Overview and Comments on "Oxford Portrait of Science: Copernicus" - A biography recommended to learn more about the life of Copernicus, the proponent of the geocentric theory!
This issue features "Oxford Portrait of Science: Copernicus," written by Owen Gingarich and James McMullan and translated by Dai Hayashi, published by Otsuki Shoten in 2008.
Let's take a quick look at the book.
While busy as a priest in a corner of Poland, he spent his few spare hours researching astronomy, and on his deathbed he saw his completed book. In his deathbed, he saw the book he had completed: "At the center of everything is the sun" - a critical biography of Copernicus, who turned the earth into a planet revolving around the sun and upset the worldview that had dominated Western thinking for 1,500 years.
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Copernicus is famous as the man who proposed the "Geocentric Theory. He was a great man who overturned the common sense of the world, so much so that the term "Copernican turn" has been coined to describe him.
But although I knew the name and the geocentric theory of this man, I knew very little about who he was and what his life was like.
As such, I was very grateful for this biography in the "Oxford Portraits of Science" series.
This biography is quite compact, with only about 150 pages. So you can easily start reading it without much preparation.
And one of the characteristics of this biography is that it also emphasizes the historical background in which the great man lived.
I very much appreciated the compact biography but also the historical background shown.
Copernicus was an astronomer from Poland. I had never really imagined that Copernicus was from Poland in the first place, but this biography links Poland and Copernicus to a great extent.
It was a big surprise to me, especially that he had studied at Krakow University.
Krakowwas the city I also visited in 2019 to go to Auschwitz.
At the time, Copernicus was almost a no-brainer, and most of all, I was concentrating on Auschwitz, so I honestly did not get around to Krakow's history.
Krakow was a very beautiful and cozy city. Just wandering around the beautiful medieval city of Krakow was a wonderful experience, but I now think I would have enjoyed it more if I had known about Copernicus.
And what was surprising about the book was the astonishing fact that Copernicus' On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres, in which he expounded his theory of geocentric motion, was finally bound on the day of his death, and he breathed his last shortly after seeing it.
Although Copernicus' geocentric theory was already known to the public as early as 1533, it had not been published for some time.
I had assumed that Copernicus was severely suppressed by the church for his geocentric theory, but that was not the case.
I was quite surprised that there was no significant opposition from the church, especially after 1533. I was also shocked that the binding was completed on the day of his death.
I had a strong image of Copernicus as a suppressed astronomer, but it seems that he did not suffer that much damage during his lifetime. I learned for the first time in this book that "On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres," which was published at the time of his death, had a tremendous impact on him later.
As someone who only knew the name and the image of the term "Copernican turn", this biography was very interesting for me to learn about this great man in a compact way.
This is a biography that I would highly, highly recommend. I highly recommend you to pick it up.
This is "Oxford Portrait of Science: Copernicus," a recommended biography to learn about the life of Copernicus, the proponent of the geocentric theory! The above is "Oxford Portrait of Science: Copernicus".
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