Best Selling Books by Nicolaus Copernicus

The Ptolemaic system of the universe, with the earth at the center, had held sway since antiquity as authoritative in philosophy, science, and church teaching. Following his observations of the heavenly bodies, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) abandoned the geocentric system for a heliocentric model, with the sun at the center. His remarkable work, On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres, stands as one of the greatest intellectual revolutions of all time, and profoundly influenced, among others, Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton.

In 1973, on the 500th anniversary of Copernicus''s birth, the Polish Academy of Sciences announced its intention to publish all of the astronomer''s extant works, both in their original Latin and in modern translations. Here, available for the first time in softcover, are Edward Rosen''s authoritative English translations and commentaries.

Includes "Commentariolus," Copernicus'' hypotheses for heavenly motions; "Narratio Prima," popular introduction to Copernican theory; and "The Letter Against Werner," refutation of the views of a contemporary. Extensive editorial apparatus.

"Commentariolus", from Nicolaus Copernicus. Nicolaus Copernicus, Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at its center (1473-1543)

New to Penguin Classics, the astonishing story of the Copernican Revolution, told through the words of the ground-breaking scientists who brought it about In the late fifteenth century, it was believed that the earth stood motionless at the centre of a small, ordered cosmos. Just over two centuries later, everything had changed. Not only was the sun the centre of creation, but the entire practice of science had been revolutionised. This is the story of that astonishing transformation, told through the words of the astronomers and mathematicians at its heart. Bringing together excerpts from the works and letters of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Newton and others for the first time, The Dawn of Modern Cosmology is the definitive record of one of the great turning points in human history. Edited with Translations, Notes and an Introduction by Aviva Rothman