18 Seconds Before Copernicus Figures It Out

2018

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This sculpture muses on what is happening in a creative brain in the seconds just before the magic “AHA!” moment. Creative folks may have been musing on their particular problems for hours, or even years. But then, they sometimes relate a sudden feeling of an impending event, a building but silent inner roar. They don’t yet know the answer, but somehow they know that they are going to know, and soon! Has the unconscious brain figured it out, is it crosschecking against the problem to be sure, but just can’t keep a secret?

 

In the early 16th century the Earth was supposed to be the center of creation, with all the heavenly bodies travelling around it. Nicolas Copernicus saw that the story just didn’t fit what he could see and measure. “Dang!” he mused in Polish. The angle the Sun traveled, it’s path change with the seasons, and the odd retrograde motion of the planets just didn’t fit the accepted story. What was better? He just kept tossing it around in his mind. Until one day in 1514…

 

In this sculpture, the Earth, Sun and other bodies can travel various circular paths. For some paths, the Earth remains immobile at the center. In others, it moves. The possible path motions interact chaotically. The Sun can assume the center, but does not yet quite stay. There are still 18 seconds to go. Now Copernicus feels the answer coming on. He knows, “This is gonna be great!” and wonders, “How do you say ‘AHA!’ in Polish?”