is not the center of the universe.
Speaker 1: The third is that the Sun is near the center
Speaker 1: of the universe. The fourth is that the distance from
Speaker 1: the Earth to the Sun is imperceptible compared with the
Speaker 1: distance to the stars, and that the universe was far
Speaker 1: more vast than they had ever conceived of before. The
Speaker 1: fifth was that the rotation of the Earth is what
Speaker 1: accounts for the apparent daily rotation of the stars. Sixth
Speaker 1: was that the apparent annual cycle of movements of the
Speaker 1: Sun is in fact caused by the Earth revolving around it.
Speaker 1: And the seventh is that the apparent retrograde moved motion
Speaker 1: of the planets, so when you're looking at the stars
Speaker 1: from the Earth it seems like they are moving backwards
Speaker 1: rather than forwards, is caused by the motion of the
Speaker 1: Earth from which one is observing, So In addition to
Speaker 1: those seven axioms, the Commentariola's hinted that Copernicus was also
Speaker 1: going to publish his supporting mathematical formulas for them. He
Speaker 1: also indicated that illustrating planetary motion required no more than
Speaker 1: thirty four circles, which is a much smaller amount. Astracy
Speaker 1: was referencing earlier than what had come before. He wrote
Speaker 1: in the short manuscript his reason for breaking with the
Speaker 1: accepted Ptolemaic model quote. Yet, the widespread planetary theories advanced
Speaker 1: by Ptolemy and most their astronomers, although consistent with the
Speaker 1: numerical data, seemed likewise to present no small difficulty. For
Speaker 1: these theories were not adequate unless they also conceived certain
Speaker 1: equalizing circles which made the planet appear to move at
Speaker 1: all times with uniform velocity, neither on its defferent sphere
Speaker 1: nor about its own epicycles center. Therefore, having become aware
Speaker 1: of these defects, I often considered whether there could perhaps
Speaker 1: be found a more reasonable arrangement of circles from which
Speaker 1: every apparent irregularity would be derived, while everything in itself
Speaker 1: would move uniformly as is required by the rule of
Speaker 1: perfect motion. And this manuscript was circulated by the astronomer
Speaker 1: to his colleagues as a sort of precursor to a
Speaker 1: larger work than he expected to produce, and at the
Speaker 1: time he didn't really get much in the way of
Speaker 1: direct response. He didn't get a whole lot of feedback,
Speaker 1: but there was certainly talk about him, if not to
Speaker 1: him and his work, and the gossip was not particularly good.
Speaker 1: His work was seen in the kindest terms as unconventional,
Speaker 1: but mostly because it challenged such deeply held beliefs. It
Speaker 1: was also considered flat out wrong, and one of the
Speaker 1: criticisms that was leveled at his work and his writing
Speaker 1: was that it really didn't provide an explanation for the
Speaker 1: switch to the Earth to be orbiting around the Sun
Speaker 1: when they all knew in their hearts that the Sun
Speaker 1: orbited the Earth. He continued to work on astronomy for
Speaker 1: the rest of his life, but again it wasn't his
Speaker 1: only focus. After having served as his uncle's attending physician,
Speaker 1: he continued that role for members of the chapter and
Speaker 1: prominent members of the community, and when West Prussia went
Speaker 1: to war against the Teutonic Knights in fifteen twenty, he
Speaker 1: served in a leadership role it's basically a busy guy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he um. He had his hand in many pies, so
Speaker 1: to speak. And in fifteen thirty nine, Austrian astronomer and
Speaker 1: mathematician George Joachi Rheticus visited Copernicus to study a nder him.
Speaker 1: He was, if I remember correctly, he was kind of
Speaker 1: touring and visiting a number of different scholars. And while
Speaker 1: he did learn from Copernicus, Rheticus actually had some pretty
Speaker 1: important things to teach Copernicus as well, in particular that
Speaker 1: there had been great advancements in printing achieved in Germany,
Speaker 1: and he showcased that by bringing mathematical texts with him
Speaker 1: that were really really high quality. And Reheticus is credited
Speaker 1: with convincing Copernicus that he should in fact publish his
Speaker 1: life's work that he had been writing all of these years,
Speaker 1: and he eventually supervised getting that book into print. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about the last few years of copernicus Is life
Speaker 1: and the publication of his life's work after we take
Speaker 1: one more quick sponsor break. So, the book on the
Speaker 1: Revolution of the Heavenly Spheares had been more or less
Speaker 1: completed when Reheticus arrived for his visit to Copernicus in
Speaker 1: fifteen thirty nine. It had in fact been complete for
Speaker 1: quite some time. And while the issue of acceptance among
Speaker 1: scholars in society is often cited as the reason for
Speaker 1: hesitation to publish it, on Copernicus part moreover, he really
Speaker 1: wasn't convinced that his work was complete. Rheticus wrote an
Speaker 1: introductory document titled Naratio prima, in which he described the
Speaker 1: contents of On the Revolutions, which published in fifteen forty
Speaker 1: This document both uh pre preluded and praised the research
Speaker 1: Copernicus had done, and further encouraged him to publish. On
Speaker 1: the Revolutions finally did go to print in fifteen forty three,
Speaker 1: and Copernicus dedicated the six volume work to Pope Paul
Speaker 1: the Third. There's debate over whether he did that just
Speaker 1: as sort of a political move to try to curry
Speaker 1: favor with the Church, knowing that he was saying some
Speaker 1: things that the Church wasn't gonna like or not. But
Speaker 1: before the printing was completed, Redicus, who was, as we said,
Speaker 1: overseeing all of it, was appointed to a new position,
Speaker 1: and that was professor of mathematics at the University of Leipzig.
Speaker 1: And he had to leave. He couldn't finish the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and he the remainder of the project in what he
Speaker 1: thought were very safe hands. Those hands belonged to Andreas Osiander.
Speaker 1: Andreas Osiander was a mathematician and an astronomer. He was
Speaker 1: also a minister and a follower of Martin Luther, who
Speaker 1: thought heliocentrism was heretical. So Osiander took advantage of the
Speaker 1: fact that Copernicus was quite ill at the time and
Speaker 1: that he was in charge of the book, and he
Speaker 1: wrote an addition to the book's preface. This addition said quote,
Speaker 1: since he, meaning the astronomer, cannot in any way attain
Speaker 1: to the true causes, he will adopt whatever suppositions enable
Speaker 1: the motions to be computed correctly from the principles of
Speaker 1: geometry for the future as well as for the past.
Speaker 1: These hypotheses need not be true nor even probable. This
Speaker 1: is one of those things that makes me really mad.
Speaker 1: Because this additional text was added to the preface, readers
Speaker 1: presumed that Copernicus himself had written it, and it actually
Speaker 1: undermined all of the work that had gone into the book.
Speaker 1: It was basically saying, well, I was just playing with
Speaker 1: theory and fussing with things to try to make the mathwork.
Speaker 1: It was basically denouncing all that he had done. And
Speaker 1: it was actually decades before this deception of that preface
Speaker 1: was uncovered by Johannes Kepler. In the spring of fifte
Speaker 1: Copernicus had a stroke and he was, as we just mentioned,
Speaker 1: still ailing. When the book was published, Redicus brought a
Speaker 1: copy to his deathbed, and when Copernicus died ont three,
Speaker 1: he was allegedly holding a volume of the book in
Speaker 1: his arms. We're actually coming up on the four seventy
Speaker 1: four anniversary of his death in terms of when we
Speaker 1: recorded this episode today. Yeah, and so for the next
Speaker 1: five decades on, the revolution circulated throughout Europe, and it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where Copernicus probably thought it was
Speaker 1: gonna cause some problems, but he probably did not see
Speaker 1: how big that problem was going to be in terms
Speaker 1: of of really starting some battles. It did, however, have
Speaker 1: a second printing in fifteen sixty six, and astronomers, of
Speaker 1: course and aalized and debated the merits of the solutions
Speaker 1: Copernicus had presented to reconcile his issues with the work
Speaker 1: of Ptolemy. While Martin Luther had openly denounced the work.
Speaker 1: The Roman Catholic Church had never made an official statement.
Speaker 1: We don't know what Pope Paul the Third thought of
Speaker 1: the astronomy book that was dedicated to him, even though
Speaker 1: he even though that dedication was probably done to curry
Speaker 1: favor and to try to soften the church's reaction. Allegedly,
Speaker 1: one of the Pope's advisors, Potolomeo Spina, was planning to
Speaker 1: condemn heliocentrism and the work Copernicus had done, but he
Speaker 1: died before he got a chance to do that. Yes,
Speaker 1: there was no official statement. So while there had been
Speaker 1: much fewer and criticism since the fifteen forties that the
Speaker 1: book contradicted scripture, it actually wasn't until sixteen sixteen that
Speaker 1: the Roman Catholic Church placed on the Revolutions of the
Speaker 1: Heavenly Spheres on the index of Forbidden books. Although it corrected,
Speaker 1: and that's in air quotes version was made available to scholars,
Speaker 1: it actually stayed on that index until seventeen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: and that was about sixty years after much of copernicus
Speaker 1: model had become widely accepted by astronomers and scientists. After
Speaker 1: revisions by his successors in the field. Of course, while
Speaker 1: copernicus is work advanced human kinds of knowledge of the cosmos,
Speaker 1: that still had some significant laws. For example, we know
Speaker 1: that our star, the Sun, is not the center of
Speaker 1: the universe, nor is it near the center of the universe.
Speaker 1: And while both Ptolemy and Copernicus developed celestial models that
Speaker 1: feature circular planetary orbits, they are now known to be elliptical,
Speaker 1: which means you don't need these weird circular orbits with
Speaker 1: smaller circular epicycles in them to explain how the planets move. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in many ways, what's really interesting is that Copernicus
Speaker 1: does remain a mystery, even though he's been written about
Speaker 1: and studied a lot. But most of what's been studied
Speaker 1: is his work. We mentioned earlier in the episode that
Speaker 1: there's no known date as to when he began working
Speaker 1: on his heliocentric theory, and that is because no existing
Speaker 1: notes or records of his astronomical work other than those
Speaker 1: actual manuscripts, has survived. So even writings of his student
Speaker 1: and friend Redicus detailing copernicus life have been lost. So
Speaker 1: most of our knowledge is the result of a lot
Speaker 1: of painstaking research on the part of historians who have
Speaker 1: assembled this puzzle of his life by studying the various
Speaker 1: elements of it and of his friends and his friends
Speaker 1: letters over time. So that's a big shout out to
Speaker 1: historians solving the mysteries of the past. That's Copernicus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a step in the right direction
Speaker 1: in terms of understanding how solar system works. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: not the final step obviously, No. I mean we could
Speaker 1: still discover new things. I'm excited all the time about
Speaker 1: new discoveries in uh in astronomy. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: any secret at this point to anyone who's listening to
Speaker 1: the show that I like astronomy a lot. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: don't have listener mail per se, although the things I'm
Speaker 1: talking about came to us in the mail. But since
Speaker 1: we're talking a lot about books today, I thought it
Speaker 1: would be cool to mention a couple of authors who
Speaker 1: have sent us their work that is really unique and interesting.
Speaker 1: One is first a book of fiction I have not
Speaker 1: read it yet by writer Brie Spangler called Beast, and
Speaker 1: she sent it to us because and she even highlighted
Speaker 1: the pages. Uh. One of her characters listens to stuff
Speaker 1: you missed in history class. I think, I think the
Speaker 1: most charming things. You sent us an email about it before,
Speaker 1: and someone who is a fan of those books also
Speaker 1: tipped us off to that fact at one point. I
Speaker 1: think it was like, I think it was a fan
Speaker 1: of that book and not that seems like it would
Speaker 1: be weird if there was some other book where someone
Speaker 1: also listens to our show. We definitely got an email
Speaker 1: that was from our reader that was like, Hey, I'm
Speaker 1: reading these books and this character in the books listens
Speaker 1: to your show. Yeah. It's so sweet and so charming,
Speaker 1: and what a great honor. Um. And it actually mentions
Speaker 1: the the Diatlo Past Incident podcast so episode that we did.
Speaker 1: So that was super lovely and Bree wrote us a
Speaker 1: lovely um note in the front of the book and
Speaker 1: it's gorgeous and I can't wait to read it. Um,
Speaker 1: So thank you so much. What again, what a tremendous honor.
Speaker 1: The other one is uh was sent to us by
Speaker 1: Ronald Wimberley, who is an artist and a writer, and
Speaker 1: it is a really really cool book that was published
Speaker 1: by Image Comics. But it's an actual bookbook, not the
Speaker 1: comics aren't book books. But you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like a different style. It's not a comic book,
Speaker 1: although it is illustrated, and it is black history and
Speaker 1: its own words, and it's his really really striking visual
Speaker 1: style alongside quotes prominent people throughout history talking about black history,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of in this these um these very
Speaker 1: short brief little intros with the quotes and the art
Speaker 1: and it's really really lovely. Um So, everyone from Audrey
Speaker 1: Lord to Lavern Coxes in here and it's absolutely gorgeous,
Speaker 1: and thank you, thank you, thank you, because what a
Speaker 1: gorgeous work. I hope he's tremendously proud of this. It's
Speaker 1: amazing as well as brief should be. I'm authors are
Speaker 1: always uh of great uh what's the word I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: I always greatly admire authors because that's that's a whole
Speaker 1: job that involves a lot of sitting down and being
Speaker 1: focused and really sort of a birthing process of thought,
Speaker 1: which I love. So thank you so much to both
Speaker 1: of them for sharing that work with us. We appreciate
Speaker 1: it always. If you would like to write to us,
Speaker 1: you can do so at History Podcast at house to
Speaker 1: works dot com. You can visit us across the spectrum
Speaker 1: of social media as missed in History, so that includes
Speaker 1: Twitter as missed in History, Facebook dot com, slash missed
Speaker 1: in History, missed in History, dot tumbler dot com. We're
Speaker 1: on Instagram as missed in History, and we're on pinterest
Speaker 1: as missed in History. If you would like to come
Speaker 1: and visit our parents site that's how stuff Works, you
Speaker 1: could go there Houston Works dot com. Type in the
Speaker 1: word astronomy in the search bar. You're gonna get so
Speaker 1: much stuff to look at. UH. You can also visit
Speaker 1: me and Tracy at missed in History dot com. Or
Speaker 1: we have back episodes of every show we have ever done,
Speaker 1: both us and previous hosts, as well as show notes
Speaker 1: for the episodes Tracy and I have worked on. We
Speaker 1: include those show notes now in the UH in the
Speaker 1: show page, so it's all in one handy place. So
Speaker 1: we encourage you come and visit us at misston history
Speaker 1: dot com and how stuff Works dot com for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com