Early Years
Tycho Brahe was born in Skane, then in
Denmark and now a part of Sweden. The eldest son of parents with a noble
heritage, he was brought up by his paternal uncle, Jörgen Brahe. Jörgen was
better off financially then his brother and provided for his nephew by
sponsoring his education and providing him with an inheritance. Brahe attended
the Universities of Copenhagen and Leipzig, as well as the Universities of
Wittenberg, Rostock, and Basel. It was during this time that he began his
studies in alchemy and astronomy. A quick-tempered young man, Brahe lost his
nose in a sword duel with another student in Wittenberg in 1566. Thereafter, he
wore a metal nose as a replacement (Van Helden). He is noted to history for his
adherence to a geocentric model of the universe despite the overwhelming
evidence provided by Copernicus for the heliocentric model.
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| Fig. 1: Tycho Brahe. |
De Nova Stella
Brahe's first published work is De Nova Stella (The New Star), printed in Copenhagen, 1573, details his
observations of a star that went nova in the constellation of Cassiopeia and
first observed on November 11, 1572. The sudden manifestation of what appeared
to be a new star demanded explanation. Rumors, inaccurate observations, and
mistaken deductions were freely tossed about in the search for an answer. Brahe, in an effort to set the record
straight, decided to publish his own findings (Dreyer 43).
Brahe made highly accurate
observations and calculations regarding the star's magnitude, position,
distance and color. Still under the sway of the Aristotelian-Ptolemic idea that
the planets and stars were somehow "fixed" to a crystalline celestial
sphere, he put the location of the star on the celestial sphere of fixed stars
(Dreyer 48). He was among of the last die-hard adherents of this ancient idea,
which slowly phased out of mainstream scientific thought between 1575 and 1625.
Brahe also spends part of the book discussing the astrological implications of
the new star, an illustration that even among the most noted scholars of the
Sixteenth century, astronomy and astrology were still linked (Van Helden).
As previously noted, Brahe did not
accept the Copernican view of a heliocentric universe. Why then should we
consider his work worthy of academic study? Brahe's passion was in accurate and
detailed observations during a time before the invention of the telescope.
Although he never accepted the heliocentric model, its proof would be built on
detailed, quantifiable facts, some of which Brahe would provide himself through
his own observations.
Despite his intellect, Brahe was still
mired in the pseudo-science of the Catholic Church that then relied on a
literal interpretation of scripture. Brahe could not reconcile a moving Earth with
biblical texts. In his view, Copernicus had merely used his
"trigonometry" to show that it was possible to calculate planetary
motions without having the Earth as a fixed center-point. In an extraordinary
effort involving decades of nightly observations Brahe wrote his greatest work,
Introduction to the New Astronomy.
Never quite finished, the work can be viewed as a transitional work between the
old Ptolemic view of the universe and the new Copernican world-view (Dreyer
175, 178, 181).
A Stare-Way to Heaven
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|
Fig. 2: Brahe's observatory at Uraniberg. |
In 1576, Danish King Fredrick II
presented Brahe with title to the island of Hveen in recognition of Brahe's
work. The king made Brahe into a sort of feudal lord of the manor, a role
perfectly suited for an astronomer of noble heritage. Here, Brahe constructed
an observatory of his own design that would be regarded as the best in Europe.
In a time before the telescope, Brahe, like Copernicus, used his eye,
astrolabes, sextants and other navigational aides as his tools of observation.
He designed his observatory, Uraniberg, in alignment with the paths of the
various planets across the night sky to maximize his observations in the time
before telescopes. One tribute to Brahe's intelligence and skill is that the
accuracy of his observations often exceeded the design limitations of his
instruments (Dreyer 86-87, 328).
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| Fig. 3: Drawing of a sextant used by Brahe. |
Restoring Astronomy
In Introductory
Exercises Toward a Restored Astronomy, Brahe works out a new geocentric
model of the universe. In the Ptolemic model the Sun and the planets each
orbited the Earth attached to their own celestial sphere. Observations by both
Brahe and Copernicus showed problems with that model after accurate calculations
of the planets' orbits were made. Copernicus established the theory that all
the planets revolved around the sun as his response to this problem. Brahe, who
could not accept a heliocentric view of the universe, resolved the problems, in
his own mind, by creating the Tychonic geocentric model of the universe (Brahe
168-169). In this version, Brahe compromises between the two competing
world-views; the Earth is still the center of the universe and the Sun orbits
the Earth, but the planets and comets orbit the Sun. This way, Brahe could
explain the motions of the planets within a geocentric model.
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|
Fig. 4: The Tychonic Geocentric Universe. |
Brahe's contributions to the
scientific tradition include a greater emphasis on accuracy in the instruments
and the observations of astronomers. He introduced transverse divisions between
graduated scales on scientific instruments and improvements to the sighting
mechanisms (Brahe 331-332) and left a voluminous amount of astronomical
observations and calculations that would serve as raw data for generations of
astronomers. Tycho Brahe's assistant, Johannes Kepler, would build on this data
and make his own contribution to the Copernican Revolution.
Related Content
Works Cited
Brahe, Tycho. Description of His Instruments and Scientific Work as
Given in
Astronomiae Instrautae Mechanica. Trans., Eds. Hans
Ræder, Elis and Bengt Strömgren. Copenhagen:
Bianco Lunos
Bogtrykkeri, 1946. Print.
Dreyer, J.L.E., Ph.D. Tycho Brahe: A Picture of Scientific Life
and
Work in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Dover Publications,
Inc., 1963. Print.
Van Helden, Albert. Tycho Brahe. The Galileo Project. Rice
University, 1995. Web. 16 Nov. 2000. <http://es.rice.edu/
ES/humsoc/Galileo/
People/tycho_brahe.html>.
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