Professor, astronomer, sleuth and author Owen Gingerich died earlier this year at the age of 93. Gingerich will long be remembered for his obsessive pursuit of knowledge about one particular book, De Revolutionibus by Nicolaus Copernicus. His obsession would lead him on a 30-year pursuit of every copy he could find to study that momentous book, and particularly the contemporary annotations he found in them. It was a journey that carried him hundreds of thousands of miles, eventually locating and examining some 600 copies of the 16th century first and second editions of the book.
Copernicus was also an astronomer though one who lived long before Gingerich. Copernicus was the first, or at least first since ancient Greek times, to propose a heliocentric solar system. This was the controversial theory that the Earth and other planets revolved around the sun, rather than the other way around. Anyone who saw the sun go around the sky everyday recognized the absurdity of this idea. Just look. Besides which, if the Earth was moving that fast, we would all fall off. However, the theory would become more than just a joke when later scientists, notably Galileo, adopted it. It conflicted with biblical descriptions, a claim that the Church found threatening. It led to Galileo spending the rest of his life effectively under house arrest. Copernicus suffered no such fate. He conveniently died just as his book was being published.
Gingerich's journey began when he viewed a copy of the great book at the Royal Library in Edinburgh. He was aware that Arthur Koestler had earlier described the book as not being read in its own time. Gingerich noticed that the Royal Library copy was heavily annotated, meaning at least one person had read it carefully. That set him out on his mission to find every other contemporary copy to see if others had actually read it too at the time.
Thirty years after his quest began, Gingerich wrote a census of all the copies he found. A few years later, he followed it up with The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus. The book's title, naturally, is a play on Koestler's earlier claim that Gingerich refuted. Gingerich discovered that many had read the book, based on all the annotations he found. While the print runs are unknown, 600 copies was not a small run in a day when few people could read, let alone understand the concepts Copernicus was describing. Gingerich's book recounts his adventures and sleuthing, including helping to identify two stolen copies. It is a combination of history, adventure, and science, an enormous source of information about one of the most important books ever written.
Gingerich had a long career and won many honors along the way. That career included 40 years on the faculty of Harvard. He impacted the lives of many students, colleagues, and family, but he will best be known for his incredibly detailed study of one book by a fellow astronomer who died almost five centuries before he was born.
