The Copernican World Congress will be held in Toruń, Olsztyn, and Kraków in 2023, on the astronomer’s 550th birthday. The official opening of the congress is scheduled for February 19 in Toruń – on the 550th birthday of Nicolaus Copernicus. Krakow will be a meeting place between May 24-26. As announced, prominent philosophers and economists will do lectures at Wawel Castle. Currently, the organizers are detailing the assumptions of the congress and establishing cooperation with institutions interested in this undertaking.
The main topics at the congress in Krakow will be philosophy and economics.
“We have already invited all interested parties to open meetings.”, said the chairman of the scientific council of the event, Ph.D. Jarosław Górniak, Vice-Rector of the Jagiellonian University for Development.
Several dozen speakers from all over the world will participate in the Krakow part of the congress. The event near Wawel will be preceded by Copernican debates on November 28.
The sessions in Olsztyn will be devoted to the biography of Copernicus, taking into account his education and the Warmian period. The Toruń part of the congress will bring together cultural scientists, literary scholars, art historians, historians of astronomy and medical sciences.
The letter of intent signed on Friday at Collegium Maius of the Jagiellonian University is a declaration of readiness to cooperate in the organization of the celebration of the 550th anniversary of the birth of Nicolaus Copernicus. The signatories of the document are: Rector of the Jagiellonian University, Ph.D. Jacek Popiel, member of the board of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship Iwona Gibas, Marshal of Małopolska Witold Kozłowski, Rector of AGH Ph.D. Jerzy Lis, Rector of UEK Ph.D. Stanisław Mazu,r and the vice-president of Krakow Jerzy Muzyk.
Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Toruń in 1473 and died in 1543 in Frombork. He studied at the Krakow Academy (today the Jagiellonian University). Probably he was also ordained priest at that time. He continued his studies at Italian universities.
He became famous as the one who “stopped the sun, moved the earth”. The heliocentric theory, assuming that the Sun is the center of the Solar System and the planets revolve around it, was presented in the work “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium” (English translation: “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”)
In addition to astronomy, Copernicus was involved in medicine, law, economy and administrative work, incl. establishing more villages near Olsztyn and giving the peasants land. He was a canon of Warmia.