Mikołaj Kopernik a zasada względności ruchu

Abstract

This paper deals with the principle of relativity of motion within the theory of Copernicus. The author of “De revolutionibus” did not discover that the motion of an object is relative – which means that it has to be described in a given system of reference, for it can move in one system and stay still in another. The principle of relative motion was widely known before Copernicus, but nobody before him used this principle so skillfully to explain the apparent movement of heavenly bodies. The unquestionable merit of Copernicus was to predict all the consequences of sliding the system of reference from the Earth to the Sun, what makes the very core of the so called Copernican revolution. In this article it is argued, that the principle of the relativity of motion played a very important role in the course of this revolution. In the first part of the text the problem of the system of reference is sketched; in the second part – the formulation of the principle of relative motion within the writings of Copernicus is discussed; in the last one – some consequences of this principle which are noticed in De revolutionibus are presented.