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(1473 - 1543) 
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Copernicus is said to be the founder of modern astronomy. He was born in Poland,1 and eventually was sent off to Cracow University, there to study mathematics and optics. His interest in astronomy gradually grew. He made his celestial observations a turret situated on the protective wall around a cathedral. His observations were made with his eyes alone because it would be a hundred more years before the invention of the telescope. In 1530, Copernicus completed a great piece of writing in which he said that the Earth rotated on its axis once daily and traveled around the sun once yearly: a fantastic concept for the times. Up to the time of Copernicus the people of the world believed that the universe was a closed space surrounded by an envelope beyond which there was nothing. Copernicus died in 1543 and was never to know what a stir his work had caused. |