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Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus Quotes

Mathematician

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Famous Nicolaus Copernicus Quotes

“Yet the widespread planetary theories, advanced by Ptolemy and most other astronomers, although consistent with the numerical data, seemed likewise to present no small difficulty. For these theories were not adequate unless they also conceived certain equalizing circles, which made the planet appear to move at all times with uniform velocity neither on its deferent sphere nor about its own epicycle's center.”

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Author:Nicolaus Copernicus
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“So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it.”

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Book:Three Copernican treatises: the Commentariolus of Copernicus, the Letter against Werner, the Narratio prima of Rheticus
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“I can easily conceive, most Holy Father, that as soon as some people learn that in this book which I have written concerning the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, I ascribe certain motions to the Earth, they will cry out at once that I and my theory should be rejected.”

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Book:Prefaces and prologues to famous books
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