Copernicus' Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began

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.

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

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.

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