Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance man, a mathematician, astronomer, physician, classical scholar, translator, Catholic cleric, jurist, governor, military leader, diplomat and economist. He was was the first astronomer to formulate a scientifically based heliocentric cosmology that displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. His book, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, demonstrated that the motions of celestial objects can be explained without putting the Earth at rest in the center of the universe. Once he showed that the traditional religious dogma was inaccurate and that the heavens could be understood by careful observation, many others were stimulated to pursue their own scientific investigations.Greek, Indian, and Muslim savants had published heliocentric hypotheses centuries before Copernicus, but the persecution of scientists like Galileo by the western Church had stifled European scientific progress in astronomy.
Copernicus wrote in his book, "Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if only we face the facts, as they say, 'with both eyes open'."
Excerpted and adapted from: Nicolaus Copernicus