One of the most important Polish scientists, next to Skłodowska-Curie.
Nicolaus Copernicus was Polish mathematician and astronomer who proposed a heliocentric system, that the planets orbit around the Sun. It was an alternative model of the universe to Ptolemy's geocentric system, which had been widely accepted since ancient times. The publication of Copernicus's model in his book “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium” (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), just before his death in 1543, was a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making a pioneering contribution to the Scientific Revolution.