Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus (Latin: Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish: Mikołaj Kopernik, February 19, 1473 - May 24, 1543) was a Polish polymath during the Renaissance who advocated the heliocentric model and believed that the sun was the center of the universe. Before his death in 1543, Copernicus published "On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres", which started the Copernican Revolution and made a considerable contribution to promoting the scientific revolution. Copernicus was born in Royal Prussia, a region that had been part of the Kingdom of Poland since 1466. Copernicus received a doctorate in canon law, was also a doctor, was proficient in many languages, understood classical literature, was a competent translator, served as a consul, a diplomat, and was an economist (none of the subsequent ones had academic degrees). In 1517, Copernicus summarized the quantitative theory of money, which became one of the important foundations of today's economics. In 1519, Copernicus summed up the predecessor of the theory that bad money drives out good money before Thomas Gresham.