Nicolaus Copernicus
Channel: Apprendre - Learn
Date: 2015-02-18

Nicolaus Copernicus (/koʊˈpɜrnɪkəs, kə-/;[2] Polish: About this sound Mikołaj Kopernik (help·info); German: Nikolaus Kopernikus; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at its center.[a] The publication of this model in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) just before his death in 1543 is considered a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making an important contribution to the Scientific Revolution.

Copernicus was born and died in Royal Prussia, a region that had been a part of the Kingdom of Poland since 1466. He was a polyglot and polymath, obtaining a doctorate in canon law and also practising as a physician, classics scholar, translator, governor, diplomat and economist. In 1517, he derived a quantity theory of money – a key concept in economics – and, in 1519, formulated a version of what later became known as Gresham's law.