Nicholas Copernicus

The Diagram you see above was drawn by Nicholas Copernicus around the year 1540. Now what I find remarkable about this diagram is how Copernicus was able to find out so much about the planets with the rudimentary equipment that was available to him at the time. Furthermore it is primarily through a mix of mathematics, and an unbelievable process of deductive reasoning which leads Copernicus to place the sun in the centre of the universe. Here is an example of this way of thinking. “I also say that the sun remains forever immobile and that whatever apparent movement belongs to it can be verified as due to the mobility of the earth” (page 67). It is this amazing thought process which makes Copernicus one of the top thinkers of his time.