Friday’s library snapshot … Copernicus

This week it was Nicolaus Copernicus‘s birthday he was born 19th February 1473 he was Polish astronomer and mathematician. He formulated a comprehensive heliocentric model of the universe that places the the sun rather than the earth at the centre. Although this theory profoundly altered the thoughts of later scientific view of the universe it was rejected by the Catholic Church.
The publication of 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.