Today, 19th of February 2013, Google celebrates Nicolaus Copernicus' 540th Birthday. Of course, that, if he's still alive. But more importantly, we are remembering Copernicus' because of his heliocentric theory, which is one of the most important milestones of Science. Anyway, who the heck is Nicolaus Copernicus and what is the Heliocentric theory?
If you click the Google logo above, it will initiate a search query with the keyword "Nicolaus Copernicus", and according to Wikipedia, the first result page to come out, Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a comprehensive heliocentric model which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center of the universe. His epochal book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), was published before his death in 1543 and was heavily criticized and refuted by certain people in the Catholic Church due to the fact that it contradicts certain biblical scriptures like that of Job 26:7 where it says "He (God) spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing" and the biblical event in the Battle of Gibeon in the Book of Joshua where in that story, Joshua prays to God, causing the sun and the moon to stand still. Both of which seem to indicate that it was the sun that revolves around the Earth.
The publication of Copernicus' epochal book is considered a major event in the history of science. It began the Copernican Revolution and contributed importantly to the rise of the ensuing Scientific Revolution.
Copernicus is one of the great polymaths of the Renaissance. He was a mathematician, astronomer, jurist with a doctorate in law, physician, quadrilingualpolyglot, classics scholar, translator, artist, Catholic priest, governor, diplomat and economist.
