Talk:Tycho Brahe

what is the correct pronounciation of his first and last names? Kingturtle 02:18 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

I do wish someone would put this information in the article.Dandrake 02:02, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)

It's pronounced TEE-KOE BRAH. I'd edit the article, but I don't know how to write it the pronounciation "properly." (i.e.: the confusing way)

Tycho's from Scania just like me, and I'd like to say that the E in BrahE is pronounced; more like BRAH-EE. [[User:Sverdrup|✏ Sverdrup]] 15:37, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Why is he being referred to as "Tycho", instead of "Brahe"? Pizza Puzzle

It seems to be the convention. The lunar crater named after him is also called Tycho and not Brahe. ....Lee M 01:34, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It was already the convention by 1620; there was a book called the Anti-Tycho, to which both Kepler and Galileo referred. Dandrake 02:02, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)

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Brachistochrone

Is it true that the brachistochrone was named after Tycho Brahe? --romanm 09:09, Nov 12, 2003 (UTC)

It's from the Greek "brachisto-" meaning shortest. So say the only sites I can quickly find with a derivation. Dandrake 08:37, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)

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I am shocked that this article contains no mention of Tycho Brahe's pet moose (http://www.nada.kth.se/~fred/tycho/nose.html#moose). - McGravin 18:20, Mar 4, 2004 (UTC)

If it's true, be bold and add it. Anthony DiPierro 18:32, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Contents

1 Penny Arcade 2 some Tycho References 3 Is it true 4 Some name the murderer as Kepler? 5 Elk test 6 NPOW? 7 Crystalline spheres

Penny Arcade

I feel the Penny Arcade mentioning isn't suited for the article - it's just a reference on Penny Arcade's side and as such adds nothing to the article. If anything there should be a link the other way! --Lenton 15:41, Mar 30, 2004 (UTC)

some Tycho References

Here is a reference that not only mentions his pet elk (European elk, called a moose in North America) but also Jepp his dwarf.

• a down-to-earth biography (http://www.phys.virginia.edu/classes/109N/1995/lectures/tychob.html)

And here's an engraving of the nova from his own book that would go nicely in the Cassiopeia section:

• engraving of Tycho's nova (http://www.hao.ucar.edu/public/education/sp/images/tycho.1.html)

-Wikibob | Talk 21:56, 2004 Apr 24 (UTC)

Is it true

That he had a silver nose? What about his propensity to duel, which I think, is how he lost his nose. Help! Xtreme! 23:56, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Apparently, he had both a silver nose and a copper one, and that he carried an adhesive balm touching up his nose from time to time. His tomb in Prague was excavated sometime around the turn of the century, and they found traces of copper around his nasal cavity. The story goes that for day to day wear, Tycho would use the copper nose, but for special occasions, he would break out the silver.

Tycho had a bit of an ego. I gather that he lost his nose in a duel with Norderup Parsberg (sp?), a fellow student, I think in Germany. The dispute arose when Tycho made an astrological prediction about the death of an Ottoman astronomer. When the prediction was made, the astronomer in question had already been dead for a number of weeks, but, owing to the poor communications technology of the 16th century, Tycho had no way of knowing. When it came out, Parsberg made a few jokes around the dorm - or whathaveyou - which Tycho did not appreciate. A duel followed. Tycho lost his nose and history gained an eccentric.

I think this story is covered in the book by Thoren mentioned on the mainpage, but I gather that the origins of the story (as well as the silver nose) are not neceesarily set-in-stone historical fact. -MFELDM - 12:00 EST, Feb 18, 2005

Some name the murderer as Kepler?

User:213.65.17.7 on 22:33, 2005 Jan 30 added text that appears unsourced and unreferenced, for example "Some name the murderer as Kepler, but that part is harder to prove 400 years after the fact."

Now, the external link (http://www.griffithobs.org/IPSHowTychoDied.html) just afterwards makes no such reference to Kepler and only has this weak conclusion:

Even though it cannot be excluded, it is not likely that Tycho was
murdered, but most likely he conducted his own death by using his own
mercury-rich medicines the day before his death. 

Unless "someone" comes up with a source for who names the murderer, the text should be cleaned up, in my opinion. -Wikibob | Talk 01:42, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)

Agree! The minimum should be some kind of reference that clears up the weasel word "some". Awolf002 16:44, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The "some" is Joshua and Anne-lee Gilder in the book "Hevenly Intrigue". The argument for murder by poison is, IMHO, convincing, convincing. Kepler is in the book put to blame, and is a plausible candidate. But it is hard to prove it 400 years after the fact.

Okay, so how do they measure up in "notablity"? Is their theory discussed in the relevant circles? Just because they publish a book with their theory does not make it a notable one in the historic sense to me. Or did it create a "media-storm" so it is well known? I did not hear of it. Awolf002 01:14, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I did. The book got press coverage. And please define "relevant circles". The research in Tycho Brahe is not big enough that it warrants its own departments. Most is published as articles and books. The discussion in the book builds upon results on tests on Tychos hair that was made with state of the art techniques at universities. (The theory of poisoning is at least more plausible than the old legend of the ruptured bladder, which is doubtful if it is a medical possibility.) But I am not sure how Wiki defines which sources to believe. The text right now presents the different theories behind Tychos death, which is a good solution, IMHO.

OK. So I removed the reference to Kepler, as it evidently did not fit with the accepted history according to Wiki. But before you remove the reference to poisoning, please tell me why. And please also tell me why the book by Gilder is not allowed in the reference part. The book is the latest about Tycho Brahe, and is well written and well referenced. And I have not seen any one that have questioned the reasoning in it. You can always discuss blaming Kepler, but the argument for murder is good, and well worth mentioning in Wiki.

Reference: www.tychobrahe.com , the homepage of the museum of Uraniborg, says on its web site: "He might have taken it himself as a medicine for his illness. He might have been deliberately poisoned. It is impossible to know for sure. It can only be concluded that he mercury poisoning might have caused his death."

Yes, this is better. I do not question the findings of mercury, just the conclusion that Kepler is somehow involved. That, from the above discussion, does not seem a well founded or widely excepted enough view. Thanks for the references! Awolf002 14:53, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is in a way getting stupid: now the text about Tycho knowing that mercury in some forms and dosis was harmful, but that it was not in other forms and dosis is questioned. If the editor "Curps" had read the books in the "further reading" section, or even read Tycho himself, he would know that this was the case. When I read wikipedia it is not obvious that all statements should be clearly referenced: much of the rest of the text about Tycho is not. And that includes parts that are not exactly precise: there is no Copenhagen sound for instance. (The name is Öresund). But I do not have the energy to correct these parts if I will have to fight this much over every detail, details that I have references for in my library and that are clear if you have read the books at the end of the article. When Tycho explicitly tells us that he has found a way of making mercury more safe, and that some forms are very dasngerous, I think that warrants mentioning. He did not go around eating mercury at every oppertunity. The poisoning theory is also very old, it has been reported that there were rumours when he died about it, and that was the reason behind that the speach at his funeral detailed exactly what he was supposed to have died from. Maybe (probably?) due to political reasons.

Elk test

I'm glad someone's added the story of his elk, and I've made a few changes to match some web references:

He also had a pet elk, which he cherished. One night during one of Tycho's wild parties, his elk drank too much strong beer, and fell down the stairs. It was killed instantly. After this day, Tycho was never the same.

changed to

Pierre Gassendi wrote¹ that Tycho also had a tame elk, and that his mentor the Landgraf Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel asked about an animal faster than a deer. Tycho replied writing there were none, but he could send his tame elk. When Wilhelm replied he would accept one in exchange for a horse, Tycho replied with the sad news that the elk/moose just died on a visit to entertain a nobleman at Landskrona. Apparantly during dinner the elk had drunk a lot of beer and fell down the stairs, and died.²

and footnote 1 is http://www.nada.kth.se/~fred/tycho/nose.html and footnote 2 is http://www.nd.edu/~kkrisciu/strange/strange.html.

According to Amazon.com there is a Dover Publications (1963) edition for footnote 2 (but amazon has had errors before, especially with used books) with an ASIN: B0007DO9CU, but no ISBN. Another reference to the elk, not included in the article is:

• The Search for Tycho Brahe's Nose (http://www.benecke.com/tychonose.html), a transcription of a paper in the Annals of Improbable research, details: Tycho had sent the elk (called a moose in the paper) to Landskrona to entertain a friend (Prince Wilhelm IV?), according to Pierre Gassendi in 1654.

-Wikibob | Talk 14:17, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)

NPOW?

Trying to learn how to write wiki-articles. Curps added the last sentence in "He is universally referred to as "Tycho" rather than by his surname "Brahe". Apparently his contemporaries did so and the usage has persisted." as a "clarification". Is this to be considered a NPOW?

(Facts about the name is that is was for a long time the custom in scandinavia to refer to people by their christian name. This goes for everybody, from farmers to kings, as far as I know. Not htat it matters in the discussion of the NPOW.)

Crystalline spheres

I am removing the following text from the article:

This system is frequently described as a "compromise"; however, both the heliocentric and geocentric theories relied upon "crystal spheres", to which the planets were attached. Tycho's theory abandoned the crystal spheres, a remarkable step to take before Isaac Newton formulated the concept of "action at a distance". In this respect, then, the Tychonic universe was more revolutionary than the Copernican.

Galileo had no use for crystalline spheres. (Well, he used the idea in a satirical answer to people who insisted that the Moon was perfectly smooth despite his observations; perhaps that shows his opinion of the whole idea; perhaps not.) And Kepler's elliptical orbits really didn't fit on spheres. Without the spheres, these heliocentrists had no adequate physical theory for why the planets moved as they did: just like Tycho, and everyone else before Newton.

Perhaps Tycho deserves great credit for being bold enough to propose a system that was incompatible with crystalline spheres. Something like that might be put back in the article, without the false invidious comparison to heliocentrism. I don't know for sure whether it's warranted, and don't have any citations to back it up or attack it; someone who knows and has the citations might do the job. --Dandrake 03:21, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

I think that the text should be left in. You should add "contemporary" to the heliocentric and geocentric theories. I am not sure about to what extent Galileo theorized aout the crystalline spheres, but both his and Keplers theories was developed _after_ the death of Tycho Brahe. Two of Tychos great insights, and the reason for the fame of his book "de Nova Stella", was that he proved that the new star appeared outside the path of the moon, in the area considered perfect and timeless at that time. Furthermore his measurements on comets showed that the path of these cut through the spheres of the individual planets, contrary to conventional wisdom at that time. (-I do not really understand the ethics of changing Wikipedia articles: as you dont have any references to refute the position you erased, why did you then erase it? Shouldnt you research the area first? I am holding my selfimposed ban on editing this article until I get a better understanding of this. References for my argument above can be found in "de Nova Stella" and in any of the multiple books on Tycho Brahe.)

It's fairly difficult to get a page reference for where Galileo didn't talk about crystalline spheres in the heliocentric system. That is, if Galileo made no use of crystalline spheres in his masterwork laying forth the heliocentric system, then the whole Dialogue is a reference. Seriously, if someone claims to have found a place where Galileo relied on the spheres, he should note the fact, with a citation.

On the other hand, what you say makes a very good case for a paragraph such as I said (just above) might be warranted, noting Tycho's important innovation in abandoning the spheres.

My objection is just to the claim that the heliocentric system required the spheres while Tycho's did not. In the 16th century heliocentric theory did invoke spheres as a physical explanation of the motions (at least I think it did, not seeing any citation here for the assertion, but I can alway look it up in De Revolutionibus); Tycho quite specifically abandoned the idea; 17th-century heliocentirsm didn't use the spheres; neither of the latter had any real physical theory behind the motions they postulated; Newton fixed everything up. So, to say that both geocentric and heliocentric theories had, up to Tycho's time, relied on crystalline spheres as an explanation: that would quite nicely sum it up. --Dandrake 01:22, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about the hasty defensive tone of that posting. The query about the ethics is well taken. There is an official policy "Be bold" in editing (there's a page on it somewhere), which is often abused: Don't like something, delete it or replace with its polar opposite; don't like a change, just revert it; never provide an edit summary or a comment on the Discussion page. These are bad methods. (In the tradition of proving that one's government is not as bad as Hitler or Stalin, I can now bask in the confidence that I'm above criticism.)

Actually I saw that paragraph as another partisan debating point in a subject (whatever-centrism) that's permanently full of such stuff. It proceeds from an unsupported assertion that can't be strictly true historically to a dubious value judgment. (Not one shared widely by contemporaries, at any rate.) So I saw it, and considered it a small enough point that one would just move it here and see if there's any problem. Arguably, a stronger action than was justified. Upon reflection, it wouldn't take much change to make the passage above criticism. --Dandrake 04:47, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. Copernicus is not my speciality, but I have assumed that he used the spheres, as numerous webpages and books refres to things like his book "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543)" and says things like: "Aside from this change, most of the book still held to Ptolemaic astronomy — the paths of planets remained circular, and the Ptolemaic spheres were still in place." (f.e.x http://www.loyno.edu/~seduffy/scirev.html and http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/virtual/core4-4.htm , the latter which says "Brahe thus junked the idea of perfect circular motion, and the idea of fixed spheres in the heavens." The idea that it was Brahe that removed the spheres from the heavens seems common, at least. Even kepler had the spheres in his earlier works, but (I think) removed them later.