Copernican principle

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The Copernican principle is the philosophical statement that no "special" observers should be proposed. The term originated in the paradigm shift from the Ptolemaic model of the heavens, which placed Earth at the center of the Solar system because it appears that everything revolved around Earth. Nicolaus Copernicus demonstrated that the motion of the heavens can be explained without the Earth (or anything else) being in the geometric center of the system, so the assumption that we are observing from a special position can be dispensed with.

The philosopher Kant used the expression "Copernican revolution" to describe the effect that his critical method would have on contemporary epistemological thinking. The conditions and qualities he ascribed to the subject of knowledge placed man at the centre of all conceptual and empirical experience, and overcame the rationalism-empiricism impasse, characteristic of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Copernican principle is the main principle of cosmology. As applied to the Universe it states that neither our place in the Universe nor orientation (of Solar system) nor our time is in any way special. Thus, Universe as a whole is considered to be translationary symmetric in space, time and direction. After discovery of dark matter and dark energy (as dominating universe's matter and energy) Copernican principle can be extended to include "our kind" of matter and "our kind" of energy in it.

See also

• Anthropic principle
• Cosmological principle
• Doomsday argument
• Mediocrity principle
• Scientific revolution
• Subject-object problem
• Copernican federalism

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