Copernicus Commemoration

Abstract

BUT for the War, Poland would have commemorated the four hundredth anniversary of the death of Copernicus on May 24, 1543, and the publication of “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium”, by an international gathering of astronomers and others interested in the pursuit of natural science. In Great Britain the occasion was marked by a meeting on May 24 at the Royal Institution ; the meeting was arranged by the Copernicus Quatercentenary Celebration Committee, a mixed body of distinguished Poles and fellows of the Royal Society, and was attended by the President of Poland and members of the Polish Government in London. The meeting was opened by a short address by Sir Henry Dale, president of the Royal Society, who stressed the significance of Copernicus' contribution to thought, and read a message he had broadcast to a parallel meeting which was being held in New York. Prof. Stanislaw Kot, Polish Minister of Information, then delivered an address on Copernicus, surveying the history of Poland during the Middle Ages in order to show the relation of Copernicus to movements of his times, and drawing a picture of university life at Cracow. He remarked that, before the War, books used and annotated by Copernicus were treasured among Polish historical possessions-their fate is unknown.