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Dorothy Dickie, age 13, of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, for her question:

Who was Nicolaus Copernicus?

When Nicolaus Copernicus celebrated his 100th birthday, he published a book titled Concerning the Revolution of the CelestialSpheres. At the time, the theme of his book was very, very unpopular because it challenged the big headed old notion that the earth is the center of the Universe. But Copernicus died before anybody could punish him for his extreme ideas. This was in 1573.

This year we are commemorating the 500th anniversary of the death of a wise old gentleman who suggested that perhaps the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun. Copernicus is rated with Newton, Galileo and very few other super geniuses of human history. And he was the only one of this select group who lived one hundred years.

He was born in Torun, Poland, on February 19, 1473 and his name was originally Nicolaus Koppernisk. His early education was supervised by his uncle, who was a bishop. The young man studied medicine and lectured in several European universities and returned to the bishop's palace in Poland as a doctor.

However, throughout his life, his consuming interest was in astronomy. Above all, he doubted the time honored theory that the sun and all the heavenly bodies revolve around the earth    every 24 hours. The great thinkers of ancient Greece had considered the idea that possibly the earth rotates and revolved around the sun. A few had accepted this idea. But the Greeks thought in terms of perfect circles and the planetary orbits are ellipses. Their observations did not match the off center position of the sun.

The true picture of the Solar System was discarded. In the first century A.C., the famous astronomer Ptolomy of Alexander stated that the heavenly bodies revolve around the earth. And for the next 1400 years, everybody accepted this flattering theory. Our young Polish scholar wrote several papers that questioned the theory of the great Ptolomy.

In those days, it was customary for scholars to translate their names into Latin. This explains how Koppernigk, meaning Copperman, became Copernicus.

As the great man grew older, he went more deeply into his studies of the heavenly bodies and their motions. The age old charts of these motions were, of course, based on accurate measurements and observations. Copernicus did not dispute them. But he did question the conclusions that Ptolomy had drawn from these charts.

The same evidence, he suggested, could be interpreted differently. Suppose the earth rotates on its axis and revolves with the other planets around the sun    their motions in the sky would be what they appear to be. In other words, the evidence could just as likely mean that the sun, rather than the earth, is the center of the Solar System.

Copernicus grasped the difference between the real and apparent motion of heavenly bodies. Some 50 years later, the great Galileo used this idea, plus his own observations, to give the first true picture of the Solar System. This year, the United States issued a postal stamp to commemorate the century of Copernicus    1473 to 1573. Right now, a satellite named in his honor orbits the earth, gathering data from outer space from realms that even Copernicus never imagined.

 

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