Talk:Nicolaus Copernicus/Archive 1

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Contents

(What some consider Copernicus important for)

Of course, this was very far from what officially accepted in dominant culture. And even farther from the actually ruling religious influence on science was the following conclusion that an infinitive reality rendered de facto impossible the hypothesis of an external "engine", an entity that from outside could give a soul, a power and a life to the World and to Human beings. No transcendence, the most evident inspiring theme of philosophy at that time, could find an explanation in such a cosmic system, none of the most basic dogmas of Christianism (but of other religions too, the same way) could be compatible with such a revolutionary theory; besides, this opened a way to immanence and immanentism, which remained and developed in modern philosophy.

Given that immanentism is the logical foundation of subjectivism, that finds inside the Man the principles that rule thought, history and reality, some find that Copernicanism demolished the foundations of medieval science and metaphysics, therefore giving a start to a general movement that would have brought modern thought to rebel against the objectivism and the authoritarism of traditional thought.

Correctly, his innovation has been quite unanimously defined as a real revolution (despite the unwanted calembour).

Immanuel Kant, for instance, caught the symbolic character of Copernicus' revolution (of which he put in evidence the trascendental rationalism) underlining that, in his vision, human rationality was the real legislator of the phenomenical reality; Copernicanism was in a winning opposition against the scientific and philosophical Aristotelism, a quite subjective position (in a Kantist sense) meant to fight against the ruling dogmatism.

More recent philosophers too have found in Copernicus a still valid and valuable philosophical meaning, properly used to describe the position of the modern man in front of cultural traditions. A so-called Homo Copernicanus was then by some described like that modern man whose central themes are to be found in ordinary human problems, as a general cultural reference.

Gianfranco

(Information about Aristarchus removed)

I removed the following about Aristarchus:

His theory was mainly focused on the principle that, being the Sun so much greater than the Earth, thus much heavier, it would have been very unlikely that it could revolve around our Globe.
But, in practice, Aristarchus' theory had little mechanical and geometric development, and it was mostly based on an intuition (some said it was a sort of pre-newtonian intuition, rather than a pre-copernican one, having in nuce guessed that it is the proportion among masses that rules the planets' movements); so it could not sustain a comparison with the dominant geocentric theory, at the time already better developed and provided with more scientific arguments.

None of these statements is based on fact, they are speculations -- we don't have Aristarchus' main work about heliocentrism, and we can only speculate that his conclusions about the mass of the sun may have led him to put it at the center, but such speculations are weak at best -- for all we know, Aristarchus' may have developed the entire Copernican theory. See Aristarchus for what we know and what we don't know.

Oh, and whether Aristarchus ever was in Alexandria is disputed, so I removed that, too. --Eloquence

The text of de rev is great--the graphics don't come out on my screen.. could someone add something about the order of the planets and the concentric spheres of copernicus?

I can't read the graphic this morning ;-) -Smkatz 15:02, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Link

When this get unprotected, could someone put in this link? thanks ... JDR


Once upon a time, many people who approached this article from a pretty neutral POV decided to work together on this article. We had edit wars with POV people on both the German and Polish sides of the question, and eventually came up with a version, written mostly by Gianfranco that was acceptable to most. No one was completely happy, but we could agree that the article was both neutral and accurate.

I notice that once again nationalist politics have entered the fray. The article is now written in considerably less correct and readable English, and has lost much of its overall quality. I hope you all are happy in destroying a superior example of wiki cooperation and replacing it with something much weaker, just to make your own petty points. It is both a shame and shameful. JHK

Actual stuff about Copernicus?

Now that the nationalist wars seem to have gone dormant for the moment, we might be able to work a little on the article's treatment of Copernicus and his work. Yeah, radical idea. Does anybody feel up to tackling the long philosophical Discussion with all its transcendence and the like? One feels that more things, and different ones, could be said. Meanwhile, not being a philosopher, I hope to get in some more material about the historical fate of his system. Dandrake 03:11, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

I have had to remove this interesting bit from the text concerning the Osiander preface:

(Doubts have been advanced regarding this volunteer addition in order to let the theory have a wider circulation before a foreseeable reaction - see text here [1]).

because the link appears to be dead. Dandrake 04:06, May 6, 2004 (UTC)

Ptolemaic theory needed

Having nothing to do with nationality... The "equant" link under Copernican Theory points to an unrelated corporate stub. Article and disambig needed here. Does anyone remember exactly what an equant is anyway? I think it's an off-center circular orbit but I'm not sure. Stay tuned. Mashford 18:40, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Question about appropriate external links

Hello, I recently made my first contribution to Wikipedia, by adding links to two digitized facsimiles of De revolutionibus here. I did this after noticing that links to translated text from the work and a scan of the title page were included in the list of the links. I knew these digitized full versions existed, so I added them. However, one of them was produced by my institution (hence my awareness) and I am now concerned whether this link would be appropriate or seen as promotional in nature. I added similar links to the De revolutionibus and Brahe articles. Could someone inform me of the proper etiquette? I have looked at the policy and etiquette pages, which only made me further conflicted and unsure about the matter. I feel these links would make helpful additions to these articles, but do not want to break any policies or accepted practices. Thanks much for the help.

Hi, welcome.. I think that this is not a problem. Chiefly, this material is practically the definition of public domain by longevity; and the sources appear to present them for general use. I agree that these are useful additions, and not an etiquette issue. (ipso facto, it is not considered promotional to properly cite sources.) Because I'm partial to Copernicus, I might consider including the image in the page anyway. Mashford 06:06, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Copernicus and Copernicanism

Is anyone interested in a revision of this section? It's all about philosophical and religious implications, and it sounds, shall we say, idiosyncratic, and it seems to be unsupported by citations. Much of it seems just downright dubious.

If someone has an interest in the section, it would be nice to edit it so that one can tell what it's about and how it relates to what anyone other than the author thinks. If no one has, the best treatment for it might be excision. --Dandrake 04:53, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Help needed on Scientific Mythology article

We have a section in the Scientific Mythology article that reads as below,

Copernicus, his theory, and his reasons for withholding publication. According to Arthur Koestler, Copernicus did not propose a true heliocentric theory; he added a system of cycles and subcycles that made his system even more complicated than the Ptolemaic system, and he withheld publication out of fears of being ridiculed by other scholars, not out of fears of persecution. (However simply looking at pages from the original manuscript would seem to eliminate the first part of this claim. [1] (http://www.bj.uj.edu.pl/bjmanus/revol/qprev_e.html) Likewise, "more complicated" refers to the greater number of epicycles, with whcich Copernicus replaced equant circles, achieving what was considered a simplification.).

I wonder to what extent did Copernicus use epicycles; were there more or fewer epicycles than in the Ptolemaic system? As I understand, epicycles and other corrective mechanisms were added to the Ptolemaic system over time, so I would expect it to be more complex, if only because it is older, here (in the extract) we say the opposite.

There is also some confusion about the reasons for Copernicus withholding publication. Quite honestly, the link we are asked to follow didn't help me decide. Perhaps someone could here could clarify.

Finally a question of my own: was the Copernican system more or less accurate than the Ptolemaic? My understanding is that there was no great difference. --Chris 08:58, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, as the person who most recently hacked that paragraph, I should have my comments taken with skepticism; but here goes. The Ptolmemaic system was excellent in its time, but during 1200 years of additional observation, it was seen as having accuraccy problems. Various people fiddled with it, mainly in the Islamic world. I believe that Copernicus' model was more accurate, but not in any way that couldn't be fudged back into the geocentric one.
Copernicus totally eliminated the big famous epicycles that accounted for the planet's reversing direction in the strange and irregular motion that Kepler scornfully called a pretzel. To us this seems a legitimately big deal, as it did to a number of people between then and 1610 when the telescope came along to expand the debate.
But there were other epicycles to make finer adjustments, and Copernicus still needed those. And there is a famous claim that you will find all over the Internet (due, I think, to Owen Gingerich, but attributions are rare) that Copernicus had even more epicycles than Ptolemy, so what's the big deal about simplification? The fact is, so far as I've found, that Copernicus also eliminated another thing that's much more obscure, the equant circles that made the planets not move in uniform circular motion, no matter what the philosophers said. These were to account for the apparent changes in speed of the various bodies' motion. Note that the planets, including Earth, do change speed; it took Kepler to figure out the rule. Anyway, Copernicus got rid of equants and used epicycles instead, in much the same way that an Arab astronomer had already done in a geocentric system. The result was a higher epicycle count. But the motion on those epicycles was uniform, whcih counted for a lot in those days.
I should be making a lot these comments in the mythology article's discussion. Sorry. But this puts up my claims where the dedicated Copernicus boffins will see and comment. (and see Heliocentrism) More to be said in the Mythology article (which, by way of disclosure, I'll say is in need of lots of work.) --Dandrake 20:36, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Some changes

I removed the lengthy, duplicate "Discussion" section from the article. If it is important it should be folded into the main text. I also tried to clarify exactly what Copernicus's theory did and did not do. I'm not an expert on Copernicus thought I've read some of the major historical debates about his work; so I apologize in advance. --Fastfission 14:32, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Burial Site

Looks like they found him in northern Poland, although it may take some days for them to determine how sure they are of this.

Anyone know how they plan to find Copernicus' relatives for DNA testing after 462 years and any number of wars, natural disasters and social upheavals? logologist 10:49, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
They found his skull (not entire skeleton) in Cathedral in Frombork, Poland. By computer reconstruction (by Central Criminalistic Laboratory) of his face and comparing it to his portrait the scientists are 97% sure that it is him. Mainly for 3 reasons:
1. Skull and portrait both have specific curved nose and asimetric face.
2. On portrait there is scar above his right eye, and the skull is damaged in the same place.
3. Copernicus died in age of 70, skull also belong to man who died in that age.
Also there is non-scientific proof - you can see great similarity when you look at the portrait (on which Copernicus is in age of 30-40), and on computer reconstruction (in age of 70). I would be glad if someone who knows english better than me put this information into article Sadi 12:14, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

scientifical journal

nature.com links to this article, see http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051107/full/051107-3.html pretty fun isnt it? :) just wanted to let you know.. Foant 14:40, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Didn't there used to be a Template for posting a self-congratulatory flag on the talk page of an article that was referenced in the media? I could swear I'd seen it around, and now I can find neither the templat, nor the page on which I thought I'd seen. --Kgf0 18:20, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Quotes

"Therefore alongside the ancient hypotheses, which are no more probable, let us permit these new hypotheses also to become known, especially since they are admirable as well as simple and bring with them a huge treasure of very skillful observations. So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it. Farewell."

This quote is from Andreas Osiander who wrote the preface to Copernicus' work without signing it as such. So it should most probably not be listed as a quote under the subheading Copernicus. --Neil 06.30, 16 January 2006 (GMT)

Copernicus not the first to come up with Heliocentric theory

Although the present article mentions that two indian astronomers predated copernicus by a 1000 years, enough detail is not provided. Moreover, the article credits copernicus with presenting his theory in a 'scientifically useful way'. On further examination, i have found that Aryabhata and Bhaskara not only were pioneers in proposing a heliocentric concept, but also several other astronomical and geometric ideas. Even the 11th century arab traveler to India, Al-Beruni, writes about this concept in his book, which means that it had survived scrutiny and was accepted as common knowledge in India for about 700 Years. This makes copernicus' re-discovery very trivial and annoys me no end that He is credited with figuring this out. I highly dispute the veracity of this article and further that little if any serious acknowledgement has been made that Copernicus may have directly borrowed from the knowledge of Aryabhata and Bhaskara I. I am presently trying to dig up more to help restore credit where it truly belongs.

  • If you had read the article, you would have seen that it clear says that he developed the theory "in a form detailed enough to make it scientifically useful." It does not say "Copernicus was the first one to come up with Heliocentric theory." Even Copernicus never said he wasn't the first one with the idea, if you read the preface/dedication to his famous book, where he credits a number of Ancient philosophers for having first provided the idea as far as he knew. Our article itself contains an extensive section on earlier heliocentric theories. Copernicus's formulation, though, is not trivial: it was the theory which became the point of scientific departure for thinking about heliocentrism, and was the motivating force behind the later developments of the theory. --Fastfission 23:15, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

My Rebuttal: That is exactly my point. Dear sir, if you had read what i have written you would also have noticed that I mention that there isnt enough acknowledgement that he may have directly borrowed it from elsewhere. Arabia, India and China were quite advanced in mathematics by 1000CE, and although the arabs didnt believe that the earth revolved around the sun, there is evidence that the Indians and Chinese may have understood this very well and based most of their astronomical calculations on that fact. Indian and Chinese astronomy was advanced to the point of being able to predict the occurences of comet sweeps and meteor showers, which means they had a scientific basis for their beliefs. Aryabhata and bhaskara have detailed mathematical formulations about heliocentrism, which if it had been paid attention to, would have helped clear this major misconception much earlier. I am not criticizing Copernicus, but the the fact may just be that most discoveries attributed to the orient just gets swallowed up as mysticism until europe was ready for this new theory. Although Aryabhatas forumulations are in sanskrit, it is definitely not incomprehensible. The point of scientific departure arrived in europe in the 1400s, which is when people were willing to accept this new theory. A thousand years before that, europe was just not ready, so what ever advanced contribution is made before that is easily consigned to the exotic and mystical section of the library. In the same volume of Aryabhatas that i refered to, he also proposes Gravity, however, he doesnt elaborate much on that. So there is no argument there, but not with heliocentrism. Copernicus' just acknowledging the fact of the presence of other 'primitive' theories doesnt alleviate the fact that the whole of europe wished to exist in ignorance believing that the earth was the centre of the universe. Giri 18:41, 14 November 2005 (UTC) (More to come in the near future)

  • Copernicus certainly didn't "borrow" the knowledge — the Copernican theory was much more than just basic heliocentrism. It was heliocentrism integrated in a serious way into a Ptolemaic-dominant intellectual scheme, both scientific and philosophical. In any event, there is plenty of text in the current article about earlier heliocentric schemes and plenty written here about the fact that even he did not claim to be without precursors. Post your information about Chinese and Arabic astronomers in articles about those subjects, not in a biography of a Polish astronomer. --Fastfission 02:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Is Hanza needed

I think its irrelevant-especially as the city wasn't active it seems past 1403 within the alliance anyway. --Molobo 01:44, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's why it's not here. That's what interlinks are for. If someone wants to know more about history of Kraków, one clicks it and goes there.--SylwiaS | talk 05:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
But "Polish" or "Poland" need to be added as often as possible (and even impossible) to keep NPOV? --Matthead 02:42, 13 February 2006 (UTC)