The four small mythic elements dealing with Copernicus contribute to a much larger myth that has little to do with him. The grand popular myth is that modern science exposes the way things “really are,” as opposed to the mistaken character of appearances. According to this grand myth, the “reality” is that the earth moves, and only falsely “appears” to be unmoving. A solid-looking table is mostly empty space19 between elementary particles, and only falsely appears to be solid. A rainbow is really