Tycho Brahe (1546 to 1601) was born in Denmark to wealthy and aristocratic parents. He was a brilliant astronomer pioneering the idea that accurate observation was the secret to making improvements in astronomy. He designed special apparatus for making measurements and was meticulous in checking their accuracy. He taught Johannes Kepler who used the data gathered during Brahe’s life to publish work showing that the planets travelled in elliptical orbits. Unlike other astronomers of the time, Brahe did not just take measurements at key points in the cycle of the stars and moon but every night, for years and years. He was also the first person to take the effect of refraction through the Earth’s atmosphere into account. To put his life in some perspective, consider the following…
1510 – the first pocket watch was invented
1581 – Galileo Galilei invented the pendulum
1608 – the first true telescope was invented by Hans Lippershey
1643 – the barometer was invented by Evangelista Torricelli
1687 – Newton published his great work outlining the principles of motion and gravity that are still in use today
I only mention these dates so that you can get a sense of the state of technology at the time. The prevailing view of the cosmos was that the Earth was the centre of all things and that the Sun and stars rotated around us. Tycho was adopted by his wealthy uncle at a very young age and became his heir. According to the Brahe page on The Galileo Project website…
He attended the universities of Copenhagen and Leipzig, and then traveled through the German region, studying further at the universities of Wittenberg, Rostock, and Basel. During this period his interest in alchemy and astronomy was aroused, and he bought several astronomical instruments. In a duel with another student, in Wittenberg in 1566, Tycho lost part of his nose. For the rest of his life he wore a metal insert over the missing part. He returned to Denmark in 1570.
Yes, he had his nose cut off and so wore a metal false nose – he even had different ones for everyday and ‘best’. He was immensely wealthy. At one point his personal wealth was estimated to have been about 1% of the wealth of Denmark. He lived in a substantial castle and had one or two strange quirks. For example, he kept a midget as court jester who was required to hide under the dining table at meal times. Tycho also had a pet elk that lived in the castle with him. One day the elk was sent to visit a friend of Brahe’s on an occasion when Tycho himself could not attend. Unfortunately the elk drank a great deal of beer and died after drunkenly falling town a flight of stairs. They don’t make ’em like that any more!
He did not actually get the layout of the Solar System right, dying still believing that the Sun was in orbit about the Earth. Nicholas Copernicus suggested in 1543 that the Earth and planets orbited the Sun but Brahe was unmoved by this suggestion. Even though his observations were much more neatly explained by the Copernican explanation of the Solar System he stuck to the accepted dogma of the time. This may be an example of cognitive dissonance (in which one holds to one’s fundamental beliefs despite the evidence against it) or perhaps it was just that he was still relying on the physics of Aristotle & Ptolemy to do his calculations.
Whatever his shortcoming, he is one of my science heroes. I would like to say this is because of his meticulous attention to detail and tireless recording of data but I suspect it is for the pet elk!
Questions…
- How would you define (a) a star, (b) a planet and (c) a moon?
- Try to find out how many stars scientists think that there are in our galaxy, the Milky Way.
- How many galaxies are thought to exist within the observable Universe?
- For what is the Kepler telescope hunting?
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