N Copernicus philosophy. Philosophical ideas of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton about the structure of the universe. Last years of life, death

Nicolaus Copernicus is an outstanding Polish astronomer of the Renaissance, mathematician, theologian, and physician. The scientist refuted the theory put forward by the ancient Greeks, according to which the planets and the Sun revolve around the Earth, created and substantiated a new, heliocentric theory of the world order.

Nicolaus Copernicus was the fourth child in the family of a German woman, Barbara Watzenrode, and Nicolaus Copernicus, a merchant from Krakow. Over time, the borders of states and names have changed repeatedly, so the question of where, in what country the scientist was born, often arises. This happened in the Prussian city of Thorn on February 19, 1473. Today the town is called Toruń and is located on the territory of modern Poland.

Nicholas had two older sisters, one later became a nun, and the other got married and left the city. The elder brother Andrzej became Nikolai's faithful comrade-in-arms and companion. Together they traveled half of Europe, studying at the best universities.

The Copernicians lived in prosperity and prosperity as long as the father of the family was alive. When Nicholas was nine years old, a plague epidemic broke out in Europe, claiming tens of thousands of lives. Copernicus the Elder also fell victim to a terrible disease, and a few years later, in 1489, his mother also died. The family was left without a livelihood, and the children were orphans. Everything could have ended badly if not for Barbara’s uncle, Lukasz Watzenrode, a canon of the local diocese.

Being an educated man at that time, Luke had a master's degree from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and a doctorate in canon law from the University of Bologna, and subsequently served as a bishop. Luka took upon himself the care of the children of his deceased sister and tried to educate Nikolai and Andrzej.

After Nicholas graduated from the local school in 1491, the brothers, under the patronage and at the expense of their uncle, went to Krakow, where they entered the Jagiellonian University at the Faculty of Arts. This event marked the beginning of a new stage in the biography of Copernicus, the first on the path to future great discoveries in science and philosophy.

The science

After graduating from the University of Krakow in 1496, the Copernicus brothers set off on a trip to Italy. Funds for the trip were initially planned to be obtained from his uncle, the Bishop of Emerland, but he did not have any free money. Luke invited his nephews to become canons of his own diocese and use the salary they received to go study abroad. In 1487, Andrzej and Nicholas were accepted into the position of canons in absentia, with a salary paid in advance and a three-year leave for study.

The brothers entered the University of Bologna at the Faculty of Law, where they studied church canon law. In Bologna, fate brought Nicholas together with an astronomy teacher, Domenico Maria Novara, and this meeting became decisive for the young Copernicus.

Together with Novara in 1497, the future scientist made the first astronomical observation in his life. The result was the conclusion that the distance to the Moon is the same in quadrature, during the new moon and the full moon. This observation first made Copernicus doubt the truth of the theory that all celestial bodies revolve around the Earth.

In addition to studying works on law, mathematics and astronomy in Bologna, Nikolai studied Greek and was interested in painting. A painting that is considered a copy of Copernicus’s self-portrait has survived to this day.

After studying in Bologna for three years, the brothers left the university and returned to their homeland in Poland for some time. In the city of Frauenburg, at the place of service, Copernicus asked for a deferment and a few more years to continue his studies. According to some reports, during this period Nicholas lived in Rome and gave lectures on mathematics to noble dignitaries from high society, and Borgia helped Pope Alexander VI master the laws of astronomy.

In 1502, the Copernicus brothers arrived in Padua. At the University of Padua, Nikolai acquired fundamental knowledge and practical experience in medicine, and at the University of Ferrara he received a doctorate in theology. As a result of this extensive study, Copernicus returned home in 1506 as a well-rounded adult.

"Copernicus. Conversation with God." Artist Jan Matejko

By the time they returned to Poland, Nikolai was already 33 years old, and his brother Andrzej was 42 years old. At that time, this age was considered generally accepted for obtaining university diplomas and completing education.

Copernicus' further activities were connected with his position as canon. The brilliant scientist managed to make a career as a clergyman while simultaneously engaging in scientific research. He was lucky that his works were completed only at the end of his life, and his books were published after his death.

Copernicus happily escaped the persecution of the church for his radical views and the teaching of the heliocentric system, which his successors and successors failed to do. After the death of Copernicus, the scientist’s main ideas, reflected in the work “On the Rotations of the Celestial Spheres,” spread unhindered throughout Europe and the world. It was not until 1616 that this theory was declared heresy and banned by the Catholic Church.

Heliocentric system

Nicolaus Copernicus was one of the first to think about the imperfection of the Ptolemaic system of the universe, according to which the Sun and other planets revolve around the Earth. Using primitive astronomical instruments, partly homemade, the scientist was able to derive and substantiate the theory of the heliocentric solar system.

At the same time, Copernicus, until the end of his life, believed that distant stars and luminaries visible from the Earth were fixed on a special sphere surrounding our planet. This misconception was caused by the imperfection of technical means of that time, because in Renaissance Europe there was not even a simple telescope. Some details of Copernicus's theory, in which the ancient Greek astronomers were of the opinion, were subsequently eliminated and refined by Johannes Kepler.

The main work of the scientist’s entire life was the fruit of thirty years of work and was published in 1543 with the participation of Copernicus’s favorite student, Rheticus. The astronomer himself had the good fortune of holding the published book in his hands on the eve of his death.

The work dedicated to Pope Paul III was divided into six parts. The first part talked about the sphericity of the Earth and the entire universe, the second told about the basics of spherical astronomy and the rules for calculating the location of stars and planets in the firmament. The third part of the book is devoted to the nature of the equinoxes, the fourth - to the Moon, the fifth - to all planets, the sixth - to the reasons for changes in latitudes.

The teachings of Copernicus are a great contribution to the development of astronomy and the science of the universe.

Personal life

From 1506 to 1512, during his uncle’s lifetime, Nicholas served as a canon in Frombork, then became an adviser to the bishop, and then the chancellor of the diocese. After the death of Bishop Luke, Nikolai moves to Fraenburg and becomes a canon of the local cathedral, and his brother, who fell ill with leprosy, leaves the country.

In 1516, Copernicus received the post of chancellor of the Warmia diocese and moved to the city of Olsztyn for four years. Here the scientist was caught in the war that Prussia waged with the knights of the Teutonic Order. The cleric showed himself to be a surprisingly competent military strategist, managing to ensure proper defense and protection of the fortress, which withstood the onslaught of the Teutons.

In 1521 Copernicus returned to Frombrok. He practiced medicine and was known as a skilled healer. According to some reports, Nicolaus Copernicus relieved illnesses and alleviated the lot of many sick people, mostly his fellow canons.

In 1528, in his declining years, the astronomer fell in love for the first time. The scientist’s chosen one turned out to be a young girl, Anna, the daughter of Copernicus’s friend, metal carver Matz Schilling. The acquaintance took place in the scientist’s hometown, Toruń. Since Catholic clergy were forbidden to marry or have relationships with women, Copernicus settled Anna with him as a distant relative and housekeeper.

However, soon the girl had to leave first from the scientist’s house, and then completely leave the city, since the new bishop made it clear to his subordinate that the church did not welcome this state of affairs.

Death

In 1542, Copernicus's book On the Sides and Angles of Triangles, Both Plane and Spherical, was published in Wittenberg. The main work was published in Nuremberg a year later. The scientist was dying when his students and friends brought the first printed copy of the book “On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres.” The great astronomer and mathematician died at home in Frombork, surrounded by loved ones on May 24, 1543.

Copernicus's posthumous fame corresponds to the merits and achievements of the scientist. Thanks to portraits and photographs, the astronomer’s face is known to every schoolchild, monuments stand in different cities and countries, and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland is named in his honor.

Copernicus's discoveries

creation and substantiation of the theory of the heliocentric system of the world, which marked the beginning of the first scientific revolution;
development of a new coinage system in Poland;
construction of a hydraulic machine that supplied water to all houses in the city;
co-author of the Copernican-Gresham economic law;
calculation of real planetary motion.

Nicolaus Copernicus(1473-1543) - Polish astronomer, creator of the heliocentric system of the world. He made a revolution in natural science, abandoning the doctrine of the central position of the Earth, accepted for many centuries. He explained the visible movements of the celestial bodies by the rotation of the Earth around its axis and the revolution of the planets (including the Earth) around the Sun. Copernicus outlined his teachings in his work “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” (1543), which was banned by the Catholic Church from 1616 to 1828.

Kolya Copernicus was born February 19 1473 in the Polish city of Torun in the family of a merchant who came from Germany. He was the fourth child in the family. He most likely received his primary education at a school located near his home at the Church of St. John the Great. Until the age of ten, Kolya grew up in an atmosphere of prosperity and contentment. Carefree childhood ended suddenly and quite early, barely ten years old, when Nicholas was ten years old, when the “pestilence” - a plague epidemic, a frequent guest and a formidable scourge of humanity at that time, visited Toruń, and one of its first victims was Nicolaus Copernicus the father. Lukas Wachenrode, his mother's brother, took care of his nephew's education and future fate.

In the second half of October 1491, Nicolaus Copernicus, together with his brother Andrzej, arrived in Krakow and enrolled in the Faculty of Arts at the local university. After its completion in 1496, Copernicus went on a long journey to Italy.

In the fall, Nikolai, together with his brother Andrzej, found himself in Bologna, which was then part of the Papal States and famous for its university. At that time, the law faculty with the departments of civil and canonical, ecclesiastical law was especially popular here, and Nikolai enrolled in this faculty.

It was in Bologna that Copernicus developed an interest in astronomy, which determined his scientific interests. In the evening 9th of March In 1497, together with the astronomer Domenico Maria Novara, Nicholas made his first scientific observation. After it, it became clear that the distance to the Moon when it is in quadrature is approximately the same as during a new or full moon. Inconsistency with the theory Claudius Ptolemy The facts discovered made me think...

In the first months of 1498, Nicolaus Copernicus was confirmed in absentia as a canon of the Frombork Chapter; a year later, Andrzej Copernicus also became a canon of the same chapter. However, the very fact of receiving these positions did not reduce the financial difficulties of the brothers; life in Bologna, which attracted many wealthy foreigners, was not cheap, and in October 1499 the Copernicians found themselves completely without a livelihood. They were rescued by Canon Bernard Skulteti, who came from Poland and later met them several times in their life.

Nikolai then returned to Poland for a short time, but just a year later he returned to Italy, where he studied medicine at the University of Padua and received a doctorate in theology from the University of Ferrara. Copernicus returned to his homeland at the end of 1503 as a comprehensively educated man. He settled first in the city of Lidzbark, and then took up the position of canon in Frombork, a fishing town at the mouth of the Vistula

The astronomical observations begun by Copernicus in Italy were continued, albeit on a limited scale, in Lidzbark. But he deployed them with particular intensity in Frombork, despite the inconvenience due to the high latitude of this place, which made it difficult to observe the planets, and due to frequent fogs from the Vistula Lagoon, significant cloudiness and cloudy skies over this northern area.

The invention of the telescope was still a long way off, and the best instruments for pre-telescopic astronomy did not yet exist. With the help of instruments of that time, the accuracy of astronomical observations was brought to one or two minutes. The most famous instrument used by Copernicus was the triquetrum, a parallactic instrument. The second device used by Copernicus to determine the angle of inclination of the ecliptic, “horoscopes”, sundials, a type of quadrant.

Despite the obvious difficulties, in the Small Commentary, written around 1516, Nicolaus Copernicus had already given a preliminary statement of his teaching, or rather, of his hypotheses at that time. He did not consider it necessary to present mathematical proofs in it, since they were intended for a more extensive work.

the 3rd of November In 1516, Nicolaus Copernicus was elected to the post of manager of the chapter's estates in the Olsztyn and Penenzna districts. In the autumn of 1519, Copernicus' powers in Olsztyn expired, and he returned to Frombork, but this time he was not really able to devote himself to astronomical observations to test his hypotheses. There was a war with the crusaders.

At the height of the war, at the beginning of November 1520, Nicholas Copernicus was again elected administrator of the chapter's estates in Olsztyn and Pienieżno. By that time, Copernicus was the eldest not only in Olsztyn, but in the whole of Warmia - the bishop and almost all members of the chapter, having left Warmia, sat out in safe places. Having taken command of the small garrison of Olsztyn, Copernicus took measures to strengthen the defense of the castle-fortress, taking care of installing guns, creating a supply of ammunition, provisions and water. Copernicus, unexpectedly showing determination and remarkable military talent, managed to defend Olsztyn from the enemy.

Personal courage and determination did not go unnoticed - soon after the truce was concluded in April 1521, Nicolaus Copernicus was appointed Commissioner of Warmia. In February 1523, before the election of a new bishop, Copernicus was elected administrator general of Warnia, the highest position he had to hold. In the autumn of the same year, after the selection of a bishop, he was appointed chancellor of the chapter. Only after 1530 did Copernicus's administrative activities narrow somewhat.

Nevertheless, it was in the twenties that a significant part of Copernicus’ astronomical results occurred. It was possible to make many observations. So, around 1523, observing the planets at the moment of opposition, i.e. when the planet is in the point of the celestial sphere opposite to the Sun, Nicolaus Copernicus made an important discovery; he refuted the opinion that the position of planetary orbits in space remains stationary. The line of apses - a straight line connecting the points of the orbit at which the planet is closest to the Sun and most distant from it, changes its position compared to what was observed 1300 years earlier and recorded in Ptolemy's Almagest.

But most importantly, by the beginning of the thirties, work on the creation of a new theory and its presentation in his work “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” was basically completed. By that time, the system of the world structure proposed by the ancient Greek scientist Claudius Ptolemy had existed for almost one and a half millennia. It consisted in the fact that the Earth rests motionless in the center of the Universe, and the Sun and other planets revolve around it. Ptolemy's theory did not explain many phenomena well known to astronomers, in particular the loop-like movement of planets across the visible sky. But its provisions were considered unshakable, since they were in good agreement with the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Long before Nicolaus Copernicus, the ancient Greek scientist Aristarchus of Samos argued that the Earth moves around the Sun. But he could not yet experimentally confirm his teaching.

Observing the movement of celestial bodies, N. Copernicus came to the conclusion that Ptolemy’s theory was incorrect. After thirty years of hard work, long observations and complex mathematical calculations, he convincingly proved that the Earth is only one of the planets and that all planets revolve around the Sun. True, Copernicus still believed that the stars are motionless and are located on the surface of a huge sphere, at a great distance from the Earth. This was due to the fact that at that time there were no such powerful telescopes with which one could observe the sky and stars.

Having discovered that the Earth and the planets are satellites of the Sun, Nicolaus Copernicus was able to explain the apparent movement of the Sun across the sky, the strange entanglement in the movement of some planets, as well as the apparent rotation of the sky. Copernicus believed that we perceive the movement of celestial bodies in the same way as the movement of various objects on Earth when we ourselves are in motion. When we are sailing in a boat on the surface of a river, it seems that the boat and we are motionless in it, and the banks are floating in the opposite direction. In the same way, to an observer on Earth, it seems that the Earth is motionless, and the Sun is moving around it. In fact, it is the Earth that moves around the Sun and makes a full revolution in its orbit during the year.

In the twenties, Nicolaus Copernicus gained fame as a skilled physician. He expanded the knowledge he acquired in Padua throughout his life, regularly becoming acquainted with the latest medical literature. The fame of an outstanding physician was well deserved - Copernicus managed to save many patients from severe and intractable diseases. ailments. And among his patients were all the contemporary bishops of Warmia, high-ranking officials of Royal and Ducal Prussia, Tiedemann Giese, Alexander Skulteti, and many canons of the Warmia Chapter. He often provided help to ordinary people. There is no doubt that Copernicus used the recommendations of his predecessors creatively, carefully monitoring the condition of the patients and trying to understand the mechanism of action of the drugs he prescribed.

After 1531, his activity in the affairs of the chapter and his social activities began to decline, although as early as 1541 he served as chairman of the chapter's construction fund. Long years of life took their toll. 60 years is an age that in the 16th century was considered quite advanced. But Copernicus' scientific activity did not stop. He did not stop practicing medicine, and his fame as a skilled physician grew steadily.

In mid-July 1528, while present as a representative of the Frombork Chapter at the sejmik in Toruń, Copernicus met the then famous medalist and metal carver Matz Schilling, who had recently moved to Toruń from Krakow. There is an assumption that Copernicus knew Schilling from Krakow, moreover, on his mother’s side he was distantly related to him. In Schilling's house, Copernicus met his daughter, the young and beautiful Anna, and soon, compiling one of his astronomical tables, in the title of the column allocated to the planet Venus, Copernicus in the sign of this planet outlines an outline of ivy leaves - the Schilling family stamp, which was placed on all coins and medals minted by Anna's father...

As a canon, Nicolaus Copernicus had to observe celibacy - a vow of celibacy. But over the years, Copernicus felt more and more lonely, more and more clearly felt the need for a close and devoted being, and then he met Anna...

Years passed. They seemed to have become accustomed to Anna's presence in Copernicus's house. However, a denunciation followed to the newly elected bishop. During his illness, Dantiscus calls Doctor Nicholas and in a conversation with him, as if by chance, remarks that it would not be appropriate for Copernicus to have such a young and such a distant relative with him - he should find someone less young and more closely related.

And Copernicus is forced to “take action.” Anna will soon move into her own home. And then she had to leave Frombork. This undoubtedly cast a shadow over the last years of Nicolaus Copernicus's life.

In May 1542, Copernicus’s book “On the sides and angles of triangles, both flat and spherical,” with detailed tables of sines and cosines, was published in Wittenberg. But the scientist did not live to see the time when the book “On the Rotations of the Celestial Spheres” spread throughout the world. He was dying when friends brought him the first copy of his book, printed in one of the Nuremberg printing houses. Copernicus died May 24 1543.

Church leaders did not immediately understand the blow to religion that Copernicus’ book dealt. For some time his work was freely distributed among scientists. Only when Copernicus had followers, his teaching was declared heresy, and the book was included in the “Index” of prohibited books. Only in 1835 did the Pope exclude the book of Copernicus from it and thereby, as it were, acknowledge the existence of his teaching in the eyes of the church. (Samin D.K. 100 great scientists. - M.: Veche, 2000)

More about Nicolaus Copernicus:

Nicolaus Copernicus is a famous astronomer who transformed this science and laid the foundation for the modern understanding of the world system. There was a lot of debate about whether Nicolaus Copernicus was a Pole or a German; now his nationality is beyond doubt, since a list of students at the University of Padua was found, in which Copernicus is recorded among the Poles who studied there.

Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Thorn, into a merchant family. Having lost his father as a 9-year-old child and remaining in the care of his maternal uncle, Canon Watzelrod, Kolya Copernicus entered the University of Krakow in 1491, where he studied mathematics, medicine and theology with equal diligence. After completing the course, Copernicus traveled through Germany and Italy, listened to lectures at different universities, and at one time even served as a professor in Rome; in 1503 he returned to Krakow and lived here for seven whole years, being a university professor and engaged in astronomical observations.

However, the noisy life of university corporations was not to Copernicus’s liking, and in 1510 he moved to Frauenburg, a small town on the banks of the Vistula, where he spent the rest of his life, being a canon of the Catholic Church and devoting his leisure time to astronomy and free treatment of the sick; Moreover, when it was necessary, Nicolaus Copernicus devoted his energy to practical work: according to his project, a new coinage system was introduced in Poland, and in the city of Frauenburg he built a hydraulic machine that supplied all houses with water.

In depth of consideration, Nicolaus Copernicus was undeniably the greatest astronomer of his time, but as a practitioner he was inferior even to the Arab astronomers; however, this is not his fault: he had the poorest means at his disposal and he made all the tools with his own hands. While thinking about the Ptolemaic system of the world, Copernicus was amazed at its complexity and artificiality, and, studying the works of ancient philosophers, especially Niketas of Syracuse, Philolaus and others, he came to the conclusion that not the Earth, but the Sun should be the fixed center of the universe.

Based on this position, Nicolaus Copernicus very simply explained all the apparent confusion of the movements of the planets, but, not yet knowing the true paths of the planets and accepting them as circular, he was still forced to partially retain the epicycles and trims of the ancients to explain various inequalities of motion. These epicycles and trims were finally discarded only Johannes Kepler.

The main and almost only work of Nicolaus Copernicus, the fruits of his more than 30 years of work in Frauenburg, is: “De revolutionibns orbium coelestium”. The work was published in Regensburg in 1043 and dedicated to the pope Paul III; it is divided into 6 parts and was printed under the supervision of Copernicus’s best and most beloved student, Rheticus; the author had the joy of seeing and holding this creation in his hands even on his deathbed.

The first part talks about the sphericity of the world and the Earth, and also sets out the rules for solving right-angled and spherical triangles; the second gives the foundations of spherical astronomy and the rules for calculating the apparent positions of stars and planets in the firmament. The third talks about precession or anticipation of the equinoxes, explaining it by the retrograde movement of the line of intersection of the equator with the ecliptic. In the fourth - about the Moon, in the fifth about planets in general, and in the sixth - about the reasons for changes in the latitudes of the planets.

A solitary life and the later publication of his work saved Nicolaus Copernicus from the persecution to which his followers were subjected; he died peacefully and was buried in Thorn in the Church of St. John. Only in the 19th century. Monuments were erected to him in Warsaw, Krakow, Thorn and Regensburg. The complete works of Copernicus were published by Baranovsky in Warsaw in 1854 in Latin and Polish.

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Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education

"Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University

Elabuga Institute of Kazan Federal University

Essay

Subject: " Philosophical views of Copernicus"

Completed by: Shaigardanova I.I.

Checked by: Gromov E.V.

Elabuga, 2015

Introduction

The "greatest progressive revolution" was the Renaissance. This era was marked by great discoveries and the development of art and science. During this turning point, a person opens new horizons, tries to understand the whole world and himself in it. During the Renaissance, nature was not ignored. The leading direction of philosophical thought of the 16th century. becomes natural philosophy. The desire for in-depth and reliable knowledge of nature was reflected in the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei. Their theoretical developments and experimental studies contributed not only to changing the world, but also ideas about science, about the relationship between theory and practice. My work examines the philosophical views of the Renaissance - Nicolaus Copernicus. He was one of the outstanding figures of philosophy during the Renaissance, who was the first to open the doors to the vast expanses of the Universe and establish the place of man in it. The relevance of this work lies in the analysis of the relationship between the philosopher and society, the penetration of new ideas, which is a problem at the present time.

The purpose of this essay was to analyze the philosophical ideas of Nicolaus Copernicus and identify their features.

Objectives of this work:

* study the philosophical views of N. Copernicus as a representative of natural philosophy of the Renaissance.

* characterize his cosmological views, identify their innovation.

Life of Nicolaus Copernicus

Nikolai Nikolaevich Copernicus (1473-1543) - Polish astronomer, creator of the heliocentric system of the world. He made a revolution in natural science, abandoning the doctrine of the central position of the Earth, accepted for many centuries. He explained the visible movements of the celestial bodies by the rotation of the Earth around its axis and the revolution of the planets (including the Earth) around the Sun. Copernicus outlined his teachings in his work “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” (1543), which was banned by the Catholic Church from 1616 to 1828.

Nicolaus Copernicus was born on February 19, 1473 in the Polish city of Toruń into the family of a merchant who came from Germany. He was the fourth child in the family. He most likely received his primary education at a school located near his home at the Church of St. John the Great.

Copernicus entered the University of Krakow in 1491, where he studied mathematics, medicine and theology with equal diligence, but he was especially attracted to astronomy. To continue his education, Copernicus went to Italy (1497) and entered the University of Bologna. In addition to theology, law and ancient languages, he had the opportunity to study astronomy there. However, in 1500 he left his studies and went to Rome, his homeland, Padua. It was possible to obtain the degree of Doctor of Canon Law in the biography of Nicolaus Copernicus only in 1503. In 1506, Copernicus received news, perhaps far-fetched, of his uncle's illness. He left Italy and returned to his homeland. He settled first in the city of Lidzbark, and then took the position of canon in Frombork, a fishing town at the mouth of the Vistula. He spent the next 6 years at the episcopal castle of Heilsberg, engaged in astronomical observations and teaching in Krakow. At the same time, he is a doctor, secretary and confidant of Uncle Lukash.

In 1512, the uncle bishop died. Copernicus moved to Frombork, a small town on the shores of the Vistula Lagoon, where he had been listed as a canon all this time, and began his spiritual duties. However, he did not give up scientific research. The northwestern tower of the fortress became an observatory.

Already in the 1500s, the idea of a new astronomical system was quite clear to him. He began to write a book describing a new model of the world. During these years (ca. 1503-1512), Copernicus distributed a handwritten summary of his theory to friends ("Small Commentary on the Hypotheses Relating to the Celestial Motions"), and his student Rheticus published a clear exposition of the heliocentric system in 1539. Apparently, rumors of the new theory were already widespread in the 1520s. Work on the main work - “On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres” - lasted almost 40 years, Copernicus constantly introduced clarifications into it, prepared new astronomical calculation tables.

Rumors about a new outstanding astronomer were spreading in Europe. There is a version, not supported by documents, that Pope Leo X invited Copernicus to take part in the preparation of the calendar reform (1514, implemented only in 1582), but he politely refused.

When necessary, Copernicus devoted his energy to practical work: according to his project, a new coin system was introduced in Poland, and in the city of Frombork he built a hydraulic machine that supplied water to all houses. Personally, as a doctor, he was involved in the fight against the plague epidemic of 1519. During the Polish-Teutonic War (1519-1521), he organized the successful defense of the bishopric from the Teutons.

In 1531, 58-year-old Copernicus retired and concentrated on finishing his book. At the same time, he practiced medicine (free of charge). The faithful Rheticus constantly worked for the speedy publication of Copernicus's work, but progress was slow. Fearing that the obstacles would prove insurmountable, Copernicus distributed among his friends a short summary of his work entitled “Small Commentary” (Commentariolus). In 1542, the scientist’s condition deteriorated significantly, and paralysis of the right half of the body occurred. Copernicus died on May 24, 1543 at the age of 70 from a stroke.

Philosophical views of Nicolaus Copernicus as a representative ofnatural philosophy of the Renaissance

Astronomy has been the most important applied and at the same time worldview natural science discipline almost from the very beginning of its emergence. During the Renaissance, the powerful impulses of astronomy, which contributed to the development of science and practice, came from the field of navigation, which acquired a worldwide scale and required increasingly precise orientation. The contradiction between the fundamental ideological, Aristotelian basis of the fundamental astronomical system and its applied significance given to it by Ptolemy developed more and more noticeably. The complex of astronomical knowledge received its most general expression in the geocentric system of Aristotle - Ptolemy, which had dominated since ancient times. The idea of geocentrism, emanating from Aristotle, was an organic expression of his teleological philosophical system, which required a finite cosmos, beyond which there was a divine prime mover. Aristotelian cosmology, being a necessary component of his physics, included ideas about the fundamental difference between sublunar, earthly matter, composed of four traditional elements - water, earth, air and fire, subject to continuous changes, and the unchanging celestial substance - ether; about the ideally circular and uniform movements of the Sun and planets around the Earth along special ethereal spheres; about the so-called intelligentsia - especially subtle intelligent spirits, who were seen as the main source of planetary movement, in the absence of a real understanding of the physical reasons for their movement in space.

Throughout the entire bright life of Nicolaus Copernicus, from his student years in Krakow to his last days, there is a main thread - the great work of establishing a new system of the world. Called to replace the fundamentally incorrect geocentric system of Ptolemy. The twenties accounted for a significant part of the astronomical results of N. Copernicus. It was possible to make many observations. So, around 1523, observing the planets at the moment of opposition, i.e. when the planet is in the point of the celestial sphere opposite to the Sun, Nicolaus Copernicus made an important discovery; he refuted the opinion that the position of planetary orbits in space remains stationary. The line of apses - a straight line connecting the points of the orbit at which the planet is closest to the Sun and most distant from it, changes its position compared to what was observed 1300 years earlier and recorded in Ptolemy's Almagest. Reflecting on the Ptolemaic system of the world, Copernicus was amazed at its complexity and artificiality and, studying the works of ancient philosophers, especially Niketas of Syracuse and Philolaus, he came to the conclusion that not the Earth, but the Sun should be the fixed center of the Universe. Based on this assumption, Copernicus very simply explained all the apparent intricacy of the movements of the planets, but, not yet knowing the true paths of the planets and considering them to be circles, he was forced to preserve the epicycles and deferents of the ancients to explain the unevenness of the movements.

Creating his heliocentric system, Copernicus relied on the mathematical and kinematic apparatus of Ptolemy’s theory, on the specific geometric and numerical patterns obtained by the latter. The heliocentric system in the Copernican version can be formulated in seven statements:

There is no single center for all celestial orbits or spheres.

The center of the Earth is not the center of the world, but only the center of gravity and the lunar orbit.

All spheres move around the Sun as around their center, as a result of which the Sun is the center of the whole world.

The ratio of the distance from the Earth to the Sun to the height of the firmament (that is, to the distance to the sphere of fixed stars) is less than the ratio of the radius of the Earth to the distance from it to the Sun, and the distance from the Earth to the Sun is negligible compared to the height of the firmament.

Any movement noticed in the firmament is not associated with any movement of the firmament itself, but with the movement of the Earth. The earth, together with the elements surrounding it (air and water), makes a complete revolution around its constant poles during the day, while the firmament and the sky located on it remain motionless.

What seems to us to be the movement of the Sun is actually connected with the movements of the Earth and our sphere, with which we revolve around the Sun, like any other planet. Thus, the Earth has more than one movement.

The apparent forward and backward movements of the planets are not caused by their movements, but by the movement of the Earth. Consequently, the motion of the Earth itself alone is sufficient to explain many apparent irregularities in the sky.

These seven theses clearly outline the contours of the future heliocentric system, the essence of which is that the Earth simultaneously moves around its axis and around the Sun. Thus, in Ptolemy’s model, all planets obeyed a general (albeit incomprehensible within the framework of geocentrism) law: the radius vector of any planet in the epicycle always coincided with the radius vector of the Earth - the Sun, and the movement along the epicycle for the upper planets (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) and according to the deferent for the lower ones (Mercury, Venus) occurred with a single annual period for all planets. In the Copernican model, this law received a simple and logical explanation. These statements were completely contrary to the prevailing geocentric system at that time. Although, from a modern point of view, the Copernican model is not radical enough. All orbits in it are circular, the movement along them is uniform, so the epicycles were preserved (although there were fewer of them than in Ptolemy). The mechanism that ensured the movement of the planets was also left the same - the rotation of the spheres to which the planets were attached. Copernicus placed the sphere of fixed stars on the border of the world. Strictly speaking, Copernicus’s model was not even heliocentric, since he did not place the Sun at the center of the planetary spheres.

The immortal work of Nicolaus Copernicus" On the rotations of the celestial spheres"

... I often wondered if it was possible to find some more dietline combination of circles thatit would be possible explain all visible irregularities, and in such a way that every movement in itself was uniform, like this requires the principle of perfect motion. Copernicus philosophical heliocentric

Nicolaus Copernicus" Small comment"

By the beginning of the thirties, work on the creation of a new theory and its presentation in his work “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” (Latin: De revolutionibus orbium coelestium) was basically completed. The work was published in Nuremberg in 1543; it was printed under the supervision of Copernicus's best student, Rheticus. In the preface to the book, Copernicus writes: “By that time, the system of the world structure proposed by the ancient Greek scientist Claudius Ptolemy had existed for almost one and a half millennia. It consisted in the fact that the Earth rests motionless in the center of the Universe, and the Sun and other planets revolve around it.”

The first book (part) talks about the spherical shape of the world and the Earth, and instead of the position about the immobility of the Earth, another axiom is placed: the Earth and other planets rotate around an axis and revolve around the Sun. This concept is argued in detail, and the “opinion of the ancients” is convincingly refuted. From a heliocentric position, he easily explains the reciprocal motion of the planets.

Copernicus gave the Earth three rotations: the first - the rotation of the Earth around its axis with an angular velocity u; the second (at a speed of ?) - around the axis of the world, which is perpendicular to the plane of the earth’s orbit and passes through its center; the third (with the oppositely directed speed š??) - around an axis parallel to the axis of the world and passing through the center of the Earth. The last two rotations form (with exact coincidence of š? and š?? in magnitude) a pair of rotations equivalent to the translational motion of the Earth around the Sun in a circular orbit.

Memorial plaque at the printing house of Johann Petraeus in Nuremberg, where the first edition of Copernicus's book "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" was published

The second part of Copernicus's work provides information on spherical trigonometry and rules for calculating the apparent positions of stars, planets and the Sun in the firmament.

The third talks about the annual movement of the Earth and the so-called precession of the equinoxes, which shortens the tropical year (from equinox to equinox) compared to the sidereal year (return to the same position relative to the fixed stars) and leads to a movement of the line of intersection of the equator with the ecliptic, which changes the ecliptic longitude of the star by one degree per century. Ptolemy’s theory, in principle, could not explain this precession. Copernicus gave this phenomenon an elegant kinematic explanation (proving himself to be a very sophisticated mechanic): he suggested that the angular velocity not exactly equal to u?, but slightly different from it; the difference between these angular velocities is manifested in the precession of the equinoxes.

The fourth part talked about the Moon, the fifth about planets in general, and the sixth about the reasons for changes in the latitudes of the planets. The book also contained a star catalog, an estimate of the sizes of the Sun and Moon, distances to them and to the planets (close to true), and the theory of eclipses. It should be specially noted that the Copernican system (unlike the Ptolemaic system) made it possible to determine the ratios of the radii of planetary orbits. This fact, as well as the fact that in the description of the motion of the planets the first and most important epicycle was thrown out, made the Copernican system simpler and more convenient than the Ptolemaic one.

Let us dwell on one of Mikhailov’s remarks, made in a report at the same anniversary where Fok also spoke. Mikhailov writes: “Since the loops in the movements of the planets turned out to be a reflection of the circular motion of the Earth along its orbit, the size of these loops indicated the distance of the planets: the farther the planet, the smaller the loop it described. Based on this, Copernicus, with the help of impeccable geometric reasoning, was able to determine the distances of the planets for the first time from the Sun, expressed in units of its distance from the Earth<...>Copernicus gave a correct and accurate plan of the Solar system, drawn up on a single scale (my italics; the unit was orbis magnus - the radius of the earth's orbit. - S.T.), and the task of subsequent generations was to express all distances in earthly units (stadia, kilometers or other )".

Conclusion

In Renaissance philosophy, the main goal is objective knowledge of the world. The development of natural science made significant progress in the 16th century. Knowledge and reason come out of exile, where they were imprisoned by the medieval attitude to the primacy of faith over feelings, and feelings over reason. The world, the universe are infinite. In natural philosophy, the central place in the range of problems considered is given to the problem of the infinite. The infinity of the world is cognized by reason. During the Renaissance, N. Copernicus, creating a heliocentric system of the world, in fact shows the creative possibilities of the mind, which allows, through the identification and study of contradictions in the sphere of phenomena, to penetrate into the essence of things, which can be completely opposite to the phenomenon. So, Copernicus created the heliocentric system of the world. Its main ideas are as follows: The Earth is not the stationary center of the world, but rotates around its axis and at the same time around the Sun, which is in the center of the world. This discovery was revolutionary. It refuted the picture of the world that existed for more than a thousand years, which was based on the geocentric system of Aristotle and Ptolemy. But it took at least a century before Copernicus's heliocentric system was widely accepted. Only Kepler mastered the complete Copernican system. Copernicus, in the first book of his work “On the Rotations of the Celestial Spheres,” gave only an initial sketch of a picture of the solar system, in which each planetary sphere is depicted as a circle in the center of which was the Sun. This picture was wrong. It was created by Aristarchus of Samosok. However, this picture was corrected by Johannes Kepler; he replaced circles with ellipses, and instead of motion along a circle with a constant speed, he introduced motion with a constant sectorial speed. These two Kepler laws provided the basis on which modern celestial mechanics is built.

List of used literature

1. Antipova O.L. "Development of natural science in the Renaissance" [Electronic resource] - Access mode. - http://bibliofond.ru/view.aspx?id=134522 (access date: 01/02/2015).

2. K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, ed. II, vol. 21. - 785 p.

3. Copernicus, Nicholas (biography) [Electronic resource] - Access mode. --URL: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernicus,_Nicholas (access date: 01/03/2015).

4. Levin A. The Man Who Moved the Earth // Popular Mechanics.-- 2009.-- No. 6.

5. Mikhailov A.A. Nicolaus Copernicus, his life and work // Nicolaus Copernicus. pp. 18, 20.

6. N. Copernicus. On the rotations of the celestial spheres, 1964, p. 553.

7. Nicolaus Copernicus - biography. [Electronic resource] - Access mode. --URL: http://to-name.ru/biography/nikolaj-kopernik.htm (access date: 01/02/2015).

8. Development of natural sciences. N. Copernicus, G. Bruno, G. Galileo. [Electronic resource] - Access mode. --URL:http://lib.kstu.kz:8300/tb/books/Filosofiya/t5gl2.htm (access date: 01/02/2015).

9. Engelhardt M.A. Nicolaus Copernicus. Chapter 4.

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Social activity

Nicolaus Copernicus took an active part in governing the region in which he lived. He was in charge of economic and financial affairs and fought for its independence. Among his contemporaries, Copernicus was known as a statesman, a talented doctor and an expert in astronomy.

When the Lutheran Council organized a commission to reform the calendar, Copernicus was invited to Rome. The scientist proved the prematureness of such a reform, since at that time the length of the year was not yet known exactly.

Astronomical observations and heliocentric theory

The creation of the heliocentric system was the result of many years of work by Nicolaus Copernicus. For about one and a half millennia, there was a system of world structure proposed by the ancient Greek scientist Claudius Ptolemy. It was believed that the Earth was at the center of the Universe, and the other planets and the Sun revolved around it. This theory could not explain many of the phenomena that astronomers observed, but it agreed well with the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Copernicus observed the movement of celestial bodies and came to the conclusion that the Ptolemaic theory was incorrect. In order to prove that all the planets revolve around the Sun, and the Earth is only one of them, Copernicus carried out complex mathematical calculations and spent more than 30 years of hard work. Although the scientist mistakenly believed that all the stars were stationary and located on the surface of a huge sphere, he was able to explain the apparent movement of the Sun and the rotation of the firmament.

The results of the observations were summarized in the work of Nicolaus Copernicus “On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres,” published in 1543. In it he developed new philosophical ideas and focused on improving the mathematical theory that described the movement of celestial bodies. The revolutionary nature of the scientist’s views was recognized by the Catholic Church later, when in 1616 his work was included in the “Index of Prohibited Books.”