In this series, The Week looks at the ideas and innovations that permanently changed the way we see the world. The heliocentric theory is the idea that the Sun is at the centre of the solar system and ...

Nicolaus Copernicus was born on February 19, 1473, beginning a life that would see the Renaissance mathematician and astronomer shake up theories that claimed the Earth was the center of the universe ...

Ibn-al-shatir's lunar model from which Copernicus is reported to have borrowed in composing his cosmological model. Credit: This work is in the public domain in the United States. New research has ...