"For a traveler going from any place toward the north, that pole of the daily rotation gradually climbs higher, while the opposite pole drops down an equal amount." (Nicolaus Copernicus, "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres" ["De revolutionibus orbium coelestium"], 1543)
"I shall now recall to mind that the motion of the heavenly bodies is circular, since the motion appropriate to a sphere is rotation in a circle." (Nicolaus Copernicus, "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres" ["De revolutionibus orbium coelestium"], 1543)
"[...] if the worth of the arts were measured by the matter with which they deal, this art - which some call astronomy, others astrology, and many of the ancients the consummation of mathematics - would be by far the most outstanding. This art which is as it were the head of all the liberal arts and the one most worthy of a free man leans upon nearly all the other branches of mathematics. Arithmetic, geometry, optics, geodesy, mechanics, and whatever others, all offer themselves in its service." (Nicolaus Copernicus, "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres", 1543)
"Those who devised the eccentrics seen thereby in large measure to have solved the problem of apparent motions with approximate calculations. But meanwhile they introduced a good many ideas which apparently contradict the first principles of uniform motion. Nor could they elicit or deduce from the eccentrics the principal consideration, that is, the structure of the universe and the true symmetry of its parts." (Nicolaus Copernicus, "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium", 1543)
"Whatever motion appears in the firmament arises not from any motion of the firmament, but from the earth's motion. The earth together with its circumjacent elements performs a complete rotation on its fixed poles in a daily motion, while the firmament and highest heaven abide unchanged." (Nicolaus Copernicus)
No comments:
Post a Comment