NICOLAUS COPERNICUS

ABHINAV 01
ARYAN JAIN 03
KRISHNA 08
PIYUSH 12
SAI HARSHITH 15
SAKET 16
SHREYA 18
VARSHINI 23
Born 19 February 1473
Toruń (Thorn),
Royal Prussia,
Kingdom of Poland

Died 24 May 1543 (aged 70)

Frombork (Frauenburg),
Prince-Bishopric of Warmia,
Royal Prussia, Kingdom of
Poland

Education •University of Kraków (1491–95)

•University of Bologna (1496–1500)
•University of Padua (1501–03)
•University of Ferrara (DCanL, 1503)

Known for Heliocentrism
Quantity theory of money
Gresham–Copernicus law
 EARLY LIFE
Nicolaus Copernicus’ father was a merchant from Kraków and his mother
was the daughter of a wealthy Toruń merchant.Nicolaus was the youngest
of four children. His brother Andreas (Andrew) became
an Augustinian canon at Frombork (Frauenburg). His sister Barbara, named
after her mother, became a Benedictine nun and, in her final
years, prioress of a convent in Chełmno (Kulm); she died after 1517. His
sister Katharina married the businessman and Toruń city councilor Barthel
Gertner and left five children, whom Copernicus looked after to the end of
his life. Copernicus never married and is not known to have had children,
but from at least 1531 until 1539 his relations with Anna Schilling, a live-
in housekeeper, were seen as scandalous by two bishops of Warmia who
urged him over the years to break off relations with his "mistress“
 EDUCATION

 Upon his father's death, young Nicolaus' maternal uncle, Lucas Watzenrode

the Younger (1447–1512), took the boy under his wing and saw to his
education and career. Watzenrode maintained contacts with leading
intellectual figures in Poland and was a friend of the influential Italian-
born humanist and Kraków courtier, Filippo Buonaccorsi. There are no
surviving primary documents on the early years of Copernicus's childhood
and education.Copernicus biographers assume that Watzenrode first sent
young Copernicus to St. John's School, at Toruń, where he himself had
been a master.Later, according to Armitage, the boy attended the Cathedral
School at Włocławek, up the Vistula River from Toruń, which prepared
pupils for entrance to the University of Kraków, Watzenrode's alma mater
in Poland's capital.
 HELIOCENTRIC THEORY
 Sometime between 1508 and 1514, Nicolaus Copernicus wrote a short astronomical
treatise commonly called the Commentariolus, or “Little Commentary,” which laid
the basis for his heliocentric (sun-centered) system. The work was not published in
his lifetime. In the treatise, he correctly postulated the order of the known planets,
including Earth, from the sun, and estimated their orbital periods relatively
accurately.
 For Copernicus, his heliocentric theory was by no means a watershed, for it created
as many problems as it solved. For instance, heavy objects were always assumed to
fall to the ground because Earth was the center of the universe. Why would they do
so in a sun-centered system? He retained the ancient belief that circles governed the
heavens, but his evidence showed that even in a sun-centered universe the planets
and stars did not revolve around the sun in circular orbits. Because of these
problems and others, Copernicus delayed publication of his major astronomical
work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri vi, or “Six Books Concerning the
Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs,” nearly all his life. Completed around 1530, it
was not published until 1543–the year of his death.
QUANTITY THEORY OF MONEY
 Monetary economics is a branch of economics that studies different theories of
money. One of the primary research areas for this branch of economics is the
quantity theory of money. According to the quantity theory of money, the
general price level of goods and services is proportional to the money supply
in an economy. While this theory was originally formulated by Polish
mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus in 1517, it was popularized later by
economists Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz after the publication of their
book, "A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960," in 1963.
 According to the quantity theory of money, if the amount of money in an
economy doubles, price levels will also double. This means that the consumer
will pay twice as much for the same amount of goods and services. This
increase in price levels will eventually result in a rising inflation level;
inflation is a measure of the rate of rising prices of goods and services in an
economy.
 GRESHAM’S LAW
 Under Gresham's Law, "good money" is money that shows little difference between its
nominal value (the face value of the coin) and its commodity value (the value of the metal of
which it is made, often precious metals, nickel, or copper).
 In the absence of legal-tender laws, metal coin money will freely exchange at somewhat
above bullion market value. This may be observed in bullion coins such as the Canadian Gold
Maple Leaf, the South African Krugerrand, the American Gold Eagle, or even the silver Maria
Theresa thaler (Austria) and the Libertad (Mexico). Coins of this type are of a known purity
and are in a convenient form to handle. People prefer trading in coins rather than in
anonymous hunks of precious metal, so they attribute more value to the coins of equal weight.
 The price spread between face value and commodity value is called seigniorage. As some
coins do not circulate, remaining in the possession of coin collectors, this can increase demand
for coinage.
 In Gresham's day, bad money included any coin that had been debased. Debasement was often
done by the issuing body, where less than the officially specified amount of precious metal was
contained in an issue of coinage, usually by alloying it with a base metal. The public could
also debase coins, usually by clipping or scraping off small portions of the precious metal, also
known as "stemming" (reeded edgeson coins were intended to make clipping evident). Other
examples of bad money include counterfeit coins made from base metal. Today all circulating
coins are made from base metals, known as fiat money.