Tycho Brahe

Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) was a Danish astronomer who was best known for developing astronomical instruments and measuring and fixing the positions of stars.[1][4] His observations, the most accurate possible before the invention of the telescope, included a study of the solar system and accurate positions of more than 777 fixed stars.[1] Tycho Brahe was a larger than life aristocratic astronomer whose observations became the foundation for a new understanding of the solar system and ultimately gravity.[2]

Early Life and Family Background

Tyge Brahe was born on 14 December 1546 in Skåne (aka Scania, modern Sweden), which was then ruled by the Danish Crown.[7] Tycho's parents were Otte Brahe and Beate Bille.[10] He had a twin brother who passed away after his birth. In addition, Tycho Brahe had two sisters; Kristine Brahe (older sister) and Sophia Brahe (younger sister).[10]

Something rather remarkable happened to Tycho in his second year of life – he was kidnapped by his uncle and aunt, Jørgen Brahe and Inger Oxe, when his parents were away from home. Tycho's uncle and aunt were childless, and they believed that Jørgen was entitled to a lawful son and heir to his estates. Tycho's natural parents eventually agreed to this, so Tycho was raised by his uncle and aunt as if he were their own son.[2] Jorgen Brahe and his wife Inger Oxe had no children of their own, and they acted as foster parents to Tycho until Jorgen's death. Jorgen Brahe, like his brother Otte Brahe, was a leading Danish noble while Inger Oxe was the sister of Peder Oxe who was a member of the Rigsraads, the governing council consisting of 20 advisors to the King.[5]

Education and Early Influences

In fact Tycho benefited most on the educational side from his foster mother Inger Oxe who had scholarly interests as did other members of her family, while the Brahes and the Billes had little time for scholarly pursuits.[5] However, Tycho's foster mother, Inger, had come from an academic family and she persuaded her husband that Tycho should receive an academic education. Tycho began school aged six or seven, a grammar school where he probably learned the classical languages, mathematics, and the Lutheran religion.[2]

Around 1552, his uncle was given command of Vordingborg Castle to which they moved, and where Tycho began a Latin education until he was 12 years old. On April 19, 1559, Tycho began his studies at the University of Copenhagen. There, following the wishes of his uncle, he studied law among other subjects, including astronomy.[9]

Such a prediction seemed audacious and marvelous to a 14-year-old student, but when Tycho witnessed its realization he saw and believed—the spark was lit—and, as his many later references testify, he never forgot the event.[1] His subsequent student life was divided between his daytime lectures on jurisprudence, in response to the wishes of his uncle, and his nighttime vigil of the stars. The professor of mathematics helped him with the only printed astronomical book available, the Almagest of Ptolemy, the astronomer of antiquity who described the geocentric conception of the cosmos.[1]

In 1562 Tycho's uncle sent him to the University of Leipzig, where he studied until 1565.[1] Tycho attended the University of Copenhagen, where he studied law before moving to Germany, where he continued his studies at the universities of Wittenberg, Leipzig, and Rostock, amongst others. 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.[7][8]

The Duel and Prosthetic Nose

In 1566, 20-year-old Brahe fought a fellow student in a duel over who was the better mathematician. As a result, he lost a large chunk of his nose.[6] He got himself into a duel with a fellow student in Germany, and although he survived the encounter, most of his nose did not. For the rest of his life, Tycho wore an artificial nose made of metal – brass for everyday use but with a more resplendent version made of silver coming out on special occasions.[7]

Professional Development and Astronomical Career

Tycho's reputation as an accomplished astronomer rose quickly, primarily through his observations of and writings on the 1572 novae in Cassiopea, and of the 1577 comet.[4] While he improved paper manufacturing technique, producing papers in nearby mill, he also continued to watch the sky, discovering a new star on11 November 1572. After continuously watching it he published a paper in the following year, becoming instantly famous.[3]

Tycho demonstrated, perhaps more convincingly than anyone before him, the falsity of the Aristotelian doctrine of the immutability of the Heavens, and of the Aristotelian theory of comets as an atmospheric phenomenon taking place in the sublunar sphere.[4] His observations of the 1577 comet led him to reject the Aristotelian belief in crystalline celestial spheres, as the comet's trajectory proved that planets and celestial bodies moved through space freely.[17]

Frederick II of Denmark and Royal Patronage

On May 23, 1576, the Danish King Frederick II granted Tycho the island of Hven, east of Copenhagen, by royal decree and an annual stipend to further his astronomical research. Tycho used his independence and financial security to establish the Uraniborg Observatory on the island.[4] His most significant contribution was his patronage of Tycho Brahe, whom he provided with the island of Ven to establish Uraniborg, one of the most advanced observatories of the period.[11]

Uraniborg, observatory established in 1576 by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. It was the last of the primitive observatories in that it antedated the invention of the telescope (c. 1608); and it was the first of the modern observatories in that it was completely supported by the state and produced the first organized, extensive array of dependable data in astronomical history, including a catalog of more than 1,000 stars.[12]

At Uraniborg, Tycho carried out his observations for around 20 years. He made a variety of new instruments to help him in his work, ran his own printing press and educated and trained upcoming astronomers from around Europe.[6] Uraniborg employed over thirty assistants during its operation, including family members, students, and hired scholars from across Europe, with the total number reaching around sixty individuals over the two decades of its existence. These personnel encompassed a diverse range of roles essential to the observatory's multifaceted activities, such as astronomical observers who manned instruments during nightly sessions, calculators who processed observational data into mathematical models, instrument makers who constructed and maintained the large brass quadrants and sectors, and alchemists who conducted experiments in the subterranean laboratories.[13]

The death of King Frederick II on April 4, 1588, ushered in a period of uncertainty for Uraniborg, as his eleven-year-old son Christian IV ascended to the throne under a regency council. While Frederick had provided generous patronage, including annual stipends and feudal privileges over the island of Hven, Christian IV's administration pursued policies to curtail noble influence, viewing Brahe's semi-autonomous fiefdom and luxurious observatory as emblematic of aristocratic excess.[13]

Personal Life

By marrying a peasant's daughter, named Kirstine, in 1573, Tycho—as a nobleman's son—scandalized most of his contemporaries. He seldom mentioned her in his extensive correspondence (which still exists), and it is probable that he was interested mainly in a companion who would superintend his household without being involved in court functions and intrigues. Tycho and Kirstine had eight children, six of whom survived him.[1]

Exile and Prague Years

However, Tycho fell badly out of grace with King Christian IV – Frederick's successor – and was forced to leave Denmark in disgrace in 1597. Soon Emperor Rudolph II of the Holy Roman Empire welcomed him in Prague and extended generous support to set up an observatory at nearby Benatky.[22] Upon losing royal support in Denmark, Tycho moved to Prague and in 1598 was appointed Imperial Mathematician to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II.[4]

Collaboration with Johannes Kepler

Tycho Brahe immediately invited the young and excellent Johannes Kepler, who came to Prague in 1600 and met with Tycho for the first time on the February 3.[20] During the first months of their time together, the pair pouted at each other, argued constantly, quarrelled frequently and finally – in a fit of anger and disappointment – Kepler walked out.[22] Brahe expected that Kepler would help him with the mathematical elaboration of his geocentric planetary system (Moon and Sun move around the earth, but the orbits of all planets are centred on the Sun). Neverheless, their famous collaboration was not so splendid and did not last for long.[20]

This took place in Prague, where the aging Brahe (he lived from 1546 to 1601) had a treasure trove of planetary observations, going back decades, but lacked the mathematical skills to use these data to find the exact orbits of the planets. The younger Kepler had the mathematical skills, but not the data. It should have been a marriage made in heaven, but for reasons that the Gilders make clear, Brahe was reluctant to part with his data, and Kepler was eager to get on with the job.[25]

Death and Legacy

Tycho Brahe suddenly died on October 24, 1601, only two years after coming to Bohemia.[20] Tycho Brahe suddenly died on October 24, 1601, only two years after coming to Bohemia. The common explanation for Brahe's death at the time—the one that Kepler himself put forth—was that at the banquet at the Holy Roman Emperor's court in Prague that Brahe attended several days before his death, Brahe desperately had to urinate but did not do so, not wanting to be leave and be impolite. This caused some sort of urinary infection which killed him eleven days later.[24]

His · tombstone is in the Týn Church on the Prague Old Town Square.[20] He was buried in the Church of Our Lady before Týn on Old Town Square and his tombstone is located near the first south pillar of the main nave.[23] The Emperor promoted Kepler to the rank of imperial mathematician. His task was to elaborate the · Rudolphine Tables - the new planetary tables based on Tycho's exceptionally accurate observations.[20]

It was only after Brahe died that Kepler, the obvious scientific heir, was able to get hold of the material he needed.[25] Johannes Kepler based his laws of planetary motion on computations with the precise data accumulated at Uraniborg.[12] This became a unique source of data which was used by Kepler for the determination of the ... discovery of the fundamental laws of planetary motion which significantly improved the Copernicus system. In 1605 he definitely decided that the · orbit of Mars is elliptical and that the Sun is placed in one of the two focal points. In 70 chapters of his large work " Astronomia nova" (published in Prague in 1609, the manuscript itself having been fully completed by 1605) Kepler deduced and formulated the first two of his famous laws of planetary motion (the third law was discovered in 1618).[20]

Scientific Contributions

Tycho's observations of stellar and planetary positions were noteworthy both for their accuracy and quantity. His celestial positions were much more accurate than those of any predecessor or contemporary.[4] Tycho was not a Copernican, but proposed a "geo-heliocentric" system in which the Sun and Moon orbited the Earth, while the other planets orbited the Sun.[4] His precise star catalog, completed at Uraniborg, listed over 1,000 stars with unprecedented accuracy.[17]

In addition to being an extraordinary character, Tycho was a brilliant astronomer, whose work was substantially more accurate than his peers. His lunar theory was the best ever devised, and he produced data for the best star catalog that had ever been compiled. His outstandingly rigorous observations enabled his one-time assistant Johannes Kepler to discover that planets move around the sun in elliptical orbits.[2]