“Rock Star” of Astronomy

The odd life and death of Tycho Brahe

Tycho Brahe was a Danish mathematician and astronomer whose work paved the way for future discoveries.

Brahe may have been history’s strangest astronomer.

A discussion about math became heated, and a duel followed.

Tycho Brahe’s nose was cut off during this duel.

http://escrime-avenir.org/cntnt/fra/fehtovanie8/fra_history/quelques_m.html

Tycho Brahe was born in Denmark in 1546 to a noble family. He was the nephew of Jorges Brahe, a sailor who gave his life in an effort to save the life of King Fredrik II of Denmark. By Unknown - Die Mark Brandenburg; Die ersten Hohenzollern,

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41002393

A strange life

Who paid the bills?

Tycho Brahe benefited greatly from Denmark’s King Fredrik II’s generous support. Brahe received an island called Hven from the king. He turned this island into his own little country. Brahe built a castle on Hven and named it Uraniborg after Urania, the goddess of the sky. He also built an observatory on the island. For over 20 years, Brahe used the island as his base from which to make astronomical observations.https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Uraniborg_main_building.jpg

Uraniborg main building from copper etching of Blaeu's Atlas Major 1663, Tycho Brahe's observatory on Hven, built ca 1576-1580date:1663 Source: Blaeu's Atlas Major Author: Blaeu

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Uraniborg_main_building.jpg

Astronomer, Astrologer and Cartographer (map maker)

As part of Tycho's duties to the Crown in exchange for his estate, he fulfilled the functions of a royal astrologer. At the beginning of each year he had to present an Almanac to the court, predicting the influence of the stars on the political and economic prospects of the year. And at the birth of each prince, he prepared their horoscopes, predicting their fates. He also worked as a cartographer with his former tutor Anders SørensenVedel on mapping out all of the Danish realm. An ally of the king and friendly with Queen Sophie (both his mother Beate Bille and adoptive mother Inger Oxe had been her court maids), he secured a promise from the King that ownership of Hven and Uraniborg would pass to his heirs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahe

Tycho Brahe's Stjerneborg from Johan Blaeu's Atlas Major, Amsterdam 1662, vol. 1 This image is a drawing by Willem Blaeuof the Stjerneborg observatory circa 1595, it is taken from an Atlas by his son, Johan Blaeu, published in 1662 in Amsterdam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahe#/media/File:Tycho_Brahe%27s_Stjerneborg.jpg

Brahe had an elk for his pet.

The elk (moose) died on a visit to

entertain a nobleman at Landskrona.

Apparently during dinner the elk drank

a lot of beer, fell down the stairs, and

died.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahe

Tycho Brahe corresponded with other astronomers of his time. Jost Burgi (top left), Nicolaus Reimers Baer (center left)and Johannes kepler (bottom left).

By User Dvoigt on de.wikipedia - http://www.ethbib.ethz.ch/aktuell/galerie/buergi/buergi.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1364332: http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nicolaus_Reimers: https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A0LEVjvnltJYiLIAsX4nnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=Johannes%20Kepler&fr=yhs-mozilla-001&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001#id=76&iurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcaravantomidnight.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F07%2FJohannes-KEPLER-Portrait-e1436484352639.jpg&action=click

He had to leave Denmark forever

In time, the king died and his son became the new king. The new king and Tycho did not get along well at all. In 1597, after some major disagreements with the king, Tycho Brahe lost the Danish king's support. So he went to Wandsbech in what is today known as Germany. Then a new offer came his way.

A new home and a new title

In 1599, Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II invited him to become his imperial mathematician.

Tycho accepted a manor house in Benatek, which today is situated in the Czech Republic. He worked there for a year, then Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph summoned him to live in Prague, where he valued Tycho’s horoscopes.

Tycho eventually settled in Prague, where he continued his astronomical observations.

In Prague, Tycho gave Johannes Kepler a job as his assistant. Together, they began working on a new star catalog, but it was slow work. The catalog was eventually published by Kepler in 1627 as the Rudolphine Tables. These were by far the most accurate astronomical data tables ever published, with planetary data and 1,006 star positions. The majority of stars were cataloged to within one arc minute accuracy, which had been Tycho’s ambition.

Tycho had left Uraniborg with a precious cargo –almost two decades worth of accurate observations of the stars and planets he and his many research workers had made there."Tycho Brahe." Famous Scientists. famousscientists.org. 19 Sep.

2016. Web. 3/29/2017 <www.famousscientists.org/tycho-brahe/>.

Proving Copernicus’ Heliocentric theory

Over a 20 year period of time, Tycho Brahe made consistent observations which supported the heliocentric theory proposed earlier by Copernicus. These observations were made using only a compass and a sextant. Brahe catalogued over 1000 stars. Sextant graphics courtesy of Creative

Commons "Tycho Brahe." Famous Scientists. famousscientists.org. 19 Sep. 2016. Web. 3/29/2017

<www.famousscientists.org/tycho-brahe/>.

Tools used by Brahe

Brahe invented many instruments such as the Tyconian Quadrant which were widely copied and led to the invention of improved observational equipment.

He did not have a telescope.

Compass and Sextant

Brahe and cometsHe also proved that

comets were not just components of Earth's atmosphere, but actual objects traveling through space. Brahe showed irregularities in the Moon's orbit and discovered a new star in the Cassiopeia formation."Tycho Brahe." Famous Scientists.

famousscientists.org. 19 Sep. 2016. Web. 3/29/2017

www.famousscientists.org/tycho-brahe/ Graphic courtesy of Creative Commons

Broken trustAn assistant of Brahe’s, Nicholas Baer,

known as Ursus, took details of Tycho’sinstruments to a rival astronomer and also seems to have stolen Tycho’s new system for the solar system before it was fully formed. Tycho expelled Ursus from Uraniborg after Ursus was caught snooping among Tycho’sbooks.

Ursus later published the work he had seen under his own name. "Tycho Brahe." Famous Scientists. famousscientists.org. 19 Sep.

2016. Web. 3/29/2017 <www.famousscientists.org/tycho-brahe/>.

A new assistant, Kepler

n 1600, Tyco Brahe hired Johannes Kepler as his assistant. Kepler was a mathematician and a theorist, rather than a direct observer. Brahe had kept many of his records hidden from Kepler for fear that Kepler might take credit for his work, as Baer had done. When Brahe died, his son-in-law took the records, but Kepler desperately wanted those so he could complete his own astronomical theories.

An astronomer and a burglarKepler (1571-1630) believed in Copernicus' picture. Having been raised in the Greek geometric tradition, he believed God must have had some geometric reason for placing the six planets at the particular distances from the sun that they occupied. He thought of their orbits as being on spheres, one inside the other. One day, he suddenly remembered that there were just five perfect Platonic solids, and this gave a reason for there being six planets - the orbit spheres were maybe just such that between two successive ones a perfect solid would just fit. He convinced himself that, given the uncertainties of observation at the time, this picture might be the right one. However, that was before Tycho's results were used. Kepler realized that Tycho's work could settle the question one way or the other, so he went to work with Tycho in 1600. Tycho died the next year, Kepler stole the data, and worked with it for nine years. He reluctantly concluded that his geometric scheme was wrong. In its place, he found his three laws of planetary motion.

http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/lectures/tycho.htm

Brahe was almost right about orbits

Tycho believed the planets circled the sun, but the sun circled the Earth. After the Danish astronomer's death and against the wishes of his surviving family, Kepler used Tycho's data to discredit Tycho's system. Kepler believed the sun was at the system's center.

"Tycho Brahe." Famous Scientists. famousscientists.org. 19 Sep. 2016. Web. 3/29/2017

www.famousscientists.org/tycho-brahe/

A suspicious deathAfter a huge meal and a lot of drinking, guests were not allowed to leave the banquet table until after the King had left. Tycho’s bladder may have burst. He suffered several days and then died. He may have used mercury as a medicine, or he may have been poisoned. No one knows.

Tycho's body has been exhumed twice, in 1901 and 2010, to examine the circumstances of his death and to identify the material from which his artificial nose was made. The conclusion was that his death was likely caused by a burst bladder, and not by poisoning as had been suggested, and that the artificial nose was more likely made of brass than silver or gold, as some had believed in his time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahe

Astronomical clocksCourtesy of Creative Commons

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

Art from Creative Commons)

Sir Isaac Newton

(25 Dec 1642 - 20 Mar 1727)

English physicist and mathematician

who made seminal discoveries in

several areas of science, and was

the leading scientist of his era.