Copernicus

Famous astronomer Copernicus (1473-1543) was a quiet and solemn academic. His curiosity for astronomy gradually grew to be his primary interest. He carried on his investigations quietly and alone, without any help or consultation. A hundred more years were to pass before the invention of the telescope, so he made his celestial observations with his bare eyes.

For relaxation purposes, Copernicus liked to paint and translate Greek poetry into Latin. Whenever he needed a break from all the painting and translating, he juggled. It was during one of his juggling sessions that he got the inspiration for his great masterpiece: The Revolutionibus.

Copernicus was in a trance while he observed the juggling balls spinning and moving around each other. He wasn’t thinking, he was experiencing pure juggling. This phenomenon is currently known as 'auto-pilot juggling’. In the 15th century, a time when airplanes did not yet exist, it was called: 'being in a trance and observing your juggling balls spinning and moving around each other without thinking'. 

Then one moment, Copernicus had an epiphany about the scheme of our universe and planetary system. In 1543, Copernicus completed and gave to the world his great work The Revolutionibus, which asserted that the earth rotated on its axis once daily and traveled around the sun once yearly; an extraordinary concept in those times.

Copernicus is said to be the founder of modern astronomy, but foremost... he was a juggler.