Got a spare million or two lying around?
Then maybe you’ll want to drop by Christie’s auction house and pick up an original copy of Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium.
Need I say it? Holy Haleakala!
This is the book that forever changed the world, in which Copernicus proposed a new model of the solar system where the Sun was at the center, not the Earth. I hear Galileo had something to say about that based on this book, too.
Man, how awesome would it be to have something like that? After all, I <3 heliocentrism.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Unfortunately, if I had a couple million bucks I’d have other shopping priorities than to own an old book
June 12th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
For you Thousandaires out there, I think the University of Arizona has an original copy of this as well in their special collections library. So brush up on your latin and get a plane ticket to Tucson!
June 12th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
I agree with Michelle… Other priorities PWN an old book. Besides, we already know the sun revolves around the Earth… silly BA!
No, with my million bucks, it’s off to Best Buy…
June 12th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Jacob Bronowski claimed in his Ascent of Man series that the book created a new word: revolutionary. I’m not so sure, myself, as I think the term for the political event may have already existed, but it’s a nice thought.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
If money was no object, I wouldn’t mind having that book. It’s such an important piece of history. I don’t think I’d spend my last (or only) 2 million bucks on it, but like I said, if money wasn’t an issue and I had boatloads of it.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Want!
June 12th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Hey I’m a thousandaire too! Ain’t it cool!
June 12th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
In fact, “De Revolutionibus” doesn’t put the Sun at the center. Copernicus proposed that the Sun revolves on a small Ptolemaic epicycle around the center, and then all the planets revolve around the Sun in circular orbits.
See the Wikipedia entry for “De Revolutionibus”: “Even with all of his advances, he retained the circular orbits, because of which he was forced to also retain the epicycles of the Ptolemaic system to prove his calculations correct.” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_revolutionibus_orbium_coelestium )
June 12th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
pfft. Chump change. I keep that much in my garter belt.
June 12th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Im usually not one for the tax on those poor at math, but I’m running out tonight to buy a lottery ticket. If I win a couple mil, I’m going to get this thing.
Of course, It will probably just be a $1.00 bookmark, which ill put in my reprinted copy.
June 12th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
I’m sure that the information is in Christie’s catalog. It would be interesting to know the previous owners of this copy. The astronomer and historian of science, Owen Gingerich, compiled an annotated census of all first and second extant editions of De Revolutionibus that he could find.
The story of his making the census is told in Gingerich’s book, _The Book That Nobody Read_. The title of that book comes from a remark that Arthur Koestler made is his book _The Sleep Walkers_. Contrary to Koestler’s opinion, Gingerich found that De Revolutionibus must have been well read due to all on the annotations in the copies he examined.
George
June 12th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Hopefully if it goes into private hands it will be one of those collectors who give it to a library/museum on a permanent loan basis. The Archimedes Palimpsest is a good example of this. The same benefactor is also paying for all the research.
As an aside because I belong to cat by the name of Copernicus I have some clue as to how it is pronounced and who Copernicus was. Most people I meet have no idea who he was and think his name is pronounced “Copper Knickers”.
June 12th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
BA, I agree… I want, but then put it on “loan” to a museum…
Elizabeth
June 12th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
That would be a cool book to own. I would put it on the shelf with my copy of Bad Astronomy (really should read that sometime).
June 12th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
A number of university libraries, world wide and the US, have a copy of either the first or second edition of De Revolutionibus. Scholars can examine the book by jumping through all of the standard hoops necessary to access the rare book collection.
As an appendix to _The Book Nobody Read_ Gingerich gives the location of all extant copies.
George
June 12th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Posted this link in http://www.surfurls.com .Its a social bookamrking site.
June 12th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
That beats my copy of Quomodo Invidiosulus Nomine Grinchus Christi Natalem Abrogaverit.
I love reading that to the little ones at winter solstice.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
ES, not bad. I LOL when it actually turned up on Amazon. Everything sounds better in latin.
And I always thought reading aloud in latin raised demons.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
You could try putting it on your Amazon wishlist.
June 12th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
George M,
The catalogue’s online; the listing for this little gem is right here. The provenance lists some guy named Myron Prinzmetal in the first half of C20, then Richard Green (apparently he was a big collector of scientific papers, it’s his collection on the auction block).
And there’s some other gems in there as well. There’s papers by Einstein and Turing, books by Kepler and Brahe, and even a first edition of Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, the book that brought down the wrath of the churches on Galileo (and was banned for 200 years afterward). I’d LOVE to get my mitts on that, but it’s expected to go for $60,000 to $80,000…
June 12th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Good news: Octavo.com will sell you a pdf CD of an original Copernicus for $40. Print out your own million dollar exact replica. They also have Galileo’s Siderius and Newton’s Optics. Even a hundredaire like me can own a priceless library (one off) for peanuts! Want Einstein? His collected papers are out, also exact copies or translations, your choice, but very high quality stuff, also for $40 or so…Google Caltech, home of the E. papers project. Enjoy!
June 12th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
I have an autographed copy of “The Book Nobody Read”. I never read it…
June 13th, 2008 at 1:51 am
This would be like replacing your Betamax copy of “Plan 9 From Outer Space” with a Blu-Ray. It’s just not cricket old chap.
June 13th, 2008 at 4:30 am
What?!
Heliocentrism?
Goodness, gracious me! Whatever will these pseudoscientists think up next? They’ll be telling us we all evolved from monkeys before too long… tsk, tsk.
It’s too much, ah tell thee – all too much.
–
June 13th, 2008 at 5:10 am
@shane
And I always thought reading aloud in latin raised demons.
Then you want to read Cattus Petasatus. The story of a home invasion by a chaotic entity who, with two demonic associates, creates havoc and mayhem in a house where two children are left unattended.
June 13th, 2008 at 5:11 am
My mouth is watering. One of my (many) passions is books. Old, rare, unusual, historic you name it i will rummage through antiquarian bookshops by the hour! I would kill for a copy of “Copperknickers” as my infant son once called him
June 13th, 2008 at 6:52 am
Hundredaires, Thousandaires. Too rich for my blood. Had to fill the gas tank this week.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:18 am
It’s a pity. I think every astronomer wants it, but unfortunatetly they don’t even earn enough to buy such a used, second-hand (N’th-hand?) book.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Hmmm….. I’m guessing the Catholic Church won’t be bidding on it.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:41 am
The last first edition to be publicly auctioned reached $2.4 million! My university library has a first edition and just down the road in Nürnberg where it was first published there are both a first and a second edition. The university library also has the facsimile edition of the original manuscript that was published as Vol. 1 of the complete works. The complete works also has modern translations in six different languages; the English version by Edwaed Rosen is highly recommendable and costs around $25 in paperback.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:41 am
ahh… were I to ever win the lottery I think I might consider it. (I think I would have to start playing the lottery if I wish to have any chance of it.)
Btw, with how much BA hates the Wall Street Journal I found it kind of Ironic that the two big ads on the top of the the web page were ads for the Wall Street Journal. I know that he doesn’t control the ads but still…
Btww, the above comment posted by “Gibsy on 12 Jun 2008 at 8:28 pm” Is total spam and is in dire need of deleting most promptly.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:58 am
I’m confused. I thought heliocentrism was the study of helicopters.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Please stop using emoticons that more than half of your readers do not understand.
The only meaning I could find for your work.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Please stop using emoticons that more than half of your readers do not understand.
The only meaning I could find for \ your work.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Please stop using emoticons that more than half of your readers do not understand.
The only meaning I could find for <3 was an ass being mooned.
Otherwise, I ?> your work.
June 13th, 2008 at 10:44 am
There is a great book that reveals just how profound an impact Copernicus’s book had on Galileo. I just finished reading _Galileo’s Daughter_ by Dava Sobel over the weekend. It was a fantastic read. It’s more of a biography of the great man but told really well. I was impressed with the historical research from political/military events around Europe to the intrigue of the Catholic church. Even minor things, like getting to hear about his family’s financial troubles or the details of printing a book in those times brought enlightenment. I never knew that cloistered nuns in the 17th century had to deal with money to such an extent. There are several things that really come through. The man was as devote a Catholic as you’d ever meet. The idea that he had gone against it brought him to his knees. He also had a deep desire for the truth and this legendary collision between faith and science, centered upon this one brilliant and pious man, speaks volumes about human nature. What you will not forget though is his relationship with his exquisitely minded (his words) oldest daughter Virginia who took the appropriate name Maria Celeste when she took her vows. Even though his letters to her do not survive, we have a treasure trove of her letters to him that reveal as devoted a daughter as any father could ever want. That she reveres him and dotes on him is even more incredible considering it was all done from within the walls of the San Matteo convent. From the mundane news of her fellow nuns to the huge responsibilities of taking care of Galileo’s estate and accounts while he was in Rome facing charges of heresy, she was always there for him as he was for her; ever his confidante, his guardian angel, his supporter, his devoted daughter. The author closes the story with such care and brings the relationship between the great man and his reverent daughter full circle in such a way that, like the motion of the stars he strove most of his life to reveal to the world, the soul of the reader will be forever moved.
June 13th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Andres Villarreal pleaded:
Please stop using emoticons that more than half of your readers do not understand.
“<3″ is a heart rotated 90 degrees CW, so what Phil wrote means “I (heart) heliocentrism.”
The only meaning I could find for <3 was an ass being mooned.
Now _that’s_ an interpretation I have never previously encountered . . .
June 13th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
8MinutesOld said:
“It’s a pity. I think every astronomer wants it, but unfortunatetly they don’t even earn enough to buy such a used, second-hand (N’th-hand?) book.”
There was a time that these things didn’t cost so much! Of course a first edition of De Revolutionibus will usually fetch much more at auction than a second edition. However Owen Gingerich lists himself as owning two copies of the second edition. I’m sure that Harvard hasn’t made him wealthy.
George
P.S.
Thanks to Josh for the link to Christie’s!
June 14th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Certain ancient Greeks had the concept long before C., did.
Since many of their works are now known to be on rolls used to
wrap mummies in Egypt–and since, as money accrues, these are being
taken apart, we might do even better.
Next best to having the original library of Alexandria scroll access.
Anyone want to bid on copies of Aristarchus or on the lost plays of
Sophocles?
June 15th, 2008 at 2:01 am
There was a time that these things didn’t cost so much! Of course a first edition of De Revolutionibus will usually fetch much more at auction than a second edition. However Owen Gingerich lists himself as owning two copies of the second edition. I’m sure that Harvard hasn’t made him wealthy.
A second edition auctioned recently achieved a new record of €100 000. Go back twenty or thirty years when Owen Gingerich acquired his and you will find that he only paid a couple of hundred dollars. The prices exploded in the 1990s and have been spiraling ever since.
June 15th, 2008 at 5:48 am
Copernicus did not pioneer the concept of a heliocentric solar system. Many other astronomers (from Aristotle) proposed the theory. But, Copernicus was the first to support it mathematically. See J. Repcheck, Copernicus’ Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began.
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Frankly, in the time of Copernicus and Galileo, there was nothing scientific about Heliocentrism.
Sure, evidence abounded that the planets orbited the sun. But there was NO reason to suppose that the sun didn’t, in turn, orbit the Earth, other than just a feeling of “wouldn’t it be neat if it were so!”. In fact, there was substantial evidence AGAINST an Earth orbiting the sun: No one had ever detected stellar parallax!
Tycho Brahe was probably the single staunchest voice of reason in that age. His Geocentric model featured the sun and moon going around the Earth, and the rest of the planets going around the sun. It DID require the Earth to rotate on its axis once every day, but this was a far less absurd notion (for its time) than the idea that the Earth hurtled around the sun once a year.
Of course, today, we HAVE detected stellar parallax, and so the heliocentric model has gotten its time in the sun (so to speak). But in Copernicus’s, Galielo’s, and even Kepler’s time, the evidence simply wasn’t there to support it.
June 24th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
If Jupiter and Saturn had formed a binary gas giant with a naked-eye visible orbit, Father Kopernik would have had a much easier time getting his theory accepted. (I plan to use that trick in a fictional system I’m writing.)
June 29th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Everyone interested in this book – or in books in general – should read The Book Nobody Read , Owen Gingerich’s wonderful history of the first and second edition copies of de Revolutionibus , along with fascinating details about the people who owned those books (like Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, etc)
What? No preview? BA, you should be ashamed.