Copernicus' Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began
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Nicolaus Copernicus gave the world perhaps the most important scientific insight of the modern age, the theory that the earth and the other planets revolve around the sun. He was also the first to proclaim that the earth rotates on its axis once every twenty-four hours. His theory was truly radical: during his lifetime nearly everyone believed that a perfectly still earth rested in the middle of the cosmos, where all the heavenly bodies revolved around it. One of the transcendent geniuses of the early Renaissance, Copernicus was also a flawed and conflicted person. A cleric who lived during the tumultuous years of the early Reformation, he may have been sympathetic to the teachings of the Lutherans. Although he had taken a vow of celibacy, he kept at least one mistress. Supremely confident intellectually, he hesitated to disseminate his work among other scholars. It fact, he kept his astronomical work a secret, revealing it to only a few intimates, and the manuscript containing his revolutionary theory, which he refined for at least twenty years, remained "hidden among my things." It is unlikely that Copernicus' masterwork would ever have been published if not for a young mathematics professor named Georg Joachim Rheticus. He had heard of Copernicus' ideas, and with his imagination on fire he journeyed hundreds of miles to a land where, as a Lutheran, he was forbidden to travel. Rheticus' meeting with Copernicus in a small cathedral town in northern Poland proved to be one of the most important encounters in history. Copernicus' Secret recreates the life and world of the scientific genius whose work revolutionized astronomy and altered our understanding of our place in the world. It tells the surprising, little-known story behind the dawn of the scientific age. The New York Times - Owen Gingerich Jack Repcheck's new biography, Copernicus' Secret, at last brings the astronomer to life in a way that past efforts have not quite achieved. He paints the sites in a particularly vivid fashion…and he gives a clear account of the political and administrative structures of the cathedral chapter where Copernicus was a senior figure…no other biography of which I am aware treats the life of this scientific giant more vividly than this one.
Preface xiii1 Prelude to Future Troubles 12 The Precursors 113 Childhood 264 Student Years 395 Warmia 516 Before the Storm 687 The Death of the Bishop 818 The Mistress and the Frombork Wenches 899 The Taint of Heresy 10110 The Catalyst 10911 The Nuremberg Cabal 12212 The Meeting 13213 The First Summer 14014 Convincing Copernicus 14915 The Publication 15916 The Death of Copernicus 17017 Rheticus after Copernicus 17418 The Impact of On the Revolutions 181Notes and Select Sources 197Suggested Additional Readings 215Acknowledgments 217Index 219
