545 years ago, the Polish astronomer, mathematician, mechanic, author of the heliocentric system of the world, which marked the beginning of the first scientific revolution, Nicolaus Copernicus was born. It would seem - some time immemorial, but only a few years ago it was possible to find one of the most interesting and mysterious books of the scientist.
Copernicus' book was stolen from an abbey in Brno in the early 1990s. Several years ago, a unique tome was discovered in one of the antique shops abroad in the Czech Republic. The clergy managed to buy out a valuable copy thanks to financial support from local patrons.
The cost of Copernicus' book is estimated at 1.8 million Czech crowns, or approximately 100 thousand dollars. The unique edition, according to foreign media, will be deposited in the Moravian Zemstvo Library. Shortly before his death, Copernicus saw the first sheet of his De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Rotations of the Celestial Spheres), first published in 1543, which had been published. The scientist managed to go to the grave in time to avoid persecution by the Holy Inquisition. For centuries, the book was kept in the depository of the monastery library.
“Not nine years, but four times nine years I kept my manuscript, until eminent scientists insisted that I leave fear and publish it,” Copernicus wrote about his “discovery”. After the publication of his book, the Augustinian monk Martin Luther bursts out with the following philippic: “The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy. But the Scriptures tell us that Joshua stopped the Sun, not the Earth. No comments.
Around the middle of the 16th century, the Catholic Church began to experience a real scientific hunger in order to correctly define Easter - Easter and other church Christian festivals. The Julian calendar, compiled during the reign of the Roman emperor Julius Caesar, came into conflict with reality. The difference between the actual vernal equinox and its expected day in that century was up to ten days. Under Pope Gregory XIII, in 1582, the old Julian calendar in Europe was replaced by a new style - the Gregorian.
Astronomers continued to use the ancient Greek Ptolemaic tables. The greatest difficulty in them was presented by the peculiar seeming movements of the planets, now moving forward, now retreating and hiding. At the same time, observers of the starry sky did not contradict either the spirit of Holy Scripture or their own observations. The earth is at the center of the universe, and the planets move around it.
In the middle of the XIII century, the king of Castile and Leon, as well as the Holy Roman Empire, Alphonse X, nicknamed El Sabio (Wise), shortly after the capture of Toledo from the Arabs, convened a scientific congress in this city, a large scientific commission, consisting of Arab, Jewish and Christian astrologers, to compile accurate tables of planetary motion. It is in vain to think that this politician at the dawn of modern times tried to put together his own likeness of Skolkovo. Not only did it cost him 400 thousand gold ducats, he had the misfortune to blur out the following: "If the Lord took me as an advisor, I would advise him to make peace easier." As the officers of the Soviet army said, keep it simple, and people will be drawn to you. However, the "simple" crown bearer miscalculated. The monarch accused of blasphemy was stripped of the throne.
The famous Alphonso tables (Tabulae Alphonsinae), created by the Jewish scholars Isaac Ben Sid and Yehuda ben Moses Cohen (1252-1270) under the patronage of Alfonso, first recorded the length of the tropical year, equal to 365 days 5 hours 49 minutes 16 seconds, which was later used for the Gregorian calendar reform.
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But Nicolaus Copernicus, who was born in Polish Torun, was not a crown bearer, so he could think the way he wanted, and not try to please the elder brother, or high society, or the inmate on the throne of St. Peter. Copernicus courageously took the point of view of the Greek astronomers of the 3rd century AD, who already then taught that the Earth revolves around the Sun, located in the center of the world.
Immediately, as if by a wave of a magic wand, all the incongruities in the movements of the planets turned into slender orbits outlined around the star.
At first, the Catholic Church reacted favorably to the teachings of the author of the heliocentric system of the world, to the canon Copernicus. The observations of this amateur astronomer were useful for correcting the calendar and Easter. However, already in the second half of the 16th century, the Holy See changed its attitude to innovation and banned heresy.
Copernicus' book was included in the Index of Prohibited Books with the note: "Forbidden until the error is corrected." For nearly two centuries after this discovery, "all books that claimed the earth moved" were banned because this position was considered "absurd, philosophically incorrect and obvious heresy."
Death of Copernicus.
After so many years of propaganda suggesting that supposedly ignorant obscurantists spread rot on progressive thought and ignorant saints hated progressive youth who wished well to oppressed humanity, it is hard to believe that things were completely different. Such a great thinker like Francis Bacon, to whom Marxist philosophy was quite loyal, rejected the movement of the Earth at the beginning of the 17th century. Not only "mossy" astrologers and clergymen, but also quite "advanced" pundits, were against the doctrine of the solar system in that era. And, to be honest, they had every reason for this.
The fact is that Copernicus, like his predecessors, believed that the planets move around the Sun uniformly, and in circular orbits. It turns out that he did not at all abolish the epicycles and deferents established by Ptolemy (this is a kind of model according to which the planet moves uniformly in a small circle called an epicycle, the center of which, in turn, moves in a large circle, which is called a deferent). But it was precisely because of this model that errors were obtained in the calculations of astronomers.
Not surprisingly, when scientists tried to use the Copernican model for calculations, it turned out that it also describes the motion of the planets very approximately. Therefore, although the Copernican tables were more accurate than the Ptolemy tables, their descriptions soon diverged significantly from the observations of the real movement of celestial bodies, which puzzled and chilled the enthusiastic supporters of the new system. Accurate heliocentric tables were published by Johannes Kepler in 1627, who discovered the true shape of the orbits of the planets (this, as we know, is not a circle, but an ellipse), and also recognized and mathematically expressed the unevenness of their motion.
In addition, Copernicus was unable to explain the mechanism that causes some celestial bodies to revolve around others. Here he also used the provisions formulated by Ptolemy. According to them, the planets themselves are motionless, the whole point is in the rotation of certain celestial spheres, to which the celestial bodies are simply attached. The true mechanism of planetary rotation could only be explained by the famous Isaac Newton in 1686 (summarizing the observations and theoretical calculations of Kepler and Galileo).
So, as you can see, not only the Church, but also contemporary scientists to Nicolaus Copernicus did not react very well to the model he proposed. Simply put, practice refuted the (as it turned out later, brilliant) guess of the priest from the former Prussia.
The stumbling block for the Church was not the teaching of Nicolaus Copernicus itself, including his predecessors, but the philosophical conclusions drawn from the astronomical theory of the Pole by his follower Giordano Bruno. The ardent Dominican from Naples taught philosophy in Paris and London, where he enjoyed the patronage of the free-thinking Queen Elizabeth.
History sometimes does such tricks that no Copperfield and Hakobyans with Kio can undertake. I remember that historians in ancient times agreed to forever give oblivion the name of the arsonist of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world - the temple of Artemis in Ephesus. As a result, now even a poor student will tell you the name of Herostratus, and an excellent student will not remember the name of the destroyed miracle. The worthless Chikatilo has become a byword, and the names of the true heroes who saved human souls have been forgotten.
Among such false heroes of history was Giordano Bruno. A mediocre scientist and worthless poet, a mediocre imitator of Petrarch's lyrics. He was made a hero artificially, thanks to martyrdom. Put any scarecrow on the fire - and they will celebrate it, saying goodbye to the damned winter and expecting the long-awaited spring. An inflated rubber doll will never replace a loving woman.
Bruno's philosophy is a mixture of poetic fantasy and an amazing outlook, influenced by the great astronomical discoveries of modern times. An admirer of Hermetic magic and Jewish Kabbalah, Renaissance mysticism and biblical experience, Bruno brought a pseudo-Dionysian element to Christianity. He strove to add to Jesus the ideals of the Italian humanists Ficino and Pico della Mirandolla. He opposed Pythagoras and Dionysius to Aristotle and theologians from scholasticism.
We don't need to praise Giordano Bruno, much less scold him. He was right, although he could be wrong. History once again laughed at human "wisdom", putting human nonsense above it.
IGOR BOKKER