Copernicus – The Renaissance man

Chapter III

„Whatever this great man touched, it bears the stamp of his creative mind”

Jan Śniadecki

Witaj! Opowiem Ci dzisiaj o tym co Mikołaj Kopernik robił oprócz

obserwowania gwiazd. A trochę tego było.

Sam się o tym przekonasz!

In Poland, the 16 th century is the epoch of the Renaissance. The basic message of this period concerns the

renaissance of science and And a new outlook

on a human being.

The reform of the calendar

In answer to the appeal of Lateran Coucil, Nicholaus Copernicus compiled the project of his own calendar and sent it to Rome.

His stay in Olsztyn

During the last war between Poland and Tuetonic Knights, Niccholaus Copernicuc eficiently conducted the defence of Olsztyn. On this occasiom, he could use his knowledge from many disciplinces of science such as mechanics technology and engineering. Full of enthusiasm, he started to fortify Olsztyn. He was gathering the needed nfood, artilery and ammunition.

Nicholaus copernicus cooperation in compiling the map of the Polish Kingdom

and Lithuenia.

In the forst half of the 16th century the renowned, Polish cartographer B. Wapowski compiled the map of Poland to a scale 1:1000000. We will tell ypu about this map later on. At work on this map Wapowski took advantage of N. Copernicus help who provided him with a lot of information concerning the northern and eastern part of Poland.

N. Copernicus and many scholaris, first ofon from the Academy in Cracow, provided the pioneer of Polish cartography with the results of their astronomical measurments that let him calculate the valitude and longitude of many places.

The reform of the monetary system.

Copernicus was also interested in economic issues and his project of the reform olf the monetary system, in the year 1517, was the result of his research in this field. The memorial to this issue was submitted to the regional Prussian council that was held in Toruń in the year 1519.

In the year 1526, this memorial was expanded and prescuted in the form of a treatise entitled: „about the way of minting a can” by Ludwik Decjusz. But earlier, in the year 1522 at the congress of the Prussian States in Grudziądz, copernicu presented his own treatise on the reform of a Prussian coin.. The basic principles of the monetary reform based on the project of the inprovement of a coin and the unification of a Prussian and a Polish coin. Were formulated in it. N. Copernicus also formulated the economic lawaccording to it – „warse money discaples the better one”.

Later on this law was called the law of Gresham. Many historians credit th ediscovery of this law to him and some to Copernicus

The law of Copernicus - Gresham

The law of Copernicus – Gresham, it is a principle that says: if there are

simultaneonsly two kinds of money egnivalent in terms of the law and one of them is

perceived as a better one this „better one” will be accululated and as a result of it in a

cursency it will remain mainly this „worse one”.

To cut a long Stay Short „worse money displaces this better one”

The theory of Copernicus

If inside a huge circle rolles without a slide the lenght of the radius twice smaller than the lenght of the radius of a huge circle so any but a fixed point of a smaller circle moves along the diameter of a huge one.