Physician, lawyer, church administrator, and part-time astronomer, the late Copernicus is sure to astound his contemporaries as he argues that the Earth revolves around the sun. For the most part a technical mathematical work, this simple and elegant explanation of the retrograde motions of the planets may eventually win converts. The author warns readers untrained in geometry to stay away. 1543.

Additional information can be found at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1543copernicus2.html and http://www.bj.uj.edu.pl/bjmanus/revol/titlpg_e.html.

Available from Science News Books. Johns Hopkins, 452 p., paperback, $24.95.

From Science News, Vol. 156, No. 25 & 26, December 18 & 25, 1999, p. ii. Copyright © 1999, Science Service.