The First Copernican: Georg Joachim Rheticus and the Rise of the Copernican Revolution

by Dennis Danielson

In May, 1539, a young, German mathematician named Georg Joachim Rheticus traveled hundreds of miles across Europe in the hopes of meeting and spending a few days with the legendary astronomer, Nicolas Copernicus, in Frombork, Poland. Two and a half years later, Rheticus was still there, fascinated by what he was discovering, but largely engaged in trying to convince Copernicus to publish his masterwork― De revolutionibus ( On the Revolutions of the Heavens ), the first book to posit that the sun was the center of the universe. That he was finally able to do so just as Copernicus was dying became a turning point for science and civilization. That he then went on to a legendary career of his own―he founded the field of trigonometry, for example―will be one of the many surprises in this eye-opening book, which will restore Rheticus to his rightful place in the history of science.

Genres: History, Science, Nonfiction, Biography, Astronomy

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

A clear and well-written biography of one of history's greatest astronomers. Danielson does a good job getting what must have felt like blood from a stone, given the paucity of his sources at times. There are points where it feels like he's too much in love with the subject to be completely impartial; on the other hand, he doesn't shy away from or sensationalize the scandal that nearly ruined Rheticus' career. As someone who had never heard of Rheticus until I started doing research for a grad school paper comparing Rheticus to Asa Gray (two Christians who defended to their deaths the unconventional scientific ideas of their friends, Copernicus and Darwin, respectively), this was an invaluable resource.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting account of Copernicus' only student, but too dumbed down. It's written on a high-school level. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it took a lot away from it for me.

[John Gough · Rating 5 out of 5]

Danielson's scholarly exploration of the epoch-making achievement of Nicholas Copernicus, and his young assistant and encourager, Georg Rheticus is very highly recommended.
I first encountered these two brilliant minds as a teenager in the mid-1960s when I read Arthur Koestler's near-encyclopedic history of Western Astronomy -- "The Sleepwalkers" -- so-called because the discoveries and breakthroughs occurred while the scientists, mathematicians, and astronomers did not fully understand what their celestial observations really meant, and because their crucial observations necessarily occurred at night.
Koestler traces this history from the Ancient Babylonians and Greeks, through Ptolemy, the Greek mathematician and scientist, the utterly unhelpful insistence on using "pure" circles as the model for planetary orbits (because the Heavens are ideal and pure, and Plato thought circles were great and spheres were even better), and the breakthrough Copernicus made, placing the Sun at the centre of the Celestial (Solar) System, with the Earth revolving around the Sun.
The long insistence that the Earth was the centre of the (geocentric) universe, endorsed by the dogma of the Catholic Church on pain of excommunication (!), or death by burning at the stake (!!), willfully ignored the fact the several of the Ancient Greek scientists had established that the Earth had the shape of a sphere (approximately), and that the Earth revolved around the Sun, and that they had ways of estimating the size of the Earth, and how far the Moon was from the Earth.
At risk of being persecuted by the Catholic Church, Copernicus honed his revolutionary theory of a heliocentric celestial system, while hiding it, until he was close to dying of old age, and finally willing to take the risk of publishing, putting his new theory in very cautious and religiously respectful words.
Koestler told this story, along with that of Rheticus, and Malanchthon (Rheticus's older master), and also how Johannes Kepler confirmed and improved Copernicus's theory (which used circular orbits) by establishing that the orbits of the Earth and the other planets, and the Moon, were elliptical. In doing this, Koestler relied on the extremely accurate observations and measurements Rheticus had made of the orbiting positions of the planets -- observations and measurements that established principles of trigonometry, the decimal system, and the computational tables that helped astronomers and mathematicians make extremely complicated, accurate calculations.

Anyone who has read Danielson would also find a great deal more to read and learn, and marvel over, in Koestler's monumental history, "The Sleepwalkers".
Dava Sobel is another fine modern historian of this subject -- one that includes the genius of Galileo, and his daughter, and Isaac Newton, and many others!
John Gough -- jagough49@gmail.com -- formerly Deakin University, Melbourne: retired

[Ainiah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personally I felt it was a good insight into the life of the man who made Copernicus famous.
Neither overbearing nor oversimplified, it placed enough emphasis on others who influenced Rheticus as well as gave snippets of his personality. It's interesting to see how even such an intelligent man can be so flippant when it comes to dedication to his work. Still, his dedication to Copernicus is what brought him name and propelled him to work further on triangles which would prove useful for years to come.
Not a bad read.

[Guy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Clearly and lucidly written, this book makes as much as it can out of its subject, who was influential in his time far beyond his relative obscurity today. It could have developed the intellectual and historical context better, though.

[Alfred · Rating 4 out of 5]

A worthwhile read.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entrancing. A must read in my opinion.