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Copernicus' Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began

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It is hard to overestimate the audacity of the explanations made by Nicolas Copernicus. That they became universally accepted is surprising. There was, of course, religious opposition to the idea that the Earth went around the Sun, and not vice versa; churchmen, including the popes and Luther, knew that Joshua commanded not the Earth but the Sun to stand still. Even more basic than religious teaching is the information given by our senses; you can see that Sun roll across the sky, and you can't feel yourself spinning around on the globe. Add to this that Copernicus's picture of the universe meant that we were not at the center of things, and you begin to realize how revolutionary his explanation was. It is probably a good idea, then, to know a bit about Copernicus himself, and in _Copernicus' Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began_ (Simon and Schuster), Jack Repcheck has depicted the Polish astronomer and mathematician as a complex figure devoted to religious fervor and to scientific rigor, but also to human urges which he tried to keep secret. He was also reluctant to put the entirety of his explanation into print, and it was only by good fortune of dealing with other astronomers that publication happened in Copernicus's lifetime.

Copernicus is not someone you would have picked to make an astronomical revolution. He did not have obvious ambition; he was a scholar, and he wanted to do his researches and to be left alone. His researches were not even professional; he was an astronomer by avocation. He was trained as a doctor (he was trusted as a healer), and had official duties as a canon in the Catholic church. His attack on the Earth-centered picture of the solar system was mathematical, and his complicated computations had the benefit of being simpler than those required for the geocentric model. Copernicus had the ideas, and the mathematics behind them, but he did not publish. He was busy with his canon's duties and did not have the scholastic's freedom to devote all his time to his studies or publications. He was worried that his theory might be wrong in places, or at best was incomplete, so he kept quiet about it. When his ideas leaked out, they brought him unwanted attention, so that his supervisor heard about the mistress he kept and ordered her out, and also he became associated with the Lutherans who were gaining numbers at the time. It was, indeed, a Lutheran who teamed up with Copernicus to see the treatise _On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres_ prepared for print. Copernicus was taking a risk in working with the young Lutheran professor, Geog Joachim Rheticus, who came from Wittenberg for the express purpose of partnering with him. Rheticus, indeed, was taking his own life in his hands in traveling into the Catholic realm.

It is interesting that though Copernicus had reasons for keeping his work and himself secluded away, he was not (as many assume) afraid of being labeled a heretic. Those fears would be realized for Galileo, who popularized the Copernican ideas. Indeed, there were officials in the church who approved of Copernicus's work and urged him to publish and offered to pay the expenses for publication, but they did not overcome his reticence. It took Rheticus to do that, lovingly shepherding Copernicus's great work into print. Copernicus saw the first copy on the very day of his death in 1543. His fears that it would be found imperfect were completely unfounded. Of course, like all correct scientific ideas, it had to be modified; he had, for instance, assumed that all planetary orbits were exactly circular. The modifications would come only many years after his death, as would his book's condemnation by the church, which only happened in 1613. Repcheck's smoothly written and appealing book concentrates not on the astronomy, but on the social forces of the times, and of course on the peculiar personality of the man who had the mathematics to show us our place in the universe, and only reluctantly at the very end of his life let us in on the secret.

When it comes right down to it, this isn't a bad book. As a biography it is quite serviceable, brief and easy to read. Mr. Repcheck covers what is known about Copernicus' life and gives good attention to those years near the end of his life when De Revolutionibus was finally published; mainly through the prodding and effort of others. He also makes effective use of the letters of Copernicus and some of his correspondents. Use of primary source material always adds to a biography.

On the other hand, this book isn't anything special. The title, Copernicus' Secret, seems to promise some intrigue that Mr. Repcheck never really seems to deliver. What he offers are some background stories that are fairly well known with workman-like prose that never really generates excitement. By the end of this book the secret, if there really is one, remains unrevealed.

Perhaps Repcheck's book is overshadowed by other books on Copernicus that read better: Gingerich's The Book Nobody Read and even Banville's novel Doctor Copernicus. Admittedly, as a basic biography, it works. It just feels like it should read better.

Nicolaus Copernicus lived a life of two secrets, although neither hardly seemed to be very well hidden from those who knew him or traveled his professional circles. One secret concerned his theory, based on intense astronomical observation and mathematical reasoning, that earth rotates on its axis once every twenty-four hours and revolves around the sun (although he still viewed the sun, and not the earth, as the center of the universe). The second concerned his illicit affair with Anna Schilling, twenty years his junior but never his wife, even as he served as a cleric who had taken a vow of celibacy.

Why was Copernicus' heliocentric theory a secret? Because the religious state of affairs in 16th Century Europe, with its incessant power struggle between the Vatican and the Lutheran Reformation, created a highly toxic environment for scientific claims that ran counter to the long-held and Biblically consistent theories of Ptolemy (as Galileo would learn at first hand not too many years after Copernicus' death). Thus, despite certitude in his results, Copernicus was reluctant to publish or publicize his findings out of fear, perhaps as much for his job as a canon of the Cathedral Chapter of Warmia as for the opprobrium of the Catholic Church hierarcy.

In COPERNICUS' SECRET, Jack Repcheck uses the second secret, other biographical details, informed conjecture, and historical context to illuminate the conditions underlying the first one. For a biographical subject about whose life a remarkably limited written record exists, the author nevertheless constructs a workable profile of Copernicus the man, a profile that adds perspective on his astronomical work as well as the challenges of publishing those results.

The nature of the heliocentric secret requires Repcheck to trace its historical development, starting a century earlier with the work of Georg Peurback and his extraordinary protégé, the dominant figure of 15th Century astronomy, Johannes Muller, known to history as Regiomontanus. In the same manner that Regionmontanus exceeded the work of his mentor, Copernicus did likewise with his first mentor, Domenico Navara. History's habit of repeating itself was demonstrated yet again some forty years later when the twenty-four-year-old Georg Joachim Rheticus, a newly minted professor of astronomy, appeared unannounced at the door of sixty-six-year-old Copernicus' in the small town of Frombork. Most of the latter half of COPERNICUS' SECRET deals with Rheticus' effort to convince Copernicus to publish his work and to assist him in doing so.

Repcheck's story reveals a number of interesting historical facts that make his book highly worthwhile. For example, as a Lutheran, Rheticus literally risked his young life to spend almost three years working with the elderly Copernicus. Despite his immense efforts, Rheticus was not even mentioned or thanked in Copernicus' own introduction, while several other figures were so attributed. Perhaps most intriguing, the early reception to Copernicus' book focused almost solely on its utilitarian aspects in correcting calendars and projecting calendar dates (such as equinoxes or solstices). Little note appears to have been taken to his theory of the earth rotating on its axis and revolving around the sun, Astronomy had to pass through Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler to reach Galileo some ninety years after Copernicus' death before the heliocentric model of the solar system took real scientific hold.

COPERNICUS' SECRET draws a fascinating picture of an Enlightenment era during which reason battled to establish itself alongside faith. Although purposely light on the actual science and mathematics of Copernicus' work and the reasoning by which he overturned the Ptolemaic model, Repcheck offers an engaging look at the persistence and painstaking observation and analysis of the "lone scientist." The author also explores how youth took the reins from its mentors in successive generations, sometimes to enlarge that work as well as bring it to the light of day so it could be disseminated to intellectuals and others in the same field of study. In an era of scientific journals, conferences, and now the Internet, it is easy to forget the challenges of publication and communication that were so essential to even the greatest scientific minds of the European Renaissance.

I was hoping for an easy-to-read biography of Copernicus. This book is certainly easy-to-read, and I found much of the book interesting, partly because of the description of what was going on in the scientific community during the 15th century.

What I wanted to read more of, however, was how Copernicus worked on and developed his theories that eventually changed the course of scientific, and human, history. It may just be that, because Copernicus worked alone, there is very little information on this important subject, and that Copernicus will always remain an enigma.

I might fancy myself relatively intelligent, but as to this portion of scientific history, I was completely ignorant. And this book by Jack Repcheck tellingly lays out the circumstances surrounding Copernicus' incredible scientific discoveries.

You'll find out that Copernicus discovered that the Earth was not, in fact, the center of the universe, but that the Earth actually revolved around the Sun. Oh, and he figured this out with the use of an old stick and nothing else. That's it. And you'll also find out that he was sleeping with his cleaning lady in a time that that behavior was SLIGHTLY frowned upon, to say the least. Trust me, 1473 to 1543 A.D. was a hell of a lot more interesting than you might think. Not only does Jack lay out the facts and history of Coperniscus' story, but he invites you in to the life of Copernicus himself, which reads almost like a modern day soap opera. Sex. Religion. War. Scandal. Death. Infamy. To think that one of the most amazing genius minds in the history of science could be the center of such a story is a boggle. And Jack Repcheck's book brings the whole story alive in vivid, touching and humorous detail. I began this book having NO idea whatsoever about this period in history, scientific or otherwise. I ended the book thinking I wish I could have been there to experience it firsthand myself. Except, maybe, for the lack of showers. Rock it with Copernicus.

Repcheck's book paints a fascinating picture of life in the sixteenth century and of the life of one its greatest scientific minds. Copernicus comes to life in the pages of the book. We think of him only as a scientist and scholar, but Copernicus was a late blooming student, a womanizer and a Canon of the Church. This is an engrossing story about the world in which his discoveries were made. Travel to the educational centers of Europe took weeks, even months. There were no real tools for observation of the heavens, and even publishing was an arduous task. Books were hard to come by. Most interesting about the Copernicus' Secret was seeing how reticent Copernicus was about his discoveries and if not for the prodding of a young professor they might never have been published. It's not often that we find scientific biography that reads like a novel.

Reading about science and scientists can sometimes be tedious. Only the best writers are able to balance the science and the story that keeps the lay person reading. Jack Repcheck does an excellent job of teaching a little science while telling a wonderful story. He paints a vivid picture of where Copernicus lived and offers insights into the world at that time. He uncovers more than one of Copernicus' secrets (or at least shares stories that I did not know) but is true to the history by suggesting others which are possible but can't be known. If you like history and/or science this is a well-written and fresh introduction to Copernicus' life.

I finished this book because it's an interesting topic and Repcheck keeps things moving.

While Repcheck is very upfront from page 1 that he was going to speak as a layman and lay off the technicals I think he's undersold his audience. While I have no scientific training or experience I would have loved him to better explain the HOW of Copernicus' work. One opportunity is when Repcheck describes Rheticus' first encounter with Copernicus and finds his equipment quaint and surprisingly unsophisticated and inaccurate. What a great opening to explain or hypothesize the why's or how's for Copernicus to build or use this equipment.

Having read biographies going back to the Roman Empire I also thought this was a bit light on biographical detail. There just must be more correspondence or diaries to be discovered that might add to our understand of Copernicus or perhaps there just isn't we have to accept that.

Repcheck does do a nice job putting us in the 16th century. One can feel the the birth of the renaissance and the Lutheran reformation going on around Copernicus and how that is pushing science and discovery as much as he may later effect them. I really appreciate books that are stay linear when there's no reason to deviate. He's traced the relevant characters and events well and as a result I can close this book with a comfortable feeling of the flow of scientific progress.

Most people have heard of the early Renaissance genius, Nicolaus Copernicus, who developed the heliocentric model of the universe. However, how many know the more personal, non-scientific aspects of his life? In friendly, easy-flowing prose, the author recounts Copernicus's life story. In so doing, he covers facets of Copernicus's life that are likely little-known to the general reader and possibly even to some astronomy/history buffs. The many events and personalities that were important and influential for Copernicus are well discussed. However, readers expecting to see much on the technical side of Renaissance astronomy may be a bit disappointed since the author has chosen a more biographical/historical approach. The final chapter briefly, but concisely, deals with the further developments in astronomical thought in the centuries following Copernicus' death, through the geniuses who succeeded him. In addition to being friendly, the writing style is clear, widely accessible, and engaging. Although this book can be enjoyed by anyone, it should be of particular interest to those fascinated by the history of science and the biographies of great Renaissance individuals.

This brief book on Copernicus sketches who he was, what he did and how he did it. It is happily non-technical such that all levels of laymen can understand what he achieved.

Living the respectable life of a nobleman and clergyman, he was not persecuted for his work although the later generation that persecuted Galileo thought he was. He worried about the impact of his work, and perhaps this is why his ideas lay dormant until old age. The eventual publication of his work relied heavily on a young mathematician, Rheticus, who lived with him for over two years. Their intellectual synergy created the volume which created a revolution in astronomy and thought. This young prodigy was not credited by Copernicus in this work.

In this small volume, the author does a good job in explaining the currents of the time, such as the instability and damage caused by the Teutonic Knights, the impact of Martin Luther and the Reformation and the influence of the University of Wittenberg. Columbus has found a new world. These events have both a direct and indirect impact on Copernicus and his work.

It is interesting that this area, farther from Rome than the most, remained impervious to the Lutheranism that virtually surrounds it. In fact, many in the area, like Copernicus, Romanize their names.

The author is not clear as to what the "Secret" is. It begins with an intrigue of a mistress, later it suggests it's holding the knowledge of the heliocentric world until old age but maybe it's why he withheld credit to Rheticus.