Nicolaus Copernicus, born on 19 February 1473 in Toruń, Poland and died on 24 May 1543 in Frombork, Poland at age 70, was a Renaissance mathematician, astronomer and Catholic cleric who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the universe [1].
The publication of his model called the heliocentric model in his book titled, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) just before his death in 1543 is considered to be a significant contribution in the history of science which lead to the Copernicus Revolution [2].
This week, Friday, 19 February 2016 marks Copernicus’s 543rd birthday and interestingly enough, his birthday this year possesses a unique numerical property which reveals the full calendar date of his death. How so?
Note that Copernicus’s birthday number 543 coincides with the rightmost three digits of 1543, the year he died. Additionally, if 1543 is split into 1 and 543, the difference of these two numbers yields 542 (which is Copernicus’s last birthday number) and reverse of 542, namely 245, put side by side with 1543 yields 2451543 representing calendar date 24 May 1543, the day Copernicus died.
Furthermore, the sum of the prime factors of 543, which are 3 and 181, equals 184 and 5 times the reverse of 184, namely 481, result in 2405, that is, 24 May, the day Copernicus died in 1543.
Lastly, 2016 also marks the 473rd anniversary of Copernicus’s death where 473 coincide with the rightmost three digits of his birth year, 1473.
Happy 543rd birthday Copernicus!
[1] Nicolaus Copernicus, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus
[2] Copernicus Revolution, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernican_Revolution
Image by: B. E. Inan. Baris Inan just graduated from University of Portland last fall with an electrical engineering degree.
