When Nicolaus Copernicus looked up at the sky 500 years ago, his strong sight was his main tool for observation. He also used special instruments: a quadrant, a wooden parallax triangle and an armillary sphere. Today, we can observe the night sky through huge telescopes, check constellations in mobile apps, and analyse sky illustrations in planetariums.
All this is possible thanks to smaller and bigger scientific advances. Ground-breaking advances that have turned our knowledge of the world upside down are now called Copernican or scientific revolutions. The core idea of the Polish astronomer – putting the Sun at the centre of our planetary system – took many years to officially become the universally recognised foundation of modern science.
Copernicus’ revolution is a show celebrating the 550th birthday of this Polish astronomer. It begins with a simple presentation of the sky and a reconstruction of the former Ptolemy’s model and then depicts the model proposed by Copernicus. The movie also looks at Jan Matejko’s "Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversation with God" painting with a detective’s eye, and takes a close look at the Solar System to consider what secrets it hides from us and what remains to be discovered by contemporary “Copernicuses”.
Copernicus’ revolution is prefaced with a live show conducted in Polish.
