[107] Ibid: II, 58-9.
[108] Rheticus: Narratio Prima.
[109] Prowe: II, 56.
[110] Copernicus: Dedication, 5-6. See [Appendix B].
[111] For a translation of this dedication in full, see [Appendix B].
In the original MS. occurs a reference (struck out) to Aristarchus of Samos as holding the theory of the earth's motion. (Prowe: II, 507, note.) The finding of this passage proves that Copernicus had at least heard of Aristarchus, but his apparent indifference is the more strange since an account of his teaching occurs in the same book of Plutarch from which Copernicus learned about Philolaus. But the chief source of our knowledge about Aristarchus is through Archimedes, and the editio princeps of his works did not appear till 1544, a year after the death of Copernicus. C.R. Eastman in Pop. Sci. 68:325.
[112] Delambre: Astr. Mod. pp. xi-xii.
[113] As the earth moves, the position in the heavens of a fixed star seen from the earth should differ slightly from its position observed six months later when the earth is on the opposite side of its orbit. The distance to the fixed stars is so vast, however, that this final proof of the earth's motion was not attained till 1838 when Bessel (1784-1846) observed stellar parallax from Königsberg. Berry: 123-24.
[114] Commentariolus in Prowe: III, 202.
[115] Holden in Pop. Sci., 117.