ABOUT THE STATUE:
The statue depicts Kopernikus in a standing position with his left knee bent and raised with his left foot resting on a block that's nearly knee-high. His left elbow rests upon his raised bent left knee and he is holding an orb (maybe the Earth) in his left hand. His right hand rests by his right side but with the hand held with the palm up. The hand is broken but based on the photo at the website listed in the Variables section, he appears to have been holding another smaller orb. He is looking down toward his right hand. He has long (but above the shoulder length hair) and is wearing a long robe.
Adjacent to the monument is a stone block inscribed with the following text:
Nikolaus Kopernikus
Doktor des geistlichen Rechts
Geboren 1473 in Thorn / verstorben
1543 in Frauenburg/Ostpreußen
Begründer der neuen Astronomie
Seine Lehre stellt die Sonne
umkreist von ihren Planeten
in den Mittelpunkt des Weltalls
Standbild von Josef Thorak 1889 - 1952
[English Translation]
Nicolaus Copernicus
Doctor of spiritual law
Born in 1473 in Thorn / deceased
1543 in women's Castle / East Prussia
Founder of the new astronomy
His teaching represents the sun
orbits of its planets
in the center of the universe
Statue of Josef Thorak 1889 - 1952
ABOUT THE MAN:
"Nicolaus Copernicus (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. 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.
The book
Copernicus was still working on De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (even if not certain that he wanted to publish it) when in 1539 Georg Joachim Rheticus, a Wittenberg mathematician, arrived in Frombork. Philipp Melanchthon, a close theological ally of Martin Luther, had arranged for Rheticus to visit several astronomers and study with them. Rheticus became Copernicus' pupil, staying with him for two years and writing a book, Narratio prima (First Account), outlining the essence of Copernicus' theory. In 1542 Rheticus published a treatise on trigonometry by Copernicus (later included in the second book of De revolutionibus).
Under strong pressure from Rheticus, and having seen the favorable first general reception of his work, Copernicus finally agreed to give De revolutionibus to his close friend, Tiedemann Giese, bishop of Chelmno (Kulm), to be delivered to Rheticus for printing by the German printer Johannes Petreius at Nuremberg (Nürnberg), Germany. While Rheticus initially supervised the printing, he had to leave Nuremberg before it was completed, and he handed over the task of supervising the rest of the printing to a Lutheran theologian, Andreas Osiander.
Osiander added an unauthorised and unsigned preface, defending the work against those who might be offended by the novel hypotheses. He explained that astronomers may find different causes for observed motions, and choose whatever is easier to grasp. As long as a hypothesis allows reliable computation, it does not have to match what a philosopher might seek as the truth."
--Wikipedia (
visit link)