Quiet Braga in Astronomy. Short biography of Tycho Brahe

Plan:

1 Biography
- 1.1 Early years
- 1.2 Supernova Quiet
- 1.3 Uraniborg
- 1.4 Prague. Last years.
- 1.5 Versions about the causes of death
2 Scientific activity
- 2.1 Astronomy
- 2.2 Tycho Brahe Peace System
3 Commemoration of Tycho Brahe
4 Scientific works

Introduction

Tiho Brahe(dates. Tyge Ottesen Brahe (inf.), lat. Tycho brahe; December 14, 1546, Knudstrup, Denmark (now in Sweden) - October 24, 1601, Prague) - Danish astronomer, astrologer and alchemist of the Renaissance. He was the first in Europe to conduct systematic and high-precision astronomical observations, on the basis of which Kepler derived the laws of planetary motion.

1. Biography

1.1. early years

Thuge Brahe, better known by his Latinized name Quiet, came from an ancient Danish family, known from the beginning of the 15th century. The first years he spent in the ancestral castle Knudstrup, which then belonged to Denmark, but later, after the Danish-Swedish war (1657-1658), together with the entire southern Scandinavia, went to Sweden and is now called "Knutstorp" ( Knutstorps borg). Father Tycho Brahe, Otte ( Otte brahe), like many of his ancestors, was the highest dignitary and held various military and political positions of the Danish state. Quietly was born with a twin brother who died before his baptism. Subsequently, in memory of him, Tycho wrote an ode to Latin, which became his first publication in 1572. The Otte family had 10 children, but, according to the ancient Viking tradition, one of the boys - Tycho - was transferred to the childless family of his brother Yergen, admiral of the Royal Navy, who lived in the nearby castle Tostrup.

Copenhagen University (old building)

The admiral, a very wealthy man, surrounded the care of his only adopted son, who received an excellent education. Already at the age of 12 (April 1559) Tycho entered the University of Copenhagen, where he became interested in astronomy. Pierre Gassendi, the first biographer of Tycho Brahe, reported that the eclipse of the Sun in 1560 served as a strong impetus for enthusiasm (although Brahe himself wrote that books on astronomy interested him as a child). The quality of teaching in Copenhagen was poor, and after 3 years of studying the "Seven Liberal Arts" Tycho continued his studies in Leipzig (1562), where Joachim Camerion was among his teachers. The adoptive parents planned to focus on legal education, but instead, Tycho Brahe spent the night on astronomical observations, for which he acquired instruments, some of which he bought, and some of which he made himself.

He failed to complete his studies: in May 1565, another Danish-Swedish war began, and the admiral recalled Brahe to Copenhagen. A month after his arrival, a misfortune happened: while saving the king, thrown by a horse from a bridge into the sea, he caught a cold and soon his 60-year-old adoptive father Jergen died. The entire large fortune of Jergen passed to 19-year-old Tycho Brahe.

Brahe decided to use the gained independence to complete his studies. In April 1566, he arrived at the famous University of Wittenberg, a stronghold of Protestant culture. But then a plague epidemic broke out, and they had to urgently leave for Rostock. There Brahe got involved in a quarrel followed by a duel and lost the upper part of his nose, as a result of which he was forced to wear a prosthesis for the rest of his life.

When the epidemic subsided, Brahe made a series of trips - first to his homeland, then through Rostock - to Wittenberg, Basel and, finally, Augsburg, where he arrived in April 1569. Here he spent 2 years and paid local artisans a significant sum for the construction of a number of astronomical instruments according to his own drawings, including a quadrant 11 meters high, a half-sextant and a celestial globe one and a half meters in diameter. This globe was the subject of his special pride, and Brahe did not part with him until the end of his life. Globus survived its creator by 120 years and died in a fire in Copenhagen in 1728. At the same time, Brahe studied alchemy and astrology.

Brahe immediately used the new instruments for astronomical observations. During these years he entered into correspondence with prominent scientists, among whom was Peter Ramus, who visited Augsburg in 1569. Brahe's fame in the scientific world grew.

In 1571, Tycho Brahe received a message about the serious illness of his own father Otte and left Augsburg. Otte Brahe died in May 1571, he left the castle on an equal footing with Tycho and his younger brother Jergen. Brahe soon set up a well-equipped laboratory for astronomy and alchemy in the castle; together with his uncle Stan Bille, he also opened two factories for the production of paper and glass. For these troubles, he almost abandoned astronomical observations, but an unexpected incident returned Brahe to his former hobby.

1.2. Supernova Quiet

Supernova Remnant Tycho Brahe (X-ray and infrared image)

On November 11, 1572, Tycho Brahe, returning home from a chemical laboratory, noticed an unusually bright star in the constellation Cassiopeia, which did not exist before. He immediately realized that this was not a planet, and rushed to measure its coordinates. The star shone in the sky for another 17 months; at first it was visible even during the day, but gradually its luster faded. In modern terminology, this was the first supernova explosion in our Galaxy in 500 years; the next one occurred shortly after the death of Brahe (Kepler's Supernova), and no more supernova explosions visible to the naked eye were observed in our Galaxy (only in 1987, a supernova SN 1987A was noted nearby, in the Large Magellanic Cloud). From that moment on, Tycho Brahe returned to astronomy.

In the same eventful 1572, Brahe, much to the indignation of his noble relatives, married a commoner named Kirstina (although he did not marry her in church). They had eight children, two of whom died in infancy.

Meanwhile, the appearance of such a bright luminary excited Europe, and there was no shortage of attempts to interpret the "heavenly sign" - they predicted catastrophes, wars, epidemics and even the end of the world. Scientific treatises have also appeared, most of them containing erroneous statements that this is a comet or an atmospheric phenomenon. Friends persuaded Brahe to publish the results of their observations, and in 1573 his first book "On a New Star" (lat. De stella nova). In it, Brahe reported that no parallax was found for this object, and this convincingly proves that the new star is a star, and is not near the Earth, but at least at a planetary distance.

Kepler later wrote: "Even if this star did not predict anything, in any case, it announced and created a great astronomer." Brahe's authority as the first astronomer of Denmark was strengthened, he received a personal royal invitation to lecture at the University of Copenhagen. Brahe accepted the invitation and in the summer of 1574 arrived in Copenhagen with Kirstina.

A year later (1575), after completing a course of lectures, Brahe decided to make a trip. He was the first to visit Kassel, in southern Germany, where another aristocrat and science lover, Wilhelm IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, built the largest observatory in Europe back in 1561. He and Brahe became friends and subsequently actively corresponded. The Danish astronomer visited old acquaintances in Augsburg, then Italy, and later was present in Regensburg at the coronation of Rudolf II - the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, with whom his last years will be associated.

At this time, Brahe was considering plans to move to Augsburg or to another place where there are more clear days in the year than in Scandinavia, and to build an observatory there. Upon learning of this, Landgrave Wilhelm wrote to the Danish king Frederick II: "Your Majesty should not allow Tycho to leave, for Denmark its greatest decoration would be lost." Soon, during the trip, the Landgrave visited Copenhagen and personally petitioned the king for state support for Brahe's scientific activities.

1.3. Uraniborg

Island of Ven. Strait of Øresund. View from Landskrona

On May 23, 1576, by a special decree of the Danish-Norwegian king Frederick II, Tycho Brahe was granted the island of Ven ( Hven), located in the Øresund Strait, 20 km from Copenhagen, and significant sums were allocated for the construction of the observatory and its maintenance. It was the first building in Europe specially built for astronomical observations (Landgrave Wilhelm used one of the towers of his castle as an observatory). In a personal conversation, the king expressed confidence that with his labors Tycho Brahe "would glorify the country, the king and himself."

Uraniborg - Temple of Astronomy

Tycho named his observatory "Uraniborg" ("Castle of Urania") after the muse of astronomy Urania; often this name is translated as "Sky Castle". Brahe himself drew up the project of the building, the prototype of which, as historians believe, was one of the works of the famous Italian architect Andrea Palladio, which Brahe got acquainted with during a trip to Italy. In the plan, the castle was a square with a side of about 18 meters, precisely oriented to the cardinal points. The main building had 3 floors and a basement. The basement housed an alchemy laboratory and various warehouses. On the ground floor there are living quarters and a library; here was kept the beloved celestial globe and another object of Brahe's pride - the wall quadrant. On the second floor there were 4 observatories with sliding roofs facing all directions. The third floor was occupied by the rooms of employees and students. It is interesting that Brahe arranged in Uraniborg even such a rare luxury in those years as running water on all floors. In the courtyard there were auxiliary buildings - a printing house, workshops, rooms for servants, etc. Among Brahe's employees was his beloved sister Sophia, a talented astronomer, doctor and chemist, whom Brahe jokingly called Urania.

Uraniborg plan

The funds allocated by the king were large, but they were still not enough, and Brahe, without hesitation, spent most of his fortune on the construction and equipment of Uraniborg. The construction of Uraniborg took the period from 1576 to 1580, but already in 1577 Brahe began work and 20 years, until 1597, conducted systematic observations of the heavenly bodies. The conditions for astronomical observations on the island were difficult - for example, Mercury was very rarely visible due to cloudiness on the horizon. In addition to these activities, Brahe published the then popular annual almanac calendars. The paper, using the experience gained earlier, Brahe produced on site. The engine was a water mill, which at the same time provided the population of the island with fresh fish from the cages. In 1584, another castle-observatory was built near Uraniborg: Stjerneborg (date. Stjerneborg, "Star Castle"). Soon, Uraniborg became the best astronomical center in the world, combining observation, student training and the publication of scientific papers.

In November 1577, a bright comet appeared in the sky, causing even more commotion than the previous supernova. Tycho Brahe carefully traced its trajectory until the disappearance of visibility in January 1578. Comparing his data with those obtained by colleagues at other observatories, he made an unambiguous conclusion: comets are not an atmospheric phenomenon, as Aristotle believed, but an extraterrestrial object, at least three times farther than the Moon. In 1580-1596, 6 more comets appeared, the movement of which was accurately recorded in Uraniborg.

Brahe decided to present his scientific achievements in a multivolume astronomical treatise. First, the second volume was published, devoted to the Tycho Brahe world system (see below) and the comet of 1577 (1588). The first volume (about the 1572 supernova) came out later, in 1592, in incomplete form; in 1602, after Brahe's death, Kepler published the final edition of this volume. Brahe was going to set forth the theory of the motion of other comets, the Sun, the Moon and the planets in subsequent volumes, but he did not have time to implement this plan.

Tycho Brahe Museum on the island of Ven

In 1588, the patron saint of Brahe, King Frederick II, died. The new king, Christian IV, was indifferent to astronomy, but badly needed money to support the army. In 1596, Christian came of age and was crowned, and in next year the king finally deprived Tycho of financial support, by this time significantly curtailed. Brahe had almost no savings left, everything was invested in Uraniborg. Moreover, he soon received a letter from the king forbidding him to study astronomy and alchemy on the island.

Caught in a stalemate, Brahe decided to leave Denmark. He sold his half of the Knudstrup castle to his co-owner, brother Jergen. In April 1597, Brahe left the scientific center forever, to which he devoted more than 20 years of work, and went to Rostock. In his last letter to King Christian (10 July), he writes:

If I had the opportunity to continue my work in Denmark, I would not refuse it. I would, as before, and even better, do everything I can, in honor and glory of Your Majesty and my own native land, preferring it to all other rulers, if this work of mine could be carried out under favorable conditions and without injustice to me.

Brahe waited several months for an answer, although a plague epidemic began in Rostock. The king's grossly offensive answer (October 8, 1597) dispelled all hopes, if Brahe still had them. First, the king lists the various sins of Brahe: he rarely attended communion, did not help and even oppressed the priests of the local church, etc. Further, the letter says:

Do not bother Us whether you leave the country or stay in it ... If you wish to serve as a mathematician and do as you are told, then you must begin by offering your services and asking for them, as befits a servant ... Your letter bears private, boldly written and lacking in common sense, as if We are obliged to account to you for whatever reason We make any changes in the domain of the crown.

Stjerneborg (modern reconstruction)

Soon Uraniborg and all buildings associated with it were completely destroyed (in our time, they are partially restored).

1.4. Prague. Last years.

After a short stay with a friend, the ruler of the Duchy of Holstein, Brahe moved to Prague (1598), where he became the court mathematician and astrologer of Rudolf II, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (Prague was the residence of Rudolf for most of his reign). The emperor was a great lover of science and arts, although Brahe was primarily interested in him as an astrologer. Rudolph II warmly welcomed Brahe, appointed him a large salary, an advance for the arrangement, handed over a house in Prague and allocated the nearby Benatki castle for the construction of an observatory. The imperial treasurer, however, turned out to be less generous than the emperor - he declared that the treasury was empty, and refused to issue the promised advance. Some income was brought by drawing up horoscopes for the local nobility. In subsequent years, Brahe, with his characteristic energy, simultaneously solved several of the most difficult tasks: obtaining at least some money, rebuilding the castle, relocating a large family, transporting and bringing scientific equipment into working order. Brahe managed to transport most of his unique instruments and library to Prague.

Probably, during this tense time, Brahe came to the conclusion that he needed a talented young mathematician assistant to process the data accumulated over 20 years. Having learned about the persecution of Johannes Kepler, whose outstanding mathematical abilities he had already appreciated from their correspondence, Tycho invited him to his place.

Monument to Braga and Kepler in Prague

The German scientist arrived in Prague in January 1600. In February, Brahe met with him and explained the main task: to deduce from observations a new system of the world, which should replace both the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems. He entrusted Kepler with the key planet: Mars, whose motion decisively did not fit not only in Ptolemy's scheme, but also in Brahe's own models (according to his calculations, the orbits of Mars and the Sun crossed).

Kepler willingly agreed to deal with such a tempting problem, but demanded that Brahe set him a salary sufficient to move to Prague and support the Kepler family. After several quarrels, both scientists, who needed each other, nevertheless reconciled, and in June Kepler left for his family. However, in the fall, after his return, Brahe instructed Kepler, instead of studying the motion of Mars, to prepare a pamphlet against the imperial mathematician Baer, who published his system of the world, stolen from Brahe (as Brahe himself believed). Kepler conscientiously fulfilled this task, and in 1604, after Brahe's death, the book was published.

In 1601, Tycho Brahe and Kepler began work on new, refined astronomical tables, which in honor of the emperor were named "Rudolphs" (lat. Tabula rudolphinae); they were completed in 1627 and served astronomers and sailors until the early 19th century. But Tycho Brahe only managed to name the tables. In October, he unexpectedly fell ill and, despite the participation of the best doctors of the emperor, died of an unknown illness, having been ill for only 11 days. According to Kepler, before his death, he said several times: "Life was not lived in vain."

In all his later books, Kepler never tired of emphasizing how much he owes to Tycho Brahe, his selfless work in the name of science. Kepler himself also fulfilled his task: having carefully studied the data of Tycho Brahe, he discovered the laws of planetary motion.

Tyn Cathedral

By order of Emperor Rudolf II, the great Danish astronomer was buried with knightly honors in the Prague Tyn Cathedral (it must be emphasized that the burial of a Protestant in a Catholic cathedral was an incredible event in those years). Kirstin's wife survived him by 3 years and was buried next to her husband. On the tombstone of the scientist is carved the motto, which previously adorned the destroyed "Star Castle": "Not power, not wealth, but only scepters of science are eternal" (lat. Non fasces, nec opes sola artim sceptra perennant ).

The emperor ordered all observation data and instruments to Brahe to be handed over to Kepler; To the heirs of Brahe, Rudolph II promised to pay compensation for this property, but he did not keep his promise. After the death of the emperor and the Thirty Years War, many instruments were destroyed. Fortunately, Brahe's book "The Mechanics of Renewed Astronomy" (lat. Astronomiae instauratae mechanica , 1598) with their detailed description.

1.5. Versions about the causes of death

The causes of death of Tycho Brahe are still unclear. There is a legend that Tycho Brahe, following court etiquette, could not leave the royal table during dinner, and died as a result of a ruptured bladder. Physiologically, however, bladder rupture cannot occur with voluntary sphincter tension. Perhaps the cause of death was kidney failure and, as a result, severe uremia. There were also reports that analysis of body hair Brahe (1996) found in them high content mercury, which testifies in favor of the hypothesis of the poisoning of the scientist (however, the results of the analysis are disputed in scientific circles).

In 2005, a book was published accusing Kepler of poisoning. Another possibility is poisoning with an overdose of drugs, many of which then contained mercury. In early 2009, Peter Andersen from the University of Strasbourg put forward another version: Tycho Brahe was poisoned by an agent of the Danish king Christian IV for having an affair with the king's mother.

In November 2010, the remains of Tycho Brahe were exhumed to clarify the lifetime state of health, medications taken, and the cause of death of the scientist. Brahe's remains were reburied on November 19, 2010 in the Tyn Church. The research report was planned to be published in 2011.

2. Scientific activity

2.1. Astronomy

Tycho Brahe's quadrant. Brahe himself is depicted in the center.

Brahe devoted his whole life to observing the sky, with tireless work and ingenuity achieving results that have never been seen anywhere else in the world in terms of accuracy and breadth of coverage. Kepler wrote that Tycho Brahe began "restoring astronomy."

Most of the instruments at the observatory Tycho Brahe made himself. To improve the accuracy of measurements, he not only increased the size of the instruments, but also developed new observation methods that minimize measurement errors. Among his technical and methodological improvements:

The armillary sphere was oriented not toward the ecliptic, as was customary since the time of Ptolemy, but toward the celestial equator. To improve accuracy, Brahe designed a special sight.
Instead of the Moon, he used Venus as an intermediate reference luminary, which practically did not move during the pause in observations.

After the invention of the telescope, the accuracy of observations increased sharply, but Brahe's improvements in the mechanics of astronomical instruments and methods of processing observations remained valuable for a long time.

Tycho Brahe compiled new, accurate solar tables and measured the length of the year with an error of less than a second. In 1592, he first published a catalog of 777 stars, and by 1598 he brought the number of stars to 1004, replacing the long-obsolete catalogs of Ptolemy that were previously used in Europe. Brahe discovered two new irregularities ("inequalities") in the movement of the moon in longitude: the third ( variation) and fourth (annual). He also discovered a periodic change in the inclination of the lunar orbit to the ecliptic, as well as changes in the position of the lunar nodes (ejection in latitude). Up to Newton, no amendments were needed in Braga's theory of the motion of the moon.

Some of the astronomical instruments of Tycho Brahe:

He increased the accuracy of observations of stars and planets by more than an order of magnitude (the error is less than an angular minute), and the position of the Sun according to his tables was accurate to one minute, while the previous tables gave an error of 15-20 minutes. For comparison, the Istanbul Observatory, organized at the same time as Uraniborg and excellently equipped, has failed to improve the accuracy of observations in comparison with the ancient ones.

Tycho Brahe compiled the first tables of the distortions of the visible positions of the luminaries caused by the refraction of light in the Earth's atmosphere. Comparing the current and marked in antiquity, the longitudes of the stars, he determined a fairly exact value anticipating equinoxes.

The name Tycho Brahe is associated with the observation of a supernova in the constellation Cassiopeia on November 11, 1572, and the first observational conclusion about the extraterrestrial nature of comets, based on the observation of the Big Comet in 1577. In this comet, Tycho Brahe discovered parallax, which excluded the atmospheric nature of the phenomenon. It should be noted that such authorities as Aristotle and Galileo considered comets to be an earthly phenomenon; the theory of the extraterrestrial origin of comets has been debated for a long time and has become firmly established in science only in the era of Descartes.

Moreover, the calculation of the orbit of the aforementioned comet showed that during the observation time it crossed several planetary orbits. This led to an important conclusion: there are no "crystalline spheres" bearing the planets on them. In a letter to Kepler, Brahe states (1577):

In my opinion, the spheres ... should be excluded from heaven. I realized this thanks to the comets that appeared in the sky ... They do not follow the laws of any of the spheres, but rather act in spite of them ... so far many have thought, but fluid and free, open in all directions, which does not pose absolutely any obstacles to the free run of the planets.

For 16 years, Tycho Brahe conducted continuous observations of the planet Mars. The materials of these observations greatly helped his successor, the German scientist I. Kepler, to discover the laws of planetary motion.

2.2. Tycho Brahe Peace System

Tycho Brahe Peace System

Brahe did not believe in Copernicus's heliocentric system and called it mathematical speculation (although he treated Copernicus with deep respect, kept his portrait in the observatory and even composed an enthusiastic ode in his honor). Brahe offered his compromise geo-heliocentric system of the world, which was a combination of the teachings of Ptolemy and Copernicus: the sun, moon and stars revolve around the stationary earth, and all planets and comets around the sun. Brahe also did not recognize the daily rotation of the Earth. From a purely computational point of view, this model was no different from the Copernican system, but it had one important advantage, especially after the trial of Galileo: she did not raise objections from the Inquisition. Among the few supporters of the Brahe system in the 17th century was the prominent Italian astronomer Riccioli (in Riccioli, however, Jupiter and Saturn revolve around the Earth, not the Sun). Direct evidence of the Earth's motion around the Sun appeared only in 1727 (light aberration), but in fact, the Brahe system was rejected by most scientists back in the 17th century as unjustifiably and artificially complicated in comparison with the Copernicus-Kepler system.

In his work " De Mundi aeteri"Brahe sets out his position as follows:

I believe that the old Ptolemaic arrangement of the celestial spheres was not elegant enough, and that the assumption of such a large number epicycles ... should be considered superfluous ... At the same time, I believe that the recent innovation of the great Copernicus ... does it without violating mathematical principles. However, the body of the Earth is large, slow and unsuitable for movement ... I am without any doubt of the opinion that the Earth that we inhabit occupies the center of the Universe, which corresponds to the generally accepted opinions of ancient astronomers and natural philosophers, as evidenced above by the Holy Scriptures, and does not revolve in the annual treatment as Copernicus wished.

Brahe himself sincerely believed in the reality of his system and before his death asked Kepler to support it. He explained in detail in letters why he considers the Copernican system to be erroneous. One of the most serious arguments stemmed from his erroneous estimate of the angular diameter of the stars and, as a consequence, the distance to them. The distances calculated by Brahe were several orders of magnitude smaller than the actual ones and should, if we recognize the movement of the Earth around the Sun, cause noticeable displacements of stellar longitudes, which in reality did not happen. From this Brahe concluded that the Earth is motionless. In fact, the apparent diameters of stars were increased by atmospheric refraction, and astronomers were able to detect stellar parallaxes only in the 19th century.

3. Perpetuation of the memory of Tycho Brahe

Monument to Tycho Brahe in Copenhagen

Named after the scientist:

The supernova SN 1572 he studied.
Crater Tycho on the Moon.
The Tycho Brahe manned orbital capsule designed by the Danish private company Copenhagen Suborbitals for space tourism.
Tycho Brahe crater on Mars.
Star catalog "Tycho", compiled with the Hipparcos orbiting telescope and includes data on a million stars.
Planetarium in Copenhagen.
The life of Tycho Brahe is dedicated to the novel Lord of Urania(by Christian Kombaz).

4. Scientific works

About a new star ( De nova et nullius ævi memoria prius visa Stella). Copenhagen, 1573.
About recent phenomena in the heavenly world ( De mundi aetheri recentioribus phaenomenis). Uraniborg, 1588.
Correspondence of Tycho Brahe with the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel ( Epistolarum Astronomicarum Liber Primus). Wandsbek, 1598.
Preparing for Renewed Astronomy ( Astronomiae Instauratae Progymnasmata). Uraniborg, 1592.
Renewed astronomy mechanics ( Astronomiae Instauratae mechanica). Wandsbek, 1598.
Full composition of writings ( Opera omnia sive astronomiae instauratae). Frankfurt, 1648, in 15 volumes. Reprinted 2001, ISBN 3-487-11388-0.

Notes (edit)

Wittendorff A. et al. Tyge Brahe - books.google.com/books?id=m6lhAAAACAAJ&dq. - Copenhagen: Gad, 1994. - P. 68. - 327 p. - ISBN 8712022721
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 11-12.
Berry A. Short story astronomy .. - p. 118.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe .. - p. 16.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 18.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 25.
Golovanov Y. Sketches about Scientists. Tycho Brahe - www.c-cafe.ru/days/bio/21/brahe.php (1983).
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 34.
Berry A. A Brief History of Astronomy. - S. 120.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 41.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 45-46.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 52-53.
Pannekoek A. History of Astronomy. - S. 220.
Pannekoek A. History of Astronomy. - S. 221.
Berry A. A Brief History of Astronomy. - S. 121.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 54.
Pannekoek A. History of Astronomy. - S. 223.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 62.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 65.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 129.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 123.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 79-80.
1 2 3 Berry A. A Brief History of Astronomy. - S. 123-124.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 136-137.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 175.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 180.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 182-183.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 6.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 185-186.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 188.
Berry A. A Brief History of Astronomy. - S. 127.
Wilson & Taton. Planetary astronomy from the Renaissance to the rise of astrophysics, 1989.
Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 207.
1 2 Bely Yu.A. Tycho Brahe. - S. 210-211.
Schulz, Matthias. Was Tycho Brahe Murdered by a Contract Killer? - www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,601729,00.html (English). Spiegel Online.
Astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) - www.radio.cz/ru/rubrika/progulki/astronom-tixo-brage-1546-1601 // Radio PRAHA. - 2001.
How did Tycho Brahe die? - web.archive.org/web/20071113213212/http://www.tychobrahe.com/eng_tychobrahe/myt.html
Joshua Gilder and Anne-Lee Gilder... Heavenly Intrigue: Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and the Murder Behind One of History's Greatest Scientific Discoveries. Anchor, 2005. ISBN 978-1-4000-3176-4.
A Shakespearean version is found in the death of astronomer Tycho Brahe. - lenta.ru/news/2009/01/23/brage
The insidious murder of an astronomer. - www.lenta.ru/articles/2009/01/23/plot/
First

Tycho Brahe is known as an astronomer and inventor of instruments for observing cosmic bodies.

Born in 1546, Tycho Brahe did not stay in his father's and mother's house for so long. Due to a family agreement, the boy was adopted into the family of his uncle, a large military commander who did not have children of his own. He put all the best in the education of the only child in his family.

At first, Tycho Brahe was fascinated by languages and jurisprudence. My uncle supported and paid for my studies at the University of Copenhagen. Law and philosophy were his main subjects, his parents did not quite approve of this direction.

But the solar eclipse he saw became a strong motivating factor, and Brahe became interested in the works of Ptolemy and Copernicus.

He considered the laws of motion of celestial bodies according to astronomical tables. However, his uncle insisted on studying further and sent Tycho to Leipzig, assuming that the 16-year-old nephew would "get sick" and return to the right track.

However, in Leipzig, interest in astronomy did not wane, but on the contrary. Brahe purchased textbooks and several instruments for observing the stars. Spending nights and looking at a new world for himself, he discovered the close procession of Jupiter with the orbit of Saturn.

This was a surprising fact that the former astronomers did not mention. This means that the astronomical tables are not entirely accurate. And Tycho Brahe had the idea of compiling his own tables of the motion of cosmic bodies. The issue of studying law has become a complete dead end. The student no longer saw himself as a lawyer and finally abandoned his studies, directing his life to the field of astronomy.

Career

Tycho Brahe's world system Tycho Brahe came up with the idea to offer his ideas to famous astronomers in Germany. He was not taken seriously, probably because of his youth. But thanks to his patience and ability to persuade, Brahe conveyed an important idea: the study of the Galaxy requires more sophisticated instruments for observing the movement of cosmic bodies.

The telescope had not yet been invented in the 16th century. The young scientist proposed using quadrants to calculate the motion of stars and planets.

In November 1572, returning home from the astronomical laboratory, Tycho noticed a very bright sky. What he saw simply amazed, the sky was illuminated not by the sun, but by a supernova. A similar event was mentioned only in the Gospel, when great star appeared along with the birth of Jesus Christ.

During this period, the work of the young Brahe was completed on the creation of the sextant. It was a completely new device designed to observe celestial bodies in a more perfect way. Its accuracy surpassed that of the devices already created before. The sextant helped him calculate the trajectory of the emerging star. Brahe's conclusion is curious: he determined that this star does not move at all, but its location is within the eighth sphere of the Galaxy.

Friends persuaded him to publish a scientific treatise. After that, some astronomers offered him a joint work. However, the scientist accepted the invitation of Emperor Rudolf II and became the court astronomer, which he was until the end of his life.

Observatory Builder

Tycho Brahe's years of work were not in vain, and from the development of new tables and instruments, he moved on to the creation of centers for observing celestial bodies. Several observatories were built with his direct participation. One of them was created on the territory of the castle. The emperor was supportive of him and invited Tycho to live at the palace.

The scientist was engaged not only in astronomy. He created astrological charts, believing that the stars have no other meaning than to influence the fate of people. And using these maps I tried to predict the weather and events in the world of astronomy. One of them is the appearance of the Big Comet in 1577.

The recognition of scientists in the world and the favor of the emperor did not change the attitude of relatives to the hobby of Tycho Brahe. They just laughed at him. Only my uncle appreciated the changes in his nephew in time and supported him.

The legacy of his labors

Discoveries and calculations in the field of astronomy became the starting point for the research of such world-renowned scientists as Galileo and Kepler. Using his works, they multiplied the number of discoveries and made powerful progress in the study of the moon.

As a tribute to their predecessor and mentor, astronomers named the lunar crater "Tycho". And one of the operating observatories honorably bears his name.

Tige (Tycho - in Latin form) Brahe was an outstanding Danish astronomer and astrologer of the Renaissance.

Origin. Childhood. Adolescent years

On December 14, 1546, two twin boys were born in the family of Otto Brahe and his wife Bitte Bill. One of them died at birth, and the second survived to become in the future the most famous astronomer of his era.

The parents named the boy Tycho, and his father, who, like the boy's mother, belongs to the Danish nobility, pinned great hopes on his firstborn. How else? After all, he was the heir, the eldest son, and therefore it was befitting for him to lead an exclusively aristocratic lifestyle, that is, to devote his time to hunting and wars.

But, fortunately, Tycho had an uncle Jorgen, who was much more educated than his parents, who, being childless, concluded an agreement with Otto that he would take the boy for his upbringing. Jorgen was a squire, moreover, he had the rank of vice admiral, and he could give little Tycho an incomparably better education and more high level life than his parents.

But it so happened that Otto changed his mind. Then Jorgen simply kidnapped the boy, despite the threat of murder from Father Tycho. The father of the future astrologer calmed down and stopped pursuing Jorgen only when his youngest son was born and his uncle wrote off all his fortune and a huge house to Tycho.

At seven, at the insistence of Uncle Jorgen, Tycho began to study Latin, which, according to the educator, should help the boy make a brilliant career as a lawyer in the future. Then the boy entered the university, where he became interested in mathematics and music. It was there, at the age of 15, that he changed his name to the Latin manner.

The life-changing eclipse

08/21/1560 thirteen-year-old Tycho was fortunate enough to personally observe a partial solar eclipse. But the young Brahe was struck not by the fact of the eclipse of the luminary, but by the fact that this event was predicted in advance. He was instantly mesmerized secret knowledge, with the help of which a person could calculate the movements of the celestial spheres.

Since he was a wealthy boy, he was able to immediately acquire books on astronomy for himself, including Ptolemy's "Almagest", as well as a number of astronomical tables. However, his parents did not like his fascination with the movement of planets, so the young Brahe was sent to continue his education in Leipzig, Germany, where, after graduating from the university, he was to become a lawyer.

However, in those days, knowledge was given very superficially, but this was considered sufficient to get a profitable place in the service of the state. The young man regularly received money that he had to spend on pleasures: on women and wine. However, Brahe, hiding this from his tutor-tutor and from his parents, did not buy women at all with this money, but astronomical instruments and books, continuing to study astronomy on his own.

It is not surprising that, upon returning to Denmark, the aristocratic community considered Brahe, if not a madman, then a great eccentric.

Observatory

Brahe could not continue to live in Copenhagen. He had no friends or like-minded people in his homeland, so he decided to leave again for Germany, where many of his fellow astronomers lived at that time. There, Brahe, with the help of renowned artists, was able to create many new tools for work, and then, when he returned to Denmark, he read, at the request of the king, several lectures on astronomy.

Then King Frederick II gave the scientist a small island and a maintenance of 500 ecu, on which Brahe opened an astronomical observatory called Uraniburg. Brahe himself invested more than one hundred thousand thalers in equipment.

Brahe's discoveries

Watching over starry sky, the scientist was the first to voice the idea that comets are not vaporizations at all, as Aristotle believed, but completely independent members of the solar system.

Brahe, thanks to his work at the observatory, published a catalog of 788 stars.
It was Tycho Brahe who was able to fix irregularities in the motion of the moon, and the scientist also more accurately determined the angle of inclination of the Earth's orbit.

Tycho Brahe died in Prague in 1601.

In the Danish town of Knudstrup, the future famous astronomer Tycho Brahe was born into the families of the ancient nobility in 1546 on December 14. According to the ancient traditions of Denmark, the parents gave the boy to the childless family of his brother, who was an admiral of the Royal Navy. At the age of 12, Tycho entered the University of Copenhagen, but he did not manage to finish it because of the war.

When Tycho was 19 years old, his adoptive father died, and inherited all his fortunes, and the ancestral castle, where the guy eventually set up his observatory and alchemical laboratory. After that, Brahe decided to go to study again, only the plague epidemic became a hindrance to this.

Tycho Brahe became famous after writing his first book "About a New Star", after which he was invited to work as a teacher at the University of Copenhagen. And when Tycho traveled, he met the famous German astronomer Wilhelm 4 of Hesse-Kassel, who put in a word to support Brahe's activities before the king of Denmark, after which the king donated the island to the young scientist in 1576 and allocated funds to create an observatory.

But in 1598, the scientist was forced to leave the island for Prague, due to the fact that the new king of Denmark immediately after the coronation forbids studying, and reduces the funds that were allocated to support the observatory. In Prague, he was offered the position of court astrologer, to which Tycho agreed. Here he lived the rest of his days, and also built another observatory.

Tycho Brahe died at the age of 55, in 1601 on October 24. No one can still say for sure about his causes of death, but there are a couple of versions and both are quite interesting. One of these versions says that the cause of his death is the bladder. Or rather, when Tycho Brahe was sitting at dinner at the royal table, he was very impatient to use the toilet, but at that time, according to the rules of court etiquette, it was impossible to leave the table until the end of the meal, which ultimately caused a bladder rupture, from which the famous astrologer a few days later died. And about the second reason, they began, he says, after they decided to excavate the grave of the astrologer, where they found mercury in the scientist's hair, which became the reason to believe that he was poisoned.

During his life, Tycho Brahe built a printing house for his own manuscripts, ordered excellent astronomical instruments from the Augsburg masters, created a catalog in which there was a description of close to 1000 stars and much more interesting, only, unfortunately, little information about his work and work has come down to us.

Comments (1)

Guys, no one taught you to proofread the text before publishing?
... he does not have time to finish it (= he does not have time to finish it)
... all your fortunes
... Brahe to decide again
... to become a hindrance to it (= to hinder it)
... Wilhelm 4 of Hesse (4 is a typo or is the word Fourth?)
... who put in a word so that - two commas are missing
... forbids studying (what exactly does he forbid to do?)
... No one can still say for sure about his causes of death, but there are a couple of versions and both are quite interesting. One of these versions says that the cause of his death is the bladder. (Count the errors yourself.)
... built a printing house for his own manuscripts
Conclusion: your native language is not Russian, guys ...