"Between Heaven and Earth" - images of Nicolaus Copernicus throughout history on the 550th anniversary of his birth" - this is the title of the exhibition that can be visited in the JDU Library at al. Armii Krajowej 36a.
Nicolaus Copernicus (born 1473 in Toruń) is one of the most fascinating figures of the Renaissance. The surviving documents show that his education was comprehensive – apart from astronomy, he dealt with, among others, mathematics, medicine, economics, cartography and canon law.
Copernicus was a type of modern scientist, he courageously reached the stars looking for the truth about the Universe. When conducting research and observations, he did not resemble modern scientists because he did not have any official observatory, and for measurements he used rather simple tools, which he often constructed himself. On the pages of history he went down primarily as the creator of the heliocentric theory, which became the basis for further research on the construction of space. His discovery was used, among others, by: Galileo, John Kepler, Giordano Bruno, Isaac Newton.
The Copernican claim that the Earth is not the centre of the universe, but revolves around the sun together with the other planets, seems obvious today, but at the time of its announcement it was a revolutionary view that had a profound impact on natural science and philosophy. The astronomer died in 1543 in Frombork, shortly after the publication of his greatest work in print "De Rovolutionibus orbium coelestium libri VI" ("Six Books On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres").
