Knowledge of Cosmological Questions Before Copernicus

Copernicus’s planetary models contain elements also found in the works of late medieval Islamic astronomers associated with the Maragha School, including the Tusi couple and Ibn al-Shatir’s models for the Moon and Mercury. On this basis many historians have concluded that Copernicus must have gotten his hands on these Maragha ideas somehow or other, even though no direct evidence for such transmission has been found. Let us consider the evidence as to whether Copernicus plagiarized these Arabic sources or not.

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