Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń (, UMK) is located in Toruń, Poland. It was named after Nicolaus Copernicus who was born in this town in 1473. The first institution of higher education in Torun, the Toruń Academic Gymnasium was founded in 1568 on Piekary street. It was one of the first universities in northern Poland. The Academic Gymnasium was the precursor to scientific and cultural life (including the first museum created in 1594) in the region. Thanks to the efforts of Heinrich Stroband, city mayor in 1594, academics in Toruń received good working conditions for
Nicolaus Copernicus that the earth orbited the sun. Further mathematical details of Aristarchus' heliocentric system were worked out around 150 BCE by the Hellenistic astronomer Seleucus of Seleucia. Though Aristarchus' original text has been lost, a reference in Archimedes' book "The Sand Reckoner" ("Archimedis Syracusani Arenarius & Dimensio Circuli") describes a work by Aristarchus in which he advanced the heliocentric model. Thomas Heath gives the following English translation of Archimedes' text: Copernicus cited Aristarchus of Samos in an early (unpublished) manuscript of "De Revolutionibus" (which still survives), though he removed the reference from his final published manuscript. Copernicus was probably aware that