"The two great turning points in the time of the Reformation, the Lutheran and Copernicus, seems to have brought humanity nothing but humiliation," wrote historian Heiko Obermann. "The first man is deprived of his power over himself, and then is pushed to the edge of creation."
In contrast to Luther, was Nicolas Copernicus, however, not to make bold, public gesture, but who spent his life in relative quiet, reluctant to publish his revolutionary views to his last days. And yet, seen Copernicus and Luther revolutionized the Europeans themselves, their world and their God.
World-class scholar
Copernicus was born in Torun , in eastern Poland University of Krakow , where he first became interested in astronomy ( "more beautiful and worth knowing," he said) and then moved to the University of Bologna Bologna
After a brief visit home to be installed as Canon (a permanent position with paid staff in a cathedral), he returned to Italy to complete his doctorate in law and order to study medicine at the University of Padua Poland
Astronomy as a hobby
As a fee, acted as a confidant and secretary to his uncle, bishop and doctor to the poor. Although laden with medical and administrative functions, took time to formulate his ideas about astronomy in a pamphlet which he called his little Review (1512). There was stomped popular place, as the medieval theologians had almost made a point of orthodoxy that the earth was the center of the solar system, evidence that humanity was focused on God. Copernicus knew that "as soon as some people know ... I ascribe certain movements in the world [ie, that the Earth moved around the sun], which can immediately see that me and my opinion booed stage ...". But he found his "duty to love to see the truth in all things, to the extent that God has given human reason."
In 1514 the Pope asked if he could help check the calendar. Copernicus said that the "extent of the years and months ... has not yet been measured with sufficient accuracy." But he took it as a personal challenge, and gave the apartment tower at an observatory at night. Their hours of daylight turned to his official duties, the sick, administration and management of the diocese through a war between the Teutonic Knights, and King of Poland
Finally, Copernicus spent his official duties to younger men and settled in semi-retirement in his private observatory. This could have been the end of a full life was not a young Lutheran mathematician and astronomer visited disciple of age. Copernicus, strengthened by the episode, finally agreed to publish the theories that had been under development throughout life. In his On the Revolutions of the heavenly spheres (1543), appealed to the pope to choose between him and "charlatans" who "captionhough totally ignorant of mathematics ... distort the meaning of a passage of Scripture to meet their objective ... attacks my work. "
His work was taken over by the less courageous. His publisher added an anonymous preface that the work is a mathematical construct to better explain the motions of the planets, not a description of how the solar system actually worked.
Copernicus's ideas (although anticipated by some ancient astronomers discovered in their studies) was too much for the modern, and even a revolutionary as Martin Luther could not believe that the sun not the earth, embedded in the solar system.
It was not until Galileo (1564-1642) that the ideas of Copernicus was seen for what they were a revolution in the way of perceiving humanity itself. For some, it meant that the center earth was a tiny speck, a distant God, others, but was surprised that the creator of an infinite universe lavish so much attention now on a planet that seemed to be on the periphery of all creatures .
No comments:
Post a Comment