The development of astronomy since Copernicus to the present

The development of astronomy since Copernicus to the present

Astronomy before the invention of the telescope

  • Jarosław Włodarczyk
  • Institute for the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences

The publication of De revolutionibus by Copernicus in 1543 initiated a revolutionary change in the views of people on the cosmos and movement of celestial bodies, but at the beginning the process was slow.

The telescope and celestial mechanics

  • Jarosław Włodarczyk
  • Institute for the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences

The telescope was invented at the beginning of the 17th century in the Netherlands, but the use of it for astronomical observations was popularised by Galileo (1564–1642) through the publishing of Sidereus Nuncius in 1610This short book showed the reader mountains in the Moon, faint stars that formed the Milky Way and four natural satellites of Jupiter.

The nineteenth century and the birth of astrophysics

  • Jarosław Włodarczyk
  • Institute for the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences

In the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth centuries astronomy actually consisted in the studies of motions of celestial bodies from the Solar System and creating more and more accurate and extensive catalogues of stars.

Twentieth century astronomy and cosmology

  • Jarosław Włodarczyk
  • Institute for the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Today’s image of the universe and knowledge of its components owe a great deal to quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, the two fundamental physical theories that were formulated early in the twentieth century.

The history of astronomy in Poland until 1945

  • Jarosław Włodarczyk
  • Institute for the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences

The contribution of Polish scholars to the understanding of the nature of the Universe is not limited only to the achievements of minds of such stature as Nicolaus Copernicus. In the 13th century two scholars of the European caliber lived and created, who came from Silesia, but were educated in foreign institutions.