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- 24 de October de 2024
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Tycho Brahe
IT HAPPENED…
On October 24, 1601
Tycho Brahe died in Prague
… On October 24, 1601, Tycho Brahe, one of the most eminent astronomers of the Modern Age, died in Prague (Kingdom of Bohemia, now Czech Republic). Although his astronomical model postulates geocentrism as opposed to Copernicus’ heliocentrism, the extraordinary precision of the measurements obtained by his persistent astronomical observations gave way to the theory of planetary orbits of his disciple, Kepler, and ultimately, to the confirmation of heliocentrism as opposed to geocentrism.
We have so assumed today that the Earth orbits around the Sun, and not the other way around, that we tend to forget that, intuitively, everything would initially indicate that this is not the case. Even in everyday language we continue to speak of Sunrise and Sunset, as if it were the Sun that moved around us and we remained motionless.
Also, from the undoubted advantage that living in the present gives us, we tend to project our categories into the past, forgetting, for example, that according to the data available in the 5th century BC, the most reasonable thing was to postulate that the Earth remained motionless and that the Sun orbited around it. There were, certainly, defenders of heliocentrism – such as some Pythagoreans – but in any case it was a hypothesis, not only unprovable, but the astronomical “demonstrations” all supported geocentrism. In reality, to give an example, eclipses were equally predictable. The only problem was the “irregular” movement of the planets, but to explain them the appropriate ad hoc hypotheses were established, such as the “epicycles”, which are what ended up creating problems.
The revolution that Copernicus brought about by postulating that the Earth moves was much more than a simple thesis based on “data”
The revolution that Copernicus brought about by postulating that the Earth moves was much more than a simple thesis based on “data”; It was a change of perspective, a new worldview that involved an inherent change of mentality. That is precisely why it was a revolution. However, things were not yet that clear, and many eminent astronomers refuted it with equally empirical data. Tycho Brahe was precisely one of them.
Tycho Brahe was born in Knudstrup – Scania, which was part of Denmark at the time, currently Sweden – on December 14, 1546. He was from an aristocratic family and studied Philosophy at the University of Copenhagen. During his time as a student, as was usual at the time, he fought in a duel, losing part of his nose, which he covered with a gold and silver prosthesis that simulated a metal nose. He devoted himself to astronomy from an early age, and managed to get the Danish king Frederick II to finance the construction of an observatory for his studies, first on the island of Vhen, and then at Uraniborg Castle. As far as we know, he was the first human to observe a supernova, in 1572.
After the death of Frederick II, his poor relations with the new king, Christian IV, led Brahe to accept the invitation of Emperor Rudolf II of Habsburg, and he moved, first to Rostok, and finally to Prague. In his later years he had the collaboration of a young Johannes Kepler, a future eminent astronomer himself.
In Brahe’s case, the astronomical calculations resulting from his observations were much more precise than those of Copernicus, but he refused to accept heliocentrism as “real”
Copernicus’ heliocentric theses had caused a certain stir in the astronomical circles of the time, although not so much at first. Basically because it was understood as a more or less ingenious hypothesis that solved certain problems, but not as a “real” description of the structure of the cosmos. Only when its true scope was seen did it begin to worry theologians and cosmologists. In many universities, for example, Ptolemaic geocentrism continued to be explained for a long time, and only the most advanced students were introduced into the “secrets” of Copernican heliocentrism.
In Brahe’s case, the astronomical calculations resulting from his observations were much more precise than those of Copernicus, but he refused to accept heliocentrism as “real”. Instead, he adapted geocentrism by proposing a system with the Earth as the motionless center of the universe, around which the Sun and the Moon orbited; but the planets – the five known then: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn – no longer orbited the Earth, but the Sun… Some decades later, Galileo placed again the Earth in orbit around the Sun, and put the Sun at the center, in order to recover, significantly improved, the Copernican model.
Curiously, the autopsy performed on Tycho Brahe’s remains in 1999 established mercury poisoning as the cause of his death, which gave rise to all kinds of speculation. The most likely is that, as he was also dedicated to alchemy and medicine, he made his own medicines with mercury to treat the uremia he suffered from.
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