Golden Monument

This monument, dedicated 50 years ago, in Philadelphia, honors Nicolaus Copernicus, an astronomer who placed the Sun at the center of the universe instead of Earth, five centuries ago. Kopernik is a 12-foot stainless-steel sculpture. It uses the astronomer's original Polish name, Mikolaj Kopernik. It was commissioned by a group of Polish-Americans to honor his 500th birthday. Created by Dudley Talcott, it features a 16-foot ring, which represents Earth’s orbit around the Sun; a disk inside the ring, which is the Sun beaming its light into the cosmos; and a connecting triangle, representing the astronomical instruments of the day. The sculpture is still on display. [Smallbones/Wikipedia]