Copernicus reburied as heroBy VANESSA GERA

ASSOCIATED PRESS

FROMBORK, Poland-Nicolaus Copernicus, the 16th-century astronomer whose find-ings were condemned by theRoman Catholic Church as hereti-cal, was reburied by Polish priestsas a hero on Saturday, nearly 500years after he was laid to rest in anunmarked grave.

His burial in a tomb in thecathedral where he once served asa church canon and doctor indi-cates how far the church has cornein making peace with the scientistwhose revolutionary theory thatthe Earth revolves around the Sunhelped usher in the modem scien-tific age.

Copernicus, who lived from1473 to 1543,died as a little-known astronomer working inwhat is now Poland, far fromEurope's centers oflearning. Hehad spent years laboring in hisfree time developing his theory,which was later condemned asheretical by the church because itremoved Earth and humanityfrom their central position in theuniverse.

His revolutionary model wasbased on complex mathematicalcalculations and his naked-eyeobservations of the heavensbecause the telescope had not yetbeen invented.

After his-death, his remainsrested in an unmarked gravebeneath the floor of the cathedralin Frombork, northern Poland,the exact location unknown.

On Saturday, his remains wereblessed with holy water by someof Poland's highest-ranking clericsbefore an honor guard ceremoni-ously carried the coffin throughthe imposing red brick cathedraland lowered it back into the samespot where part of his skull and

JERZV MYTKA / ASSOCIATED PRESSPeople and priests gather beside the coffin with the remains ofastronomer Nicolaus Copernicus in the catherdral in Frombork,Poland, on Saturday.

other bones were found in 2005.A black granite tombstone

now identifies him as thefounder of the heliocentric theo-ry, but also a church canon, acleric that ranks below a priest.The tombstone is decorated witha model of the solar system, agolden sun encircled by six of theplanets.

At the urging of a local bishop,scientists began searching in 2004for the astronomer's remains andeventually turned up a skull andbones of a 70-year-old man - theage Copernicus was when he died.A reconstruction made by forensicpolice based on the skull showed abroken nose and other featuresthat resemble a self-portrait ofCopernicus.

In a later stage of the investiga-tion, DNA taken from teeth andbones matched that from hairsfound in one of his books, leadingthe scientists to conclude withgreat probability that they hadfinally found Copernicus.

In recent weeks, a wooden cas-ket holding those remains has lain

in state in the nearby city ofOlsztyn, and on Friday they weretoured around the region to townslinked to his life.

The pageantry comes 18 yearsafter the Vatican rehabilitatedthe Italian astronomer GalileoGalilei, who was persecuted inthe Inquisition for carrying theCopernican Revolution forward.

Wojciech Ziemba, the arch-bishop of the region surroundingFrombork, said the CatholicChurch is proud that Copernicusleft the region a legacy of "hishard work, devotion and above allof his scientific genius."

Saturday's Mass was lectby--JozefKowalczyk, the papal nuncioand newly named Primate ofPoland, the highest churchauthority in this deeply Catholiccountry.

Copernicus' major treatise -''On the Revolutions of theHeavenly Spheres" - was pub-lished at the very end of his life,and he only received a copy ofthe printed book on the day hedied - May 21, 1543.

3.1 Copernicus

Nicholas Copernicus (in Polish, Mikolaj Kopernik,1473-1543) was born in Torun on the Vistula inPoland. His training was in law and medicine, butCopernicus' main interest was astronomy and math-ematics. By the time he had reached middle age, hewas well known as an authority on astronomy.

Copernicus' great contribution to science wasa critical reappraisal of the existing theories of cos-mology and the development of a new model of thesolar system. His unorthodox idea that the sun, notthe earth, is the center of the solar system had be-come known by 1530, chiefly through an early man-uscript circulated by him and his friends.

His ideas were set forth in detail in his DeRevolutionibus, published in the year of his death.Supervision over the publication of the book fell into

FIGURE 3.1 Nicholas Copernicus. (Yerkes Observatory)

3.1 COPERNICUS 37

the hands of a Lutheran preacher named Osiander,who was probably responsible for the augmented titleof the work-De Revolutionibus Orbium Celestium(On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres).Osiander wrote a preface, which he neglected to sign,expressing the modern view that science presentedonly an abstract mathematical hypothesis, and im-plying that the theory set forth in the book was onlya convenient calculating scheme. The preface is al-most certainly in contradiction to Copernicus' ownfeelings.

In De Revolutionibus, Copernicus sets forthcertain postulates from which he derives his systemof planetary motions. His postulates include the as-sumptions that the universe is spherical and that themotions of the heavenly bodies must be made upof combinations of uniform circular motions, thusCopernicus was not free of all traditional prejudices.Yet, he evidently found something orderly and pleas-ing in the heliocentric system, and his defense ofit was elegant and persuasive. His ideas, while notwidely accepted for more than a century after hisdeath, never disappeared and were ultimately ofimmense influence.

(a) Planetary motions according toCopernicus

A person moving uniformly is not necessarily awareof his motion. We have all experienced the phe-nomenon of seeing an adjacent train, car, or shipappear to change position, only to discover that itis we who are moving (or vice versa). Copernicusargued that the apparent annual motion of the sunabout the earth could be equally well represented bya motion of the earth about the sun, and that therotation of the celestial sphere could be accountedfor by assuming that the earth rotates about a fixedaxis while the celestial sphere is stationary. To theobjection that if the earth rotated about an axis itwould fly into pieces, Copernicus answered that ifsuch motion would tear the earth apart, the evenfaster motion (because of its greater size) of the