Tycho Brahe: Encyclopedia II - Tycho Brahe - Early years

Tycho Brahe - Early years

Tycho Brahe was born Tyge Ottesen Brahe (de Knudstrup), adopting the Latinised form Tycho at around age fifteen (sometimes written Tÿcho). He is often misnamed Tycho de Brahe. He was born at his family's ancestral seat of Knudstrup Castle, Denmark to Otte Brahe and Beate Bille. His twin brother was stillborn (Tycho wrote a Latin ode (Wittendorf 1994, p. 68) to his dead twin which was printed as his first publication in 1572). He also had two sisters, one older (Kirstine Brahe) and one younger (Sophie Brahe). Otte Brahe, Tycho's father, a nobleman, was an important figure in the Danish King's court. Beate Bille, Tycho's mother, also came from an important family which had produced leading churchmen and politicians.

Tycho later wrote that when he was around two, his uncle, Danish nobleman Jørgen Brahe, ... without the knowledge of my parents took me away with him while I was in my earliest youth. Apparently this did not lead to any disputes nor did his parents attempt to get him back. Tycho lived with his childless uncle and aunt, Jørgen Brahe and Inger Oxe, in the Tostrup Castle until he was six years old. Around 1552 his uncle was given the 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 but also studied a variety of other subjects and became interested in astronomy. It was, however, the eclipse which occurred on August 21, 1560, particularly the fact that it had been predicted, that so impressed him that he began to make his own studies of astronomy helped by some of the professors. He purchased an ephemeris and books such as Sacrobosco's Tractatus de Sphaera, Apianus's Cosmographia seu descriptio totius orbis and Regiomontanus's De triangulis omnimodis.

I've studied all available charts of the planets and stars and none of them match the others. There are just as many measurements and methods as there are astronomers and all of them disagree. What's needed is a long term project with the aim of mapping the heavens conducted from a single location over a period of several years. — Tycho Brahe, 1563 (age 17).

Tycho realized that progress in the science of astronomy could be achieved not by occasional haphazard observations, but only by systematic and rigorous observation, night after night, and by using instruments of the highest accuracy obtainable. He was able to improve and enlarge the existing instruments, and construct entirely new ones. Tycho's naked eye measurements of planetary parallax were accurate to the arcminute. These jealously guarded measurements became the possessions of Kepler following his death. Tycho was the last major astronomer to work without the aid of a telescope, soon to be turned toward the sky by Galileo.

While a student, Tycho lost part of his nose in a duel with broadswords with Manderup Parsbjerg, a fellow Danish nobleman. This occurred in the Christmas season of 1566, after a fair amount of drinking, while the just turned 20-year-old Tycho was studying at the University of Rostock in Germany. Attending a dance at a professor's house, he quarrelled with Parsbjerg. A subsequent duel (in the dark) resulted in Tycho losing the bridge of his nose. A consequence of this was that Tycho developed an interest in medicine and alchemy. For the rest of his life, he was said to have worn a replacement made of silver and gold blended into a flesh tone, and used an adhesive balm to keep it attached. In 1901, though, Tycho's tomb was reopened and his remains were examined by medical experts. The nasal opening of the skull was rimmed with green, a sign of exposure to copper, not silver or gold. Some historians have speculated that he wore a number of different prosthetics for different occasions, noting that a copper nose would have been more comfortable and less heavy than one of precious metals.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Early years", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki