Nicholas Copernicus
Back to people overviewNicolaus Copernicus was a Polish astronomer and a central figure of the Scientific Revolution. He studied at Krakow University and concentrated on Aristotle and Claudius Ptolemy’s models of the planetary orbits.
Copernicus’ greatest achievement was his heliocentric model of the solar system, theorized without the aid of a telescope. Inspired by Regiomontanus’ 1496 edition of Ptolemy’s star atlas, the Almagest, by 1514, Copernicus had developed his heliocentric hypothesis. He proposed that the Sun was at the universe’s centre, orbited by the Earth once annually. Due to his fear of backlash, Copernicus’ book, ‘De revolutionibus orbium coelestium’ only began taking shape after 1530 and he only received a complete copy of the book on his deathbed.
