A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos

by Dava Sobel

By 1514, the reclusive cleric Nicolaus Copernicus had written and hand-copied an initial outline of his heliocentric theory-in which he defied common sense and received wisdom to place the sun, not the earth, at the center of our universe, and set the earth spinning among the other planets. Over the next two decades, Copernicus expanded his theory through hundreds of observations, while compiling in secret a book-length manuscript that tantalized mathematicians and scientists throughout Europe. For fear of ridicule, he refused to publish.


In 1539, a young German mathematician, Georg Joachim Rheticus, drawn by rumors of a revolution to rival the religious upheaval of Martin Luther's Reformation, traveled to Poland to seek out Copernicus. Two years later, the Protestant youth took leave of his aging Catholic mentor and arranged to have Copernicus's manuscript published, in 1543, as De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres)-the book that forever changed humankind's place in the universe.


In her elegant, compelling style, Dava Sobel chronicles, as nobody has, the conflicting personalities and extraordinary discoveries that shaped the Copernican Revolution. At the heart of the book is her play And the Sun Stood Still, imagining Rheticus's struggle to convince Copernicus to let his manuscript see the light of day. As she achieved with her bestsellers Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, Sobel expands the bounds of narration, giving us an unforgettable portrait of scientific achievement, and of the ever-present tensions between science and faith.

Genres: Science, History, Nonfiction, Biography, Astronomy, History Of Science, Religion

273 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Dava Sobel is an American writer of popular expositions of scientific topics. Her books include Longitude, about English clockmaker John Harrison; Galileo's Daughter, about Galileo's daughter Maria Celeste; and The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars about the Harvard Computers.

Reviews

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first part of the biography might be difficult to follow if you’re not familiar with Copernicus’ life. It felt like there was a lot of jumping, and my first thought was if I weren’t familiar with his biography, I’d probably had a hard time following it.

The second part is composed of two Acts of play. It is an imagined dialogue among few people, mainly Copernicus, Rheticus (thanks to him Copernicus’ full manuscript was published), Giese (his best friend), bishop, and Anna (housekeeper, there was supposedly something between her and Copernicus). I’m not sure if this is something that distinguishes this author, if she does it in all her books, but that’s not something that resonates with me in a non-fiction book.

The third part returns to Copernicus’ biography and has a much smoother flow and is easier to follow.

If you’re familiar with Copernicus’ life, I think you can still find some information in this book that was not mentioned in other books about him.

If you’re not familiar, then I’d recommend starting with Copernicus’ Secret by Jack Repcheck, and afterwards reaching for this book.

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4* of five

The Book Report: Heliocentrism. I doubt that stirs much passion in anyone reading this review. It means "sun centeredness." *yawn* The solar system is heliocentric. Hawaiian culture is heliocentric. Big whoop.

In the Sixteenth Century, this sh*t was hot news, and really really controversial. Think gay-marriage-level passions inflamed. Heliocentrism meant that the SUN and not God's Perfect Creation The Earth was the center of the Universe. Panic! Riots! Thunderings from dimwitted religiosifiers!

Is this sounding familiar yet?

And the man who ignited the revolution (which really amounted to observing the real world carefully and reporting on his findings) was a lifelong Polish Catholic churchman. That's right, a predecessor of John Paul II was the one who made the whole Church Edifice of lies and superstitions tremble before the might of reality! Go Copernicus! Right?

Except he didn't want to do that. He was a scientist, a man who wasn't content to look at the lunar eclipse and say "crikey that's purty" and go on back inside to pray some more. He measured stuff. He worked out mathematical explanations for stuff. He even told a few friends of like mind about his thoughts. And that's what set off the firestorm that still goes on between religion on one side and science on the other. But he was a Churchman, and a darned good and effective one, and he didn't want to rock the boat lest he fall out of it and starve. So he put his papers away, boinked his housekeeper, and prayed a couple times a day. End of revolution...but there were copies floating around and causing sensations...just a matter of time....

It was a Lutheran who did it. Wouldn't you know it would be a Protestant, AND a German. So along comes this Protestant German to Poland to look up the writer of the amazing [On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres], which our Lutheran troublemaker has read and is completely blown away by, and tells Canon Copernicus that he mustmustmust publish this marvelous (in the original sense of the word) piece of logic and analysis.

Well, we know who won, but it took ages to convince Canon C. to make with the goodies, and he was long dead before the real sh*tstorm hit. Best of all possible outcomes for ol' Copernicus.

My Review: Dava Sobel can count on me. I will read, and quite probably enjoy, anything she writes. She's got a knack for finding the interesting angle on stories of greater or lesser public fascination. Her use of research plus imagination is exemplary in its balance.

In this book, a beautiful hardcover from Walker & Co., she does something unusual: She writes the story of the German guy, Rheticus, and Copernicus meeting and working together to get the manuscript ready for publication as a play. It's true she won't be getting any Tony awards or getting a production even Off-Off-Broadway, but she wrote a pretty compelling dramedy about the men and their probable conflicts in doing work that simply can't be overestimated in terms of its impact on Western culture. It was a smart move, too, because this way she can't be criticized for making stuff up in the context of non-fiction...she explicitly makes it up, and presents it as fiction, because there are (unsurprisingly) no source documents to write an non-fictional account from.

Do *you* take notes of your houseguests' visits just in case future generations might be interested?

In the end, this book is the accustomed Sobel experience. It's solidly researched, extensively bibliographized, compendiously endnoted, and charmingly written. It was a pleasure to read. In Walker & Co's capable production and design hands, it's also lovely to look at and easy to read. Bloomsbury, their corporate parent, pays attention to the effect of design on the reading experience, and as a result, the books they publish are always worthy of a moment's reflection and appreciation as objects. So rare in today's world....

Very much recommended for history buffs, science readers, and Sobelians like me.

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of Nicolaus Copernicus and how his book, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) revolutionized astronomy. There are two facts about Copernicus that I found astounding. First, astronomy was his hobby not his occupation. Second, his book was almost NOT published.

His job as church canon meant that he worked full time with responsibilities that included tasks such as administering church farm rental lands, negotiating peace terms with the Teutonic Knights and responding to unreasonable demands from his Bishop while acting in the role of physician. Somehow he found time to observe and record locations of the stars, planets, moon and sun. (He apparently didn't need much sleep.) He also combed through early Greek and Roman astronomical records and compared them with observations of his day. Then he applied his math skills to discover that they followed patterns that coordinated with a hypothetical model of the planets, including the earth, orbiting the sun while the earth rotated on a tilted axis and the moon rotated around the earth.

He apparently experienced his epiphany regarding heliocentrism in about 1510 and shared his idea with others by way of letters and distributing a sketchy outline. Over the next three decades he continued to collect astronomical observations and perfected his calculations, but refused of publish his theory in a book.

This biography of Copernicus seems to suggest the reason for his reticence to publish was his fear of objections from the church and critical scrutiny from other astronomers. I personally picked up an impression of an alternative reason; that he was simply busy with other responsibilities and procrastinated on writing his book.

Then, in 1539, a young enigmatic mathematician and aspiring astrologer hamed Rheticus showed up at Copernicus’s door and begged him to publish a book about his heliocentric theory. Apparently Rheticus refused to take no for an answer. For the next couple years Rheticus somehow cajoled Copernicus to collect together his astronomical data and calculations and write his book about the movements of the "Celestial Spheres." In 1542 Rheticus delivered the manuscript to a printer of scientific books.

Copernicus suffered a stroke soon after finishing the manuscript and was in a partial coma for a number of months. Copernicus died on the same day that the first printed copy of the book was delivered and placed in his hands. One can't help but wonder if he had any idea what a significant contribution he had made to the advancement of science.

I found it interesting how the author, Dava Sobel, managed to turn the available information about Copernicus into a book length story. The problem is that most of the surviving documentation regarding Copernicus’ life are business and accounting types of documents which frankly aren’t very interesting and have nothing to do with astronomy. He left no diary describing the details of his epiphany when he first thought of the heliocentric model. And there is no detailed descriptions of how Rheticus managed to talk Copernicus into writing his book.

Dava Sobel’s clever solution was to imagine a fictional rendering of the Copernicus/Rheticus encounter and inserted it as Part Two into this book. Her dramatization was written in play/drama format which makes it quite distinctive from the prose of the nonfiction narrative contained in parts one and three of the book. This approach helps the reader to distinguish the fictional part from the nonfiction. I think this approach was well done and managed to convey emotion and setting more clearly than if the book had been all nonfiction narrative.

Part One of the book describes Copernicus’ life. Part Three describes the reactions to his book, includes a description of Rheticus’ life, and tells of the later actions of Galileo and Kepler to advance and improve on the details of the heliocentric model.

There were contemporaries of Copernicus who agreed that the heliocentric model correctly described the movement of planets and earth. But only Copernicus could published a book that carried convincing credibility because he was the only one who had combined his lifetime of astronomical observations with mathematical calculations to develop tables and formulas that could be used to predict future movements based on the heliocentric model.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very readable, and chocked with info on Copernicus's life as a Canon in Varmia on the Baltic, after study at U of Krakow, and at least two Italian universities--Bologna (canon law) and Padova (medicine). Copernicus ended up a physician who made his living as a political appointee (canon) at Varmia Cathedral, appointed by the literal nepotism of his uncle the Bishop.
But I found the play, "Interplay," inserted in the middle of the book a problem--a fictional account of Copernicus and his Protestant fan and assistant Rheticus, as well as a few others. Perhaps it should have been attached at the end of the book; it would be less damaging, less intrusive, so.
Sobel makes just enough non-specialist mistakes to please this specialist. For example, on her very first page she refers to horoscopes and "birth certtificates" though they were not used until 1837 in the UK. No idea when in Poland. Of course, the whole thing in the Renaissance was baptism; we have Shakespeare's baptismal day, NOT his birthday, which no-one knows, though everyone celebrates it. (A typical event in popular culture.)
I once heard Dava Sobel at Seagrave Observatory west of Providence, RI, where I had also spoken on Giordano Bruno after my Harvard Astrophysics talk. (Google "Giordano Bruno Harvard Video.") Preparing for that talk, I read most of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus in English, found I could only solve one of his problems in geometry, because they were spherical geometry. My great HS geometry teacher, Miss Parkman (Classical HS, Springfield, MA) prepared me so well I aced the math SATs, beat the future M.I.T. students in her class, though not in calculus the next year.

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dava Sobel spoke at the Sydney Writers' Festival last week
about her latest wonderful book.
She and the interviewer also performed two excerpts from her play
of the conversation between Copernicus the Polish Catholic Astronomer cleric and Rheticus the young German Lutheran Mathematician who had visited Copernicus to urge him to publish and be damned.
This brief play forms part of this novel.
Dava played Rheticus who as a believer of astrology got some hefty
trouncing from his Scientific Better.It was a wonderful, witty, informative dialogue which held you with its drama of exposition and dawning of the light.
It turned out that Copernicus was right for the wrong reasons. He used reason alone rather than also adding the necessary but arduous empirical course of collecting data which could go on for years.

Have recently read "Descartes' Bones" by Russell Shorto,
about another philosopher who turned Western Thought on its head,
and unwittingly, for all these Great Scientists were solid Christians,
who ironically opened up an increasing gap between Reason and Faith,as Theology became less and less relevant in the dialogue about the Universe.

Descartes caused my own personal crisis as a young theologising monk
who soon abandoned Theology as so much gobbldeygook, and took up history, science, philosophy and good literature as a surer guide
re "How is One to Live?".
I found the crass conception of a "Holy Trinity in One God"
simply the shortest thing on ethical substance I have yet encountered.

Being poor, I am waiting for the paperback of this book to come out before I purchase it.
"All things come to those who wait",claimed Milton.
I'm not so sure about that, but it can be a comfort.
And surely will cause a modicum of Character Development,don't you think???

P.S.
I bought myself the hardback for my Birthday.
I hope it was my Lust for Knowledge that made me give in, but I was never unhappy, not even once, when I read another Dava Sobel Classic!!!
And as you can see I have awarded this latest from Dava Sobel 5 STARS!

[Yibbie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I made it about halfway through this book. Even before the scene that made me quit, I was considering quitting. The description I had of this book never let on that huge sections of this book are fiction. To be specific they are drafts of the author’s play about Copernicus. Even in the non-play sections, the author quoted a novel to fill a gap in the official record. Then the author’s insistence on including the astrological readings for everything was odd because she constantly had to tell us that Copernicus didn’t believe in it.
I did like the section that combined the political history and Copernicus’ business records. I thought that was a very interesting method.
While the non-fiction section made his moral failings quite plain, the play went way beyond that. It delved deeper into a fellow mathematician’s depravity. The language there was also fouler than in the rest of the book. That was when I quit.

[Emily Lakdawalla · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with her previous two books Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, Dava Sobel draws heavily on primary sources for her latest book, A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos. With lengthy quotes from personal letters and contemporary records, Sobel paints a picture in words of the life and times of a man whose work literally produced a revolution, changing the static, immovable Earth to one that spun and revolved around the Sun at the center of the cosmos.

Sobel's work is challenging, because the very few extant letters that are known to have been written by Copernicus (only 17 of them) do not provide quite enough for her to establish much empathy between the reader and the central characters. The letters that do exist are mostly very formal. By providing a lot of historical context, Sobel shows how important a role the political and religious upheavals of Copernicus' time played in to his decision to delay publishing his work until close to the end of his life. Copernicus was a contemporary of Luther, so his life played out against the backdrop of religious revolution. Georg Rheticus, who assisted the Catholic Copernicus in preparing On the Revolutions for eventual publication, was a young Lutheran, yet the book was eventually dedicated to the Pope. It's a fascinating story but also drier and less emotional, with more Machiavellian princes in various important roles, than Sobel's previous books.

The book's formal and occasionally dry story is interrupted at the moment that Rheticus appears on Copernicus' doorstep. In between Part One, in which we see how Copernicus came to his new understanding of the cosmos, and Part Three, in which we see how his work was finally published just before his death, there is a two-act play dramatizing the crucial few months in which Rheticus and Copernicus collaborated. It's an unusual device that I must admit I viewed rather skeptically as I approached the book, but I found that the play succeeded. Although Sobel based the play on some established facts, it's clearly a work of historical fiction, with wholly invented dialogue and character voices. The device provides her with a way to speculate about what sorts of characters these men and women were, driven by what sorts of emotions. At the same time, the play is clearly, structurally separate from the more formally correct history that bookends it. And I must say that, having encountered the play, I found myself much more empathetic to the history's characters in Part Three than I had been in Part One.

I should note that I didn't actually read this book; I listened to it in its audiobook format while driving to and from Goldstone. I don't customarily listen to audiobooks so I can't compare it to other productions but I did think this one was very good. The narrator's enunciation was crisp and clear across all of the Latinate words and eastern European surnames and place names. More importantly, when it came time for the play, they cast the six characters with six different actors with distinctive voices, with stage direction read by the book's narrator, making the action very easy to follow. I did find the narration too slow, but speeding it up by a factor of 1.5 solved that problem neatly.

A More Perfect Heaven places Copernicus' life into a historical context that I hadn't appreciated before. To whom would I recommend it? I'm sure people interested in the history of science would enjoy it, but beyond that, I think people interested in European history at the beginning of the Reformation would find in this story a new and illuminating angle. It is, however, not as accessible as either Galileo's Daughter or Longitude. And my editor has asked me to warn parents that there are some adult themes discussed in the book, never very explicit but most prominent in the action of the play. She said it should probably have a PG-13 rating. I wouldn't give it to a kid under 13 anyway; but thinking back to myself as a high school senior science nerd taking modern European history, it would certainly have added dimension to my study of a subject that I found tedious. To me, history was all about various rich princes squabbling like children, and I had a hard time understanding why I should care. Copernicus' story, set against the backdrop of the machinations in Europe in the beginning of the 16th century, would have given me reason to pay attention!

[Ahmed Rashwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

How long I have set aside the Copernican Revolution, only to read it now, renewing my vows with Astronomy. It brings great delight and happiness to my heart reading about the man who is most probably the most important and influencing to my most beloved subject.

Copernicus did not only revolutionize the Cosmos, he revolutionized our perspective, how we view ourselves in this world. He is the messiah that delivered us from our self-centered beliefs and our ego-centric point of view of ourselves, and provided us with a universe that dwarfed us. Although the true vastness of our world was not even imagined by Copernicus himself, but the one he had imagined, one that was a billion times smaller, still took us from Gods to mere grains of sand in an endless desert.

I can never thank Dava Sobel enough for writing this book and bringing Nicolaus Copernicus to life in the way that she did. Besides the extremely informative, thoroughly researched and passionately written biography of the magnificent character of Copernicus, those around him, and the surrounding areas that encompassing the politics, economics and science of the time, Sobel provides us with a splendidly delightful fictional and beautifully imaginative interplay sandwiched between before and after Copernicus' final moments.

At first I was unsure about the play, as it is so clearly fictional (although Sobel had made a point to insert not only actual facts but actual direct quotations from the characters involved, obtained either from their writing or letters) but it proved, after completing it that it was such a beautiful rendition and visualization of what could have possibly been said or had taken place; by the end, I happily allowed Sobel the creative license needed to bring Copernicus' story to life.

Historical biographies of such massive characters are always so tricky, having experienced several of them, I expected to perhaps find the same flaws I often found in others within this genre. But Dava Sobel excelled beyond all my expectations; if there ever was a book that perfectly displayed how a historical biography should be written, it is this masterpiece of a book that should be set as the candidate. There is never a moment where you are confused about a person's role or importance in history, or the years in which significant events take place or where in time you were currently placed.

Almost as important as the man Copernicus, it is the aftermath his theories created that is equally crucial and is equally expanded on by Sobel. Thinking that the book would be boring after Copernicus' departing, I was pleasantly incorrect in my assumption and was just as amused and attracted to the men that followed in the steps of the great man and further enlarged the universe he had discovered.

Perhaps it is now, more than ever, that a voices and convictions as Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo possessed are needed. Men who stand up to what they believe in their hearts is right, regardless of how adamant the majority of our race are towards a certain opinion or belief; men who have the will to dedicate their entire lives towards a certain goal, and what more magical goal can one have than literally reaching for the stars.

Beautiful book.

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘The motions of the planets captured Copernicus’s interest from the start of his university studies.’

Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543), a Polish mathematician and astronomer, was the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric astronomical model of our solar system. In this book, Ms Sobel provides a biography of Copernicus together with a history of the development of his heliocentric astronomical model. Copernicus was working during a period of change in Europe: the relatively gradual move from the medieval period to the renaissance was accompanied by the more dramatic (and bloody) events of the Protestant Reformation and the Peasant Rebellion, as well as warfare with the Teutonic Knights and the Ottoman Turks.

There are three parts to this book: in Part One Ms Sobel presents how Copernicus came to his view of the cosmos; Part Two is a two act play dramatizing the few months of collaboration between Copernicus and his student Georg Joachim von Lauchen (16 February 1514 – 4 December 1574) (known as Rheticus); and Part Three presents the publication of Copernicus’s work just before his death.

‘With his book virtually complete by 1535, Copernicus lost courage. He worried that his laboured calculations and tables would not yield the perfect match with planetary positions that he had aimed to achieve.’

Understanding the times in which Copernicus lived goes a long way towards explaining why he hesitated to publish his work. Copernicus occupied a privileged but relatively precarious position as a canon at Frauenberg cathedral: privileged because of the income it afforded him but precarious because of marauding Teutonic knights and the rapidly spreading Lutheran ‘heresy’. Ms Sobel brings aspects of this hesitation to life, in the form of a play - an imagined dialogue between Copernicus and Rheticus, who met Copernicus just four years before Copernicus died.

‘No one knows what the brilliant, fervent young Rheticus said when he accosted the elderly, beleaguered Copernicus in Frauenberg. It is safe to assume he did not laugh at the idea of the earth in motion.’

Ms Sobel’s play builds on the history and background established in the earlier chapters of the work and breathes life into Copernicus and Rheticus by allowing both Copernicus and Rheticus to express their views and concerns directly. I admit that I did not expect this technique to be as effective as it was. While reading the play isn’t essential to appreciate Copernicus’s life and work, it’s interesting to speculate on the content of the conversations between the two men.
Those who want more detailed information about Copernicus’s scientific work will not find it here. Readers primarily interested in Copernicus’s life, and the period in which he lived, should find this book interesting reading. Ms Sobel includes some quotes from Copernicus’s writings which share his thoughts directly with us. We know that Copernicus documented his work extensively; I wonder how much of this documentation still exists, and where?

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Tabi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. While it was well written and overall well researched, it contained a lot of details that weren't that interesting, and I had to force myself slightely to keep reading through some of it. So I enjoyed it but wasn't crazy about it. I would recommend only for people who are trully interested in the person of Copernicus himself rather than astrology.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

My feelings about this book and the author's approach are somewhat complicated and ambivalent.  On the one hand, the book does a good job at presenting the known facts of the life of Copernicus and the way in which he was able to thrive in the morally lax and somewhat corrupt world of pre-Tridentine Roman Catholicism.  On the other hand, this book is an uncomfortable mix of fact and fiction, as the author includes an early version of her play "And The Sun Stood Still" in the middle of this book as her way of bridging the gap between what is known to have happened from documentary evidence and what may have accounted for what happened.  Likewise, the adulation given to Copernicus for his idea of the earth moving around the sun doesn't account for the fact that the sun moves around the Milky Way at high speeds and the Milky Way itself moves around a center of gravity in the complex relationship of galaxies within the local group, and the author does not discuss any of these matters of astrophysics.  This is, in other words, a generally good book with genuinely interesting content, but also a book that has a definite and not necessarily benign agenda and an uncomfortable place between fact and fiction.

The contents of this book take up a bit more than 200 pages and are divided between three parts.  The first of the book is a prelude to Copernicus' revolution in astronomy (II), with a discussion about his early life and family background and his first published work, a translation of various amorous writings (1), his brief sketch of his ideas (2), his work in dealing with the leases of abandoned farmlands in the area under the control of the diocese for whom he was a minor religious official (3), his writings on the methods minting money (4), his letter against another astronomy named Werner (5), and his efforts to deal with supply and demand for bread in the area (6).  After this comes the rough draft of the two acts of the author's play "And The Sun Stood Still (II).  The rest of the book consists of six chapters that deal with the aftermath of the publication of Copernicus' views (III) including chapters on the first account by Rheticus (who was a somewhat itinerant soul and one accused of pederasty during his teaching career) (7), the first edition of Copernicus' work and its prologue by Osiander (8), the publication of the Basel edition (9), various epitomes and tables that were used even as the main idea of the book was rejected by most (10), Galileo's writings on the two systems (11), and an annotated census of Copernicus' De Revolutionibus (12).  

When reading this book, though, it is easy for the writer to be filled with a strong sense of mixed emotions about the work.  On the one hand, it is easy to celebrate Copernicus' achievement in conceiving the heliocentric theory, but it is less easy to celebrate the immorality and corruption of his life even as one appreciates his obvious intellect and his interest in a variety of problems relating to economics and science.  The same is true of his disciple Rheticus, whose persistence in seeking out Copernicus at some risk to himself is noble and worthwhile, but whose (likely) moral failings are impossible to justify in terms of his abuse of wealth and power to gratify his own selfish and abominable lusts.  If the author appears to indicate that Copernicus' developments were to lead to a more perfect heaven, the fact that his more accurate planetary charts were mainly used by astrologers and the moral failings of most of the people involved demonstrate that no such moral improvement was happening on earth.  Perhaps the author does not think that the moral aspects matter when compared to the advances in scientific understanding, but that is not a view I am willing to endorse.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine read about Copernicus.

First and foremost, it paints a clear portrayal of the forces Copernicus faced in the Europe of his time: the tensions between Catholic and Protestant forces, small and large powers; the nature of scientific inquiry in the day; the blurred line between astrology and astronomy; and above all, Copernicus's hesitancy to publish, given fears over the public reaction.

Copernicus did his best to avoid controversy, but there was no pretty much no chance he could both publish and avoid scrutiny from the Church. He even dedicated his book to the Pope when he did finally publish his findings as he was near death. But the Bible offers a passage indicating that Joshua commanded the Sun to stand still, and only the Holy Fathers of the Church were empowered to probe the meaning of these passages. Sure enough, In 1616, a panel of theologians deemed the "quiescence of the Sun in the center of the world" to be "formally heretical" because it contradicted Scripture. They further found the heliocentric universe philosophically "foolish and absurd".

It's also amazing to imagine that only 400 years ago, the science elite in Europe still publicly believed the arrangement of the stars on the day of their birth could predict the fate of their lives. But that's the way it was.

So needless to say, it captures the spirit of the day.

Capturing Copernicus The Man was a more monumental task. His lifetime of correspondence comes down to just seventeen surviving letters. Sobel does a good job throughout to be clear about what might aspects of his character we can be more certain of, and what items we can only speculate about. The most interesting strategy the author takes on is to turn the middle third into a play, essentially the author's imagined characterization of Copernicus and interaction with others, particularly his student Rheticus. I'm still not sure how I feel about this decision, but it made for easy and somewhat memorable reading.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sobel has done extensive research as usual. Not that easy to make the life of Nicolas Copernicus interesting - the über maths geek of his time. You get the impression of a man with a fairly humdrum external life whilst in private he was meticulously calculating mathematical, astronomical truths that would alter humanity's perception of itself and our earth forever. Sobel also portrays the real fear of exposing this controversial truth against a background of religious fundamentalism that was already paranoid about the rise of Protestantism. Plus ça change. This might be a tough read without some background knowledge of Copernicus' work and the era in which he lived but a Wikipedia read should probably cover it.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Missy bought me this book for my birthday.
I really enjoyed it, even the historical fiction play that occurs in the middle of the book. (although it could have done without the scene with Franz)
I appreciate the courage that early scientists had to stand up against the Catholic church and its quest for dominance in all lives during this time period.

[Tudor Ciocarlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book about how hard the beginning of the Renaissance really was.

[Jason Golomb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dava Sobels' "A More Perfect Heaven" is a biography of Polish mathematician and astronomer Nicholas Copernicus, a history of the development of his theory of a sun-centric solar system, and an engaging look into a Europe on the cusp of transitioning from a dark and paranoid medieval society to an enlightened and brighter renaissance future.

While the focus of Sobels' work is her history of Copernicus the man, his science and mathematics, Sobels' biggest victory is her fictionalized drama of how Copernicus' only student, Rheticus, eventually convinced Copernicus to complete his work and share his theory and proofs of a sun-centric universe with the world.

I was reticent when I read that Sobel had included a dramatic play smack in the middle of her history. First, I've found plays difficult to read and couldn't imagine how it could seamlessly integrate into Sobels' work. Second...what? A play? In the middle of a history?

But it worked. It worked very well as a matter of fact. Sobels' play imagines the interactions between Rheticus, a young mathematics professor from Wittenberg, home of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, and Copernicus in Poland. There's not a lot of action in the drama, so the dialogue-focused interplay successfully blends the historical characterizations into a very believable situation. Sobel peppers the preceding chapters with enough background on medieval Europe of the time as well as the participating characters that the 75 pages or so of the play work extremely well.

Surrounding the drama, Sobel serves heaping spoonfuls of a heavily religious dark ages Poland, and medieval astronomy.

She best summarizes the dramatic events surrounding Copernicus' work: "The bold plan for astronomical reform that Copernicus conceived and then nurtured over decades in his spare time struck him as the blueprint for the 'marvelous symmetry of the universe'...He proceeded cautiously, first leaking the idea to a few fellow mathematicians, never trying to proselytize. All the while real and bloody revolutions -- the Protestant Reformation, the Peasant Rebellion, warfare with the Teutonic Knights and the Ottoman Turks -- churned around him.

There are two elements of Copernicus' being that particularly impressed me. First, he was an extraordinarily literate man. Some of the quotes that Sobel includes in her book paint him in a uniquely poetic light. He wrote, for example, "Among the many various literary and artistic pursuits upon which the natural talents of man are nourished, I think the ones above all to be embraced and pursued with the most loving care concern the most beautiful and worthy objects, most deserving to be known. This is the nature of the discipline that deal with the god-like circular movement of the world and the course of the stars."

Second, Copernicus was an extremely detail-oriented individual. If the devil is in the details, then Copernicus, who was schooled in religion and lived in a very religiously oriented society, took that term to heart. Documentation still exists with the exhaustive notations he made while tracking and diagnosing the heavens, as well as his more earth-bound pursuits as an administrator for the Polish government/church. I've read about Galileo before and have always been utterly amazed at the patience and discipline it requires to track the course of the stars and heavenly bodies over the course of years. To remain doggedly at watch every single day, through wars, illness and weather, to gather such a wealth of detailed data reflects tremendous patience, focus and perhaps more than a little obsession.

The following was written in an 1878 publication of `Popular Astronomy', "The great merit of Copernicus, and the basis of his claim to the discovery in question, is that he was not satisfied with a mere statement of his views, but devoted a large part of the labor of a life to the demonstration, and thus laced them in such a light as to render their ultimate acceptance inevitable."

Copernicus first wrote on his concept of a sun-centered universe in 1510, over 30 years before he would finally find the courage and confidence to publish his full "On the Revolutions." His initial conclusions, Sobel writes, were reached through "intuition and mathematics. No astronomical observations were required." Copernicus wrote, "All spheres surround the Sun as though it were in the middle of all of them, and therefore the center of the universe is near the Sun. What appear to us as motions of the Sun arise not from its motion but from the motion of the Earth and our sphere, with which we revolve about the Sun like any other planet." Sobel writes that "with a wave of his hand, (Copernicus) had made the Earth a planet and set it spinning."

So what was Copernicus doing between 1510 and the publishing of his great work (and his death) in 1543, and why was he unable to be part of his work's impact on the world?

The spread of Lutheranism had great impact by creating a wide religious schism, spreading fear and limiting Copernicus' comfort in publishing his work. He was a very practical man and very attuned to the tone of church and politics, and how closely connected they were. Sobel writes, "With his book virtually complete by 1535, Copernicus lost courage. He worried that his labored calculations and tables would not yield the perfect match with planetary positions that he had aimed to achieve. He feared the public reaction. He empathized with the ancient sage Pythagoras, who had communicated his most beautiful ideas only to kinsmen and friends, and only by word of mouth. Despite the decade of effort invested in the text, Copernicus eschewed publication. If his theory appeared in print, he said, he would be laughed off the stage."

So during this time, he took a whole lot of astronomical measurements. There was not an eclipse, full moon, or shift in the position of the stars that Copernicus missed and documented. He was building his case that the Earth spun, and it and the other planets revolved around the Sun.

Copernicus was also a relatively highly placed administrator in the Polish government/church. Sobel points to extant documents that show his judgements in various cases regarding local law and commerce. Naturally, everything he touched was exhaustively detailed.

He was also a well-known and respected mathematician. Pope Leo X called on theologians and astronomers to help correct the flaws in the Julian calendar that were pushing Christian holidays further and further from their traditional timeframes. Historical documents confirm Copernicus' role in helping to correct the calendar, but there exists nothing more specific.

Sobel concludes that, "He held off publishing his theory for so long that when his great book, 'On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres', finally appeared in print, its author breathed his last. Copernicus never heard any of the criticism, or acclaim, that attended 'On the Revolutions.' Decades after his death, when the first telescopic discoveries lent credence to his intuitions, the Holy Office of the Inquisition condemned his efforts...The philosophical conflict and change in perception that his ideas engendered are sometimes referred to as the Copernican Revolution."

Sobels' book is enjoyable. Her narrative approach to writing history addresses the nuanced details important in a serious work, while maintaining readability throughout. There are stretches of dry writing where Copernicus orbits the political, religious and military intrigue of Middle Ages Poland. This is a relatively minor complaint of Sobels' tightly written history. And don't fear the authors' fiction. It reads terrifically well while incorporating humor, history and believability.

[Joseph Feldman-Peterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well... I picked this book up for $2 a while ago and finally read it. I enjoyed learning about Copernicus, and the fact that the second part of the book is a play is super quirky, but I didn't like how it was written. It felt super simple, and the big concepts that the author discusses about Copernicus throughout the rest of the book such as his religious tolerance when the Bishop was persecuting Protestants seem extremely forced and basic. Maybe this is forgivable because it's a play trying to convey major aspects the author found about Copernicus.

The rest of the book is super dense, mainly regarding Copernicus's life. The author has rampant use of quotes, at times using multiple long quotes per page. I would have preferred paraphrasing way more. I bet the reason there are so many long quotations used is because the author found them interesting, and while some of them are very interesting and useful, others seem to bore, drag on, and could have been omitted or paraphrased instead.

Overall interesting read despite my criticism!

[Zlatko Dimitrioski · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read in the book that Copernicus had no idea about Aristarchus of Samos which seemed very strange to me. As a source for this claim, the author cites Owen Gingerich. However, in another book on Copernicus, it is stated that Gingerich said that Aristarchus of Samos was cited in the manuscript of De revolutionibus, but eventually Copernicus decided to delete the passage from the final version. This is a too huge a mistake for a book such as this.

[Chris Ziesler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book. It is a good companion volume to read at the same time as Arthur Koestler's The Sleepwalkers, or Owen Gingerich's The Book Nobody Read.

It provides a well-researched and thorough account of the writing of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) and particularly the partnership between Rheticus and Copernicus that resulted in that epochal book finally being published in 1543.

[Steve Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much enjoyed reading this story about one man’s unshakable conviction of his beliefs which aligned with his observations of the natural world compared to the unjustifiable convictions of the powers that be which did, and do, not. A very well written book with a brilliant 2 act play in the middle “ And the sun stood still “ ( referencing biblical Joshua) which elicited multiple chuckles. What a great read, and what a legacy.

[Almudena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Empieza denso y va mejorando. Lo mejor es la parte dramatizada que da un pequeño atisbo de la relación entre Rheticus y Copérnico. El final, sobre las distintas ediciones de De revolutionibus y la copia que llegó a manos de Kepler, muy interesante también. Por lo demás, esta autora tiene libros mejores.

[Bethany · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is weird. There are three “sections”. First is the minutiae the author could dig up about Copernicus. Basically a grocery list out of context. The second part is a stage play, where the author took a lot of liberty with conjecture. The third part is the spread of Copernicus’ ideas. The third section is the only redeeming part of the book.

[Rachel Welton · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not my cup of tea at all.The first half deals with the wrangling of the Catholic church in the 1500s and the bishops' ulcers.
Then it dissolved into a soap opera of a play peopled by caricatures with unbelievable motives. Very disappointed.
I picked this book up with an interest in science. I really haven't been rewarded.
Part 3 redeems it slightly with a followation of astronomical developments.

[Rebekah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read. The author set up the historical big picture in a way I hadn't seen before. Definitely a slant in terms of worldview, but that's her prerogative.

[Lukasz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Podczas urlopu zwiedzałem Warmie (niestety nie dotarłem do Fromborka, ale udało mi sie zwiedzić muzuem Wamii i Mazur w Olsztynie). Siłą rzeczy natrafilem na ślady Mikołaja Kopernika. Ciarki po plecach mi przechodziły jak w olsztynskim muzeum oglądałem oryginalne rękopisy autorstwa tego wielkiego odkrywcy. Bezpośrednio po zwiedzeniu muzeum zacząłem grzebać w sklepach internetowych z audiobookami. W ten sposób natrafilem na tą książkę, a raczej audiobooka. Mocno sie zdziwiłem ze dotychczas nie ukazała sie w języku polskim. To wielka szkoda. Kopernik to wazna postać historyczna. Zdziwiło mnie ze amerykańska pisarka jest autorką tak dobrej, ważnej książki o Koperniku. Ba, ciekawe ze amerykańscy pisarze tak dobrze potrafią pisać o naszym rodzimym odkrywcy a przede wszystkim zbadać jego postać, dokonania.
Dava Sobel wykonała kawał dobrej roboty pisząc tą książkę. Książka mocno mnie pochłonęła, podczas słuchania czas szybko mijał, całość napisana jest w dość klarowny, przyjazny dla odbioru sposób, zawiera mnóstwo faktów mi wcześniej nieznanych. Dodatkowym smaczkiem było to iż amerykańska lektorka wymawiała w wyraźny sposób niektóre nazwy własne w języku polskim. Chociaż autorka nie była konsekwentna w stosowaniu polskich nazw własnych. W niektórych przypadkach stosowała polskie nazwy a w niektórych przypadkach niemieckie. Stąd musiałem często sprawdzać polskie odpowiedniki nazw, szczególnie jeśli chodzi o nazwy Kulm -- Chełmno, Löbau -- Lubawa. Ale z drugiej strony na przykład "Warmia" czyli kraina geograficzna na terenie której działał Kopernik za każdym razem była wypowiadana w polskiej wersji, mimo iż istnieje łaciński czy niemiecki odpowiednik tej nazwy. Podobnie imię wujka Mikołaja Kopernika było za każdym razem wymawiane przez lektorkę po polsku (Łukasz Watzenrode).

Książka składa sie z trzech części.

W pierwszej części autorka przedstawia biografie Kopernika oraz jego dzieło na podstawie znanych źródeł historycznych, na przykład dokumentów zachowanych do dziś w archiwach Uniwersytetu Jagielońskiego, Uniwesytetu w Padwie czy Bolonii, lub też zachowanej korespondencji z biskupem Warmii czy tez innymi osobistościami. I tak dowiadujemy się o korzeniach rodzinnych Kopernika, którego rodzina pochodzi z terenów dzisiejszej Opolszczyzny z miejscowości Koperniki. Ojciec Kopernika, handlarz miedzią przeniósł się z Krakowa do Torunia. Tam założył rodzine. Jego żona pochodziła z wpływowej rodziny mieszczańskiej Watzenrode. Kopernik został sierotą dość wcześnie bo w wieku 10 lat. Brat mamy, biskup Warmiński się zaopiekował nim i jego rodzeństwem, sfinansował studia Mikołaja i zadbał o to aby Mikołaj i jego brat mieli zagwarantowaną egzystencje do końca życia. Właśnie dzieki protekcji wujka Mikołaj i Andrzej otrzymali intratne stanowiska kanoników warmińskich. Mikołaj pierwszych kilka lat po otrzymaniu pozycji kanonika warmińskiego we Fromborku nie przebywał wcale na Warmii tylko się kształcił. Studiował matematykę, filozofię, medycynę ale nie skończył tych studiów. Dopiero zdobył dyplom doktora prawa kościelnego na uniwersytecie w Farrarze.
Mikołaj po zdobyciu wykształcenia przeniósł się na Warmię. Tam oprócz funkcji kanonika pełnił funkcje lekarza, był osobistym lekarzem biskupów warmińskich. Często przemieszczał się między Fromborkiem i Lidzbarkiem Warmińskim gdzie biskup warmiński miał swoją siedzibę.
Podczas pobytu na uniwersytetach we Włoszech Kopernik "zaraził" się bakcylem astronomii. Po powrocie na Warmię sam badał niebo, prowadził szczegółowe obserwacje często nie przesypiając nocy, w dzień natomiast wykonywał zwykle obowiązki kanonika warmińskiego. Dość szybko w jego głowie sformułowała się idea heliocentrycznego porządku kosmosu. Napisał dość wcześnie rozprawę na ten temat ale jej nie publikował tylko rozpowszechnił wśród zaufanych przyjaciół. Zresztą Kopernik nigdy nie chciał publikować swojej teorii. Bał się ze się przez to skompromituje.
W między czasie w ramach obowiązków kanonika Kapituła warmińska oddelegowała Mikołaja do Olsztyna gdzie przez kilka lat pełnił funkcje administratora dóbr ziemskich kapituły. Zachowało się z tamtego czasu sporo dokumentów pisanych ręką Kopernika. Autorka szczegółowo je zbadała i opisuje je w książce. Jako administrator dóbr ziemskich Kopernik egzekwował opłaty od chłopów za uprawianie ziemi, nakładał opłaty, zwalniał w wyjątkowych przypadkach chłopów z opłaty, przydzielał pola pod uprawę chłopom. Był administratorem ale również utalentowanym ekonomem. Napisał bardzo mądre rozprawy na temat wartości pieniądza, zapobieganiu inflacji, lub tez na przykład opracował system sprawiedliwej wyceny chleba. Te fakty były mi całkowicie nie znane.
Podobnie bardzo mało wiedziałem o Warmii. Warmia była enklawą, niezależnym księstwem biskupim otoczonym przez państwo krzyżackie. Krzyżacy często plądrowali Warmię lub oblegali zamki i miasta na Warmii. Biskupskie Księstwo Warmii mocno opowiadało się po stronie Królestwa Polskiego i wielokrotnie przyrzekało wierność koronie polskiej w zamian za protekcję, szczególnie w obliczu zagrożenia ze strony krzyżaków. Kopernik szczególnie podczas kadencji administratora na zamku w Olsztynie wielokrotnie ubiegał o pomoc u króla Zygmunta Starego. Strategicznie kierował obroną zamku, z powodzeniem.
Zakon krzyżacki jednak zaczął tracić na sile, reformacja zaczęła rozprzestrzeniać się po Europie. Mistrz krzyżacki przyjął luteranizm no i złożył hołd królowi polskiemu w 1525 roku. (Zresztą wiemy o tym ze słynnego obrazu Matejki.) Sytuacja trochę się uspokoiła, przynajmniej nie było już wojny z krzyżakami. Kopernik powrócił do Fromborku i tam spokojnie prowadził sobie życie. Miał kochankę Anne. Co prawda nie miał święceń kapłańskich i do końca nie jest jasne czy musiał żyć w celibacie jednak nie spodobało się to ówczesnemu biskupowi warmińskiemu, ze nasz wielki odkrywca żyje z kobietą na kocią łapę. Świadczy o tym zachowana korespondencja między Kopernikiem a biskupem warmińskim.
To co mnie najbardziej zafascynowało w biografii Kopernika to fakt iż gdyby nie wpływ i wkład pracy innych ludzi, przyjaciół Kopernika, nigdy by nie doszło do publikacji teorii heliocentrycznej. Sam Kopernik wynoszony jest na piedestał ale gdyby nie biskup Chełmna Giese i profesor matematyki uniwersytetu Wittenbergi Rheticus Kopernik nigdy by nie opublikował swojej teorii. Szczególnie wkład Rheticusa wydaje się być dość znaczny. Sam Rheticus uznawany jest za jedynego ucznia Kopernika. Ów młody wówczas profesor matematyki z luterańskiej Wittenbergi dowiedział się o teorii Kopernika i chcąc poznać bliżej autora tej teorii na własną rękę przybył do Fromborka i tam zaczął nalegać na Kopernika aby ten kontynuował prace i w końcu ją opublikował. Rheticus w ukryciu przebywał u Kopernika (wówczas luteranie mieli zakaz przebywania na terenie Warmii) i razem z nim pracował nad wielkim dziełem które w końcu zostało opublikowane pod tytułem "o obrocie ciał niebieskich". Rheticus zadbał również o to aby dzieło zostało wydrukowane w odpowiedniej drukarni w Norymberdze specjalizującej się w drukowaniu książek naukowych. Wówczas w Europie nie istniało zbyt wiele drukarni potrafiących również drukować wykresy, ryciny etc. Trzeba również podkreślić ze w specjalistycznej drukarni w Norymberdze pracowali wysoko wykwalifikowani i utalentowani artyści którzy w drzewie wyrzeźbili ryciny Kopernika aby je później powielać na maszynie drukarskiej.
Obok profesora Rheticusa ważną role w życiu Kopernika odegrał biskup Chełmna Giese który mocno dopingował i wspierał emocjonalnie Kopernika aby ten napisał do końca swoje dzieło i zgodził się go opublikować.

Druga cześć książki to sztuka teatralna która przedstawia w fabularyzowany sposób okoliczności powstania dzieła Kopernika aż po publikacje i smierć mistrza.

Trzecia cześć książki, niesamowicie fascynująca opisuje to co miało miejsce już po śmierci Kopernika. Autorka analizuje to jak dzieło Kopernika zostało odebrane przez kościół oraz innych uczonych, szczególnie Keplera, Galileusza.

Istnieje również mit iż książka Kopernika "o obrotach ciał niebieskich" to książka której nikt nie czytał. Współczesny badacz, profesor Harvardu Gingrich zadał sobie trud i przez prawie 30 lat studiował wszystkie współcześnie dostępne egzemplarze pierwszego i drugiego wydania dzieła Kopernika których zachowało się do dziś kilkaset egzemplarzy. Okazuje się iż większość egzemplarzy bogata jest w notatki pisane przez czytelników na marginesach.

Ta książka jest według mnie niesamowicie ważna. Kopernik uważany jest za wielkiego Polaka. Ale czy on nim w ogóle był? Mało wiemy o jego życiu a prawie w każdym mieście albo istnieje szkoła imieniem Kopernika, lub osiedle a najczęściej ulica. Wszędzie gdziekolwiek tylko spojrzymy Kopernik jest obecny a tak naprawdę praktycznie nic nie wiemy o jego życiu, o tym jaką był osobą, jak kochał, jak pracował, jakich miał przyjaciół, jaki był skromny i niepewny a zarazem mądry, otwarty, tolerancyjny. Nawet w XXI wieku dla "mainstreamu" łatwiej jest wynieść Kopernika na piedestał bez bardziej konkretnego zbadania i poznania jego osoby, a przecież to wybitny człowiek pod wieloma względami.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dava Sobel, author of Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, has taken on another important figure from the Scientific Revolution, Nicholas Copernicus. Sobel's book is unique in that the most dramatic part of Copernicus' life, the writing and publishing of his work "On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres" which laid out his heliocentric theory of the solar system, is presented as a drama. It is a daring choice and it is one that works well.

Copernicus was born in Poland, educated in Italy, and worked nearly all of his life in a part of Poland that would become a part of Prussia. Officially, he was a church canon, an administrative official for a Catholic diocese. However, Copernicus was skilled in many fields. Besides astronomy, Copernicus wrote on economics, medicine, and poetry. But, astronomy was what made him famous. Even if he never knew he was going to be famous because of it.

Copernicus formulated his heliocentric fairly early in his life, but he was afraid to publish his findings. Part of this was that the idea was considered so revolutionary, that he would be subjected to ridicule. However, he spent countless nights over decades making meticulous observations. He crunched numbers. There was no doubt. The earth was moving. The sun wasn't. Nothing else made sense.

When Copernicus was in his sixties, a young German mathematician named Rheticus paid him a visit. Somehow, Rheticus was able to persuade Copernicus to publish his life work. (A bishop in a neighboring diocese had encouraged Copernicus to do the same also.)

Just how did Rheticus persuade Copernicus? We don't know for sure, but Sobel speculates in the books "interplay." For about 40 pages, Sobel inserts a brief two act play involving Copernicus, Rheticus, two local bishops, Copernicus' housekeeper (and mistress), and a bishop's young assistant (who has a homosexual dalliance with Rheticus).

While the play may seem somewhat hokey, it actually works well. The historical figures seem more alive. Sobel may create dialog, but she is not creating ideas. Copernicus indeed did have an affair with his housekeeper. Rheticus would later be run out of teaching job for improper conduct toward a young male student. Copernicus had to be talked into publishing his ideas. Rheticus had the youthful energy (and publishing connections) to publish Copernicus' work.

Copernicus suffered a debilitating stroke shortly after Rheticus left him. Legend has it that a paralyzed Copernicus received a copy of the book shortly before he died. In the end, the world benefited from the bold ideas of Copernicus and the persuasion of a young German mathematician named Rheticus.

[ManOfLaBook.com · Rating 4 out of 5]

A More Per­fect Heaven: How Coper­ni­cus Rev­o­lu­tion­ized the Cos­mos by Dava Sobel is part fic­tion part non-fiction book. The book includes a play in two acts in the middle.

It is 1514 and Pol­ish monk Nico­laus Coper­ni­cus has the ini­tial out­line for his helio­cen­tric the­ory in which he defies the norms of soci­ety and church by plac­ing the sun in the cen­ter of the uni­verse. Coper­ni­cus’ book is long and detailed, yet unpublished.

A young Ger­man math­e­mati­cian named Georg Joachim Rheti­cus comes to study under Coper­ni­cus hear­ing about his genius. Sev­eral years later the young man leaves his men­tor and tries to arrange the man­u­script to be published.

A More Per­fect Heaven: How Coper­ni­cus Rev­o­lu­tion­ized the Cos­mos by Dava Sobel is a very read­able book about reclu­sive cleric Nico­laus Coper­ni­cus. The his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive and intro­duc­tion (for me) to the Poland Coper­ni­cus lived in were very interesting.

I am fas­ci­nated by writ­ings about these super-geniuses which have changed the world we live in, stood up to norms and the effects of their dis­cov­er­ies still affect our daily lives. Part of me knows that I will never under­stand their actual writ­ings, most of it looks like Greek to me and, of course, some of it is in actual Greek.

"[T]he counter-revolution that sprang up in imme­di­ate reac­tion to Copernicus's ideas also con­tin­ues to make waves. State and local gov­ern­ments still claim the right to con­trol what can be taught of sci­en­tific the­o­ries in class­rooms and text­books. A so-called museum in the south-eastern United States com­presses the Earth's geo­log­i­cal record from 4.5 bil­lion to a bib­li­cal few thou­sand years, and pre­tends that dinosaurs coex­isted with human beings".

The author was also hav­ing fun with this book, smack in the mid­dle is a two-act play called And the Sun Stood Still which cap­tures the inter­ac­tion between Coper­ni­cus and hi stu­dent, the math­e­mati­cian Johann Joachim Rheti­cus. Before the play the author writes about Coper­ni­cus’ life before meet­ing Rheti­cus; after the play the author writes about the decline on Coper­ni­cus after Rheti­cus has left.

When I started read­ing the play I thought of skip­ping it – I’m not much for plays – but Sobel’s writ­ing man­aged to pull it off. The inter­ac­tion between Coper­ni­cus and Rheti­cus, along with the his­tor­i­cal back­ground pro­vided, actu­ally added to the book even though the author said she wanted to pub­lish the play alone. I think the author’s edi­tor made a wise choice by includ­ing the his­tor­i­cal background.

You won’t learn much about the sci­ence and math­e­mat­ics of astrol­ogy in this book. How­ever you will get a ter­rific image of the man we know as Coper­ni­cus, his strug­gle to develop his the­ory, his inter­nal strug­gles with pub­lish­ing his ideas against the norms and the church


For more reviews and bookish thoughts please visit: http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I wish I had read this book first before I read Sobel’s Galileo’s Daughter, just to be chronologically correct starting at Copernicus and then onto Galileo. But it was okay since they were relatively around the same time period.
Overall I really enjoyed this book! I had read her other book, Galileo’s Daughter, which then put me onto this book. She makes the history and the science in both these books very manageable, without boring or overwhelming the reader. I rated it a four star because (no fault of Sobel’s) compared to GD there wasn’t as much first hand material. GD has a lot of Galileo’s correspondence, and that of his peers and daughter, but unfortunately there isn’t too much of Copernicus in his own words. (Lack of letters, notes, etc) So that knocked it down a star for me.
Otherwise the book moves at a good pace, giving an extensive overview of Copernicus’s life. I liked the short two act play Sobel wrote, it was an entertaining way to imagine Copernicus and Rheticus meeting and working together. I will be reading more of her books in the future!

[Eduardo Santiago · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as enjoyable as Longitude or Galileo's Daughter. The play-within-a-play-biography gimmick didn't really work well for me. Still, four stars because I really did develop a strong feeling for that time period. It can't be easy: we live in a world where heliocentrism is a fundamental tenet, known and understood since we're old enough to say “mama.” We can't really imagine what it was like when this wasn't understood. Sobel does a great job conveying the zeitgeist.

(Side rant: Why oh why do I read books like this? Religious idiots squelching knowledge and doing their best to crush intelligent souls. I get that kind of news every day already. It's exasperating to see how little we've grown.)

[Vince · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting combination of history and fiction. Sobel covers Copernicus' life in the first 1/3 of the book and part of the last third. Most of the last third is devoted to devoted assistant Joachim Rheticus, who was largely responsible for the publication of Copernicus book 'On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres', and the astronomers who followed his work (esp. Brahe, Kepler and Galileo), and the continuing influence it has today. The middle third of the book includes a play about Copernicus written by Sobel. A seemingly odd inclusion in a non-fiction text, but it does serve to get a better feel for the times in which Copernicus lived. To get the most out of the play I recommend the audio version of 'A More Perfect Heaven' since it is capably dramatized by a fine group of audio "actors". The print version is lushly illustrated however, with many maps diagrams of the heavens and period portraits of some of the main historical personae. Like me, you may want to have access to both versions to get the most out of it.