Nicholas Copernicus

The Ptolemaic system of the universe, with the earth at the center, had held sway since antiquity as authoritative in philosophy, science, and church teaching. Following his observations of the heavenly bodies, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) abandoned the geocentric system for a heliocentric model, with the sun at the center. His remarkable work, On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres, stands as one of the greatest intellectual revolutions of all time, and profoundly influenced, among others, Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton.

In 1973, on the 500th anniversary of Copernicus's birth, the Polish Academy of Sciences announced its intention to publish all of the astronomer's extant works, both in their original Latin and in modern translations. Here, available for the first time in softcover, are Edward Rosen's authoritative English translations and commentaries.