Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe, generally called Tycho for short, was a Danish astronomer of the Renaissance, known for his comprehensive and unprecedentedly accurate astronomical observations. He was known during his lifetime as an astronomer, astrologer, and alchemist. He was the last major astronomer before the invention of the telescope and has been described as the greatest pre-telescopic astronomer.
In 1572, Tycho noticed a completely new star that was brighter than any star or planet. Astonished by the existence of a star that ought not to have been there, he devoted himself to the creation of ever more accurate instruments of measurement over the next fifteen years. King Frederick II granted Tycho an estate on the island of Hven and the money to build Uraniborg, the first large observatory in Christian Europe. He later worked underground at Stjerneborg, where he realised that his instruments in Uraniborg were not sufficiently steady. His unprecedented research program both turned astronomy into the first modern science and also helped launch the Scientific Revolution.
An heir to several noble families, Tycho was well educated. He worked to combine what he saw as the geometrical benefits of Copernican heliocentrism with the philosophical benefits of the Ptolemaic system, and devised the Tychonic system, his own version of a model of the Universe, with the Sun orbiting the Earth, and the planets as orbiting the Sun. In De nova stella , he refuted the Aristotelian belief in an unchanging celestial realm. His measurements indicated that "new stars", stellae novae, now called supernovae, moved beyond the Moon, and he was able to show that comets were not atmospheric phenomena, as was previously thought.
In 1597, Tycho was forced by the new king, Christian IV, to leave Denmark. He was invited to Prague, where he became the official imperial astronomer, and built an observatory at Benátky nad Jizerou. Before his death in 1601, he was assisted for a year by Johannes Kepler, who went on to use Tycho's data to develop his own three laws of planetary motion.
Life
Family
Tycho Brahe was born as heir to several of Denmark's most influential noble families. In addition to his immediate ancestry with the Brahe and the Bille families, he counted the Rud, Trolle, Ulfstand, and Rosenkrantz families among his ancestors. Both of his grandfathers and all of his great-grandfathers had served as members of the Danish king's Privy Council. His paternal grandfather and namesake, Thyge Brahe, was the lord of Tosterup Castle in Scania and died in battle during the 1523 Siege of Malmö during the Lutheran Reformation Wars.His maternal grandfather, Claus Bille, lord to Bohus Castle and a second cousin of Swedish king Gustav Vasa, participated in the Stockholm Bloodbath on the side of the Kalmar Union king against the Swedish nobles. Tycho's father, Otte Brahe, a royal Privy Councilor, married Beate Bille, a powerful figure at the Danish court holding several royal land titles. Tycho's parents are buried under the floor of the church of Kågeröd, four kilometres west of Knutstorp Castle.
Early years
Tycho was born on 14 December 1546, at his family's ancestral seat at Knutstorp, about north of Svalöv in then Danish Scania. He was the oldest of 12 siblings, 8 of whom lived to adulthood, including Steen Brahe and Sophia Brahe. His twin brother died before being baptized. Tycho later wrote an ode in Latin to his dead twin, which was printed in 1572 as his first published work. An epitaph, originally from Knutstorp, but now on a plaque near the church door, shows the whole family, including Tycho as a boy.When he was only two years old Tycho was taken away to be raised by his uncle Jørgen Thygesen Brahe and his wife Inger Oxe, sister to Peder Oxe, Steward of the Realm, who were childless. It is unclear why Otte Brahe reached this arrangement with his brother, but Tycho was the only one of his siblings not to be raised by his mother at Knutstorp. Instead, Tycho was raised at Jørgen Brahe's estate at Tosterup and at Tranekær on the island of Langeland, and later at Næsbyhoved Castle near Odense, and later again at the Castle of Nykøbing on the island of Falster. Tycho later wrote that Jørgen Brahe "raised me and generously provided for me during his life until my eighteenth year; he always treated me as his own son and made me his heir".
From ages 6 to 12, Tycho attended Latin school, probably in Nykøbing. At age 12, on 19 April 1559, Tycho began studies at the University of Copenhagen. There, following his uncle's wishes, he studied law, but also studied a variety of other subjects and became interested in astronomy. At the university, Aristotle was a staple of scientific theory, and Tycho likely received a thorough training in Aristotelian physics and cosmology. He experienced the solar eclipse of 21 August 1560, and was greatly impressed by the fact that it had been predicted, although the prediction based on current observational data was a day off. He realized that more accurate observations would be the key to making more exact predictions. He purchased an ephemeris and books on astronomy, including Johannes de Sacrobosco's De sphaera mundi, Petrus Apianus's Cosmographia seu descriptio totius orbis and Regiomontanus's De triangulis omnimodis.
Jørgen Thygesen Brahe, however, wanted Tycho to educate himself in order to become a civil servant, and sent him on a study tour of Europe in early 1562. Fifteen-year-old Tycho was given as mentee to the 19-year-old Anders Sørensen Vedel. Tycho eventually talked Vedel into allowing him to pursue astronomy during the tour. Vedel and his pupil left Copenhagen in February 1562. On 24 March, they arrived in Leipzig, where they matriculated at the Lutheran Leipzig University. In 1563, he observed a close conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, and noticed that the Copernican and Ptolemaic tables used to predict the conjunction were inaccurate. This led him to realise that progress in astronomy required systematic, rigorous observation, night after night, using the most accurate instruments obtainable. He began maintaining detailed journals of all his astronomical observations. In this period, he combined the study of astronomy with astrology, laying down horoscopes for different famous personalities.
When Tycho and Vedel returned from Leipzig in 1565, Denmark was at war with Sweden, and as vice-admiral of the Danish fleet, Jørgen Brahe had become a national hero for having participated in the sinking of the Swedish warship Mars during the First battle of Öland. Shortly after Tycho's arrival in Denmark, Jørgen Brahe was defeated in the action of 4 June 1565, and shortly afterwards died of a fever. Stories have it that he contracted pneumonia after a night of drinking with the Danish King Frederick II when the king fell into the water in a Copenhagen canal and Brahe jumped in after him. Brahe's possessions passed on to his wife Inger Oxe, who considered Tycho with special fondness.
Tycho's nose
In 1566, Tycho left to study at the University of Rostock in what is now Germany. There he studied with professors of medicine at the university's famous medical school and became interested in medical alchemy and herbal medicine. On 29 December 1566 at the age of 20, Tycho lost part of his nose in a sword duel with a fellow Danish nobleman, his third cousin Manderup Parsberg. At an engagement party at the home of Professor Lucas Bachmeister on 10 December the two had drunkenly quarreled over who was the superior mathematician. On 29 December, the cousins resolved their feud with a duel in the dark. Though the two were later reconciled, in the duel Tycho lost the bridge of his nose and gained a broad scar across his forehead.He received the best possible care at the university and wore a prosthetic nose for the rest of his life. It was kept in place with paste or glue and said to be made of silver and gold. In November 2012, Danish and Czech researchers reported that the prosthesis was actually made of brass after chemically analyzing a small bone sample from the nose from the body exhumed in 2010.
Science and life on Uraniborg
In April 1567, Tycho returned home from his travels, with a firm intention of becoming an astrologer. Although he had been expected to go into politics and the law, like most of his kinsmen, and although Denmark was still at war with Sweden, his family supported his decision to dedicate himself to the sciences. His father wanted him to take up law, but Tycho was allowed to travel to Rostock and then to Augsburg, where he built a great quadrant, then Basel, and Freiburg. In 1568, he was appointed a canon at Roskilde Cathedral in Denmark, a largely honorary position that allowed him to focus on his studies.At the end of 1570, he was informed of his father's ill health, so he returned to Knutstorp Castle, where his father died on 9 May 1571. The war was over, and the Danish lords soon returned to prosperity. Soon, another uncle, Steen Bille, helped him build an observatory and alchemical laboratory at Herrevad Abbey, where Tycho was assisted by his keenest disciple, his younger sister Sophie Brahe. Tycho was acknowledged by King Frederick II, who proposed to him that an observatory be built to better study the night sky. After accepting this proposal, the location for the Uraniborg’s construction was set on an island called Hven, now Ven in the Sound not too far from Copenhagen, the earliest large observatory in Christian Europe.
Tycho Brahe was highly appreciated by King Frederick II, and he was accepted and supported by people of high social status. He was supported by the church. The support Tycho Brahe received from the king allowed him to continue his research and make significant contributions to the field of astronomy.
In the late 16th century, Tycho Brahe built an observatory called Uraniborg. It was built on the island of Hven located between the provinces of Zealand and Scania. The island was then an administrative part of Zealand. Later, after the Peace of Roskilde in 1658, Scania was conquered by the Swedes. In 1660, Hven became part of Sweden. In Tycho's time, it was all Denmark. He lived on Hven for approximately 21 years. He began to build Uraniborg in 1576 and moved there soon after. As Uraniborg was a significant and advanced observatory, it took years to complete.
Uraniborg was a place where Tycho Brahe could research and analyze his previous findings, as well as explore new discoveries. Tycho Brahe was an astronomer of the pre-telescope era. Using just his naked eye, he observed the planets, Moon, stars, and space and recorded everything he saw while completing a multitude of calculations daily. The location of Uraniborg was strategically chosen, with seclusion and support being the primary reasons for building on the island of Hven. Seclusion was essential for accurate observation, and gave Tycho Brahe a better way to focus on his work without worrying about interruptions from other people. Seclusion was also important for observation, as there was nothing interfering with time, light, or motion observations.
Tycho Brahe was a perfectionist, and by being secluded he had complete control over his research and was not limited by anyone else's restrictions, enabling him to develop innovative research. He could focus all of his energy on his work, without receiving any backlash or questioning from anyone. The seclusion gave him the freedom to pursue his research without limitations and paved the way for groundbreaking discoveries in the field of astronomy. Uraniborg was one of the most advanced observatories of its time, equipped with several astronomical instruments, including quadrant instruments, sextants, and astronomical clocks.
Tycho Brahe's observations and calculations at Uraniborg allowed him to develop more accurate Solar System models. He compiled the most extensive and accurate catalog of stellar positions up to that time. Tycho Brahe's observations and calculations at Uraniborg allowed him to lay the groundwork for astronomers in the future.
Despite the success Tycho Brahe had on Hven, he eventually left the island after a disagreement with the new king of Denmark, Christian IV. In 1597, Tycho Brahe moved to Prague, where he continued his work and was eventually appointed by Emperor Rudolf II in 1601 as imperial mathematician. However, Uraniborg remained a significant landmark in the history of astronomy.