Tycho Brahe: An Astronomer's Untimely Demise

Tycho Brahe is hailed as an influential astronomer, but why? Tune in and learn how this groundbreaking astronomer lost his nose, built the world's first observatory and met with an untimely demise in this podcast.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm far Down and I'm debline and chocolate boarding. And
the central figure of today's episode is one that's been
requested quite frequently. It's Tico bra Hay, a famous Danish

(00:24):
astronomer of the sixteenth century who is remarkable because he
made a lot of his observations with the naked eye. Essentially,
this was pre the invention of the telescope. Yeah, impressive stuff.
And I think people keep on requesting him because he's
been in the news a lot recently because of a
certain dig that's going on, an exhamation excitation, which most

(00:47):
of you know that's like the theme of the podcast.
So I was really pleased when you picked this lend
of bline. I was like, you're you're learning fat well,
you know, I want to I want to blend. So
this is my chance. But the news that Sarah is
referred to is Chico brought His remains were brought up
for the second time. He was exhumed in November for

(01:09):
about a week um His remains were taken from the
tomb that they rested in Prague and scientists. They did
this because they want to get a better idea, some
more insight into the unusual circumstances that surrounded his death. Yeah, because,
I mean, for a long time, people have thought that
he died of a bladder infection. I know, it's kind
of unfortunate, it's an unfortunate reputation to have, But people

(01:32):
thought that he died because while he was at a
banquet at the Emperor's court in Prague, he refused to
excuse himself to go to the bathroom. So he's like
a good example for teaching your kids, don't hold it
too long, don't go ahead and say you need to go.
He claimed he had a good excuse. He thought it
would be rude, um, basically a breach of court etiquette

(01:55):
to do that in the middle of this dinner. But
suffice to say, what happened as he returned home and
he was unable to urinate after that experience. That was
the case for actually eleven days. Can you imagine, sounds
agonizing until he finally died on October one. So this
is kind of the back story to it. Um. There

(02:16):
have been varying reports. People said that his bladder burst,
it had become twisted somehow torn. It was kind of unclear.
Kidney disease was also proposed as a possible suspect in
the situation. Even at that time, though, there were some
rumors going around, some some murmurings that maybe murder had
been involved because Tico was basically healthy guy. He was

(02:39):
about fifty four fifty five years old, um didn't have
any illness. So it was a little suspect and he
had enemies, and he had enemies definitely. We'll find out later.
So fast forward to the nineteen nineties, the Progue National
Museum happens to be in possession of Tico's mustache. I also,
I thought this was really like timely knew is because

(03:00):
it's November, you know, the whole mustache month. You're supposed
to grow mustache if you are so able to do
so in November to celebrate mustache. So I mean, I
feel like maybe they dug him off to coincide with this.
Probably not, but cheers. Oh well, they actually that was

(03:22):
his first exhamation in one where they got the mustache,
so maybe they celebrated November at that time as well.
Basically they got the mustache and then in they brought
it back out the prog Museum. They sent a few
hairs over to some researchers in Denmark and they discovered something.
At that time, they discovered some really high mercury levels

(03:44):
in ticos system. It was about a hundred times above normal. Yeah,
and so in nine Danish and Swedish scientists decided to
do a few more tests on those hairs, and this
time they used a proton microbe, which was more sophisticate
to technology, and they found out that all that mercury
hadn't accumulated over years and years, It had all come

(04:06):
in one single dose, which was only about thirteen hours
before he died. So suddenly this seemed very suspicious, very
likely the cause of death not this first ladder or
kidney disease or something. Right, So that's basically what they're
trying to get more information on with this current exhimation.

(04:27):
But the question still lingers, even if they find out
if it's murder, who would want to murder Tico? And why? Yeah,
what did you do that's so wrong? So that's a
little bit of what we're going to look into in
this episode. And but first we're gonna take you back
to the beginning, so we always do as we do.
He was born Tiga bra Hay actually with a different,

(04:49):
slightly different first name, on December four six, in an
area that would now be considered South Sweden, but it
was then part of Denmark. Yeah, and his parents were nobles,
but they didn't have that big of an influence on
his life because of something that happens at age two. Yes,
he was kidnapped, and he's kidnapped by his uncle, Jorgan Brahi. Yeah,

(05:11):
let's go to the strange part. His dad apparently uh
made a deal with Jorgan before Tico was even born,
and the deal was that if the child was a boy,
Organ could adopt him. You see, Organ, he didn't have
a son, so therefore he didn't have an air so
he really wanted this to occur. But after Tico actually

(05:31):
showed up, Otto kind of changed his mind. He changed
the deal, or maybe his wife mentioned something like no,
I'd really rather not give away my firstborn. That could
also be an aspect of it. But fortunately Otto and
his wife have a second son named Steen, and at
this point Organ is like, well, Tico is mine. I mean,
if you have two sons, I'm at least taking one

(05:53):
of them and Otto. Tico's father was pretty upset about
this at first, that his son got swiped by his brother. Yeah,
he was. He threatened to murder his brother Organ at first,
but then he eventually relaxed about it a little bit,
and he he saw the benefits that the situation could
potentially present. He saw that, Okay, my brother Organ, he

(06:17):
is lord of Tranicker Castle. He's very wealthy, he's very
well educated. So he saw after a while that Tico
could be on a tractor pretty sweet inheritance if he
stayed with his uncle. Yeah, that both of his sons
might end up with a better future, right, And so
Organ being well educated and his wife inga they sent
Tico on the trap to getting a good education too.

(06:39):
By all accounts, they were very loving parents and he
had like a really good childhood. So in about fifteen
fifteen nine, when he was about twelve or thirteen years old,
Tico went to the University of Copenhagen and was there
until about fifteen sixty two. His main area of study
there was law, which is what his uncle wanted him
to do. But it was kind of the expected job

(07:02):
for a man of his class exactly, but it didn't
take a little. It didn't take very long for a
couple of things to happen while he was there. First off,
he started writing his name as Tico instead of Tico,
which was the more modern style. And then most significantly,
he witnessed a total eclipse of the sun on August one,

(07:22):
fifteen sixty And this was just an amazing phenomenon to
him because it was something that had been predicted and
that it actually came to be, and he was just
sort of fascinated by the fact that this was possible. Yeah,
he knew there must be something behind astronomy, and so
he started to study it more. He started to go

(07:43):
out and study the stars at night, even though his
family was trying to get him to focus on law
and not be out stargazing. But after leaving school, he
toured Europe and went all over Wittenberg, Rostock, Basil, Augsburg.
But instead of visiting all the courts and doing the

(08:04):
things he should have done as this young nobleman, he
spent time studying at a few universities. Exactly, he was
at the University of Leipzig from about fifteen sixty two
to fifteen sixty five. His uncle actually sent him there
again to study law, but of course he kept gazing
at the stars. In fifteen sixty three, he had what

(08:24):
was his second significant astronomical experience, so to speak, which
was the first recorded observation of the overlapping of Jupiter
and Saturn. And this was significant because it was something
that was sort of off from what other scientists had predicted.
So he had studied the works of Ptolemy and Copernicus,

(08:47):
but what this showed him was that a lot of
what was known at the time about the positions of
the planets and the stars wasn't exactly accurate. Yeah, so
he knew there was room for him and room to
improve on what was already knew. Yeah. So he dedicated
his life at this point to studying astronomy and stars. Yeah,
And he kept on traveling, kept on studying astronomy and

(09:08):
at Rostock. He actually got into an argument with another
student over a mathematical point, which seems like as good
a thing as any to get into, not arguing over um.
They take it pretty far. They fight a duel, and
some people say it was a drunken duel. That doesn't
sound too surprising. But it ends with the other student

(09:28):
slicing off part of Tico's nose and a big part,
a big part of it. And to deal with that,
he had an artificial nose created, which was supposedly made
of either silver or gold, and that was I mean,
that's probably what he's best known for its fakes. Yeah,
and we'll talk a little more about that later. But

(09:50):
during this period he did something else that was a
little scandalous. He'd already anchored his family by studying the astronomy,
which wasn't as respected as the law, and then he
went off and married a woman who was basically considered
a peasant. Her name was Kirsten Jorgan's daughter. She was
a daughter of a parson, and family and friends never
really accepted her. I mean for a long time his

(10:13):
they had eight kids, I think, and they were considered
illegitimate because the marriage was so beneath him, right, people
never really recognized it. But I mean, he's doing all
right financially at least, even if they're not recognizing his family.
He's still this wealthy nobleman. And when his father and
uncle both die in fifteen seventy one, he inherits his
uncle's estate and at least part of his father's estate,

(10:35):
so he's he's got all the resources he needs to
continue his studies and really launched himself fully into astronomy. Yes,
so then he sets up his own sort of small
observatory and lab on another relative's property, just to totally
devote herself. Right and there, on November eleven, fift seventy two,

(10:57):
he made what is perhaps considered his most significant discovery.
He noticed what he called a new star and it
was brighter than Venus and located where no star was
supposed to be in the Cassiopeia constellation. And he published
a work about it called Di Nova Stella, which is
the New Star translated. This was really big news for

(11:20):
the intellectual community at the time. Yeah, it shook them up. Yeah,
because they figured that we know everything we could never
know about where the stars are. The stars do not move,
you don't get a new one, and so this was
major news for them. Yeah. It almost was controversial. It
rubbed some people the wrong way. They didn't want to

(11:42):
believe it. But he uh, now we know what he
observed was a supernova or the explosion of a dying star.
But you know, at the time, just the fact that
he had seen something in there that was different was
a big deal. So after this, Tico becomes pretty famous
throughout Europe. He's a well known and well respected astronomer,
and he has a dream of establishing an even larger,

(12:03):
very large observatory, and he plans to do so in
Germany until King Frederick the Second of Denmark convinces him
to stay. Um basically makes him an offer he can't refuge,
makes them a pretty sweet offer. King Frederick is basically
Frederick the second becomes a patron of sorts for Tico.

(12:25):
Possibly because his life had been saved by Tico's uncle,
That could factor into it, but I think part of
it was also that here's this fabulous, famous astronomer, and
I don't want to lose him. I want him to
stay in my country. So all these things combined maybe
convince him to offer Tico the entire island of then
and foot the bill for the construction of a large

(12:46):
observatory and house, and essentially makes the villagers Tico's tenants.
So basically he can get rent from them. You can
get rent from them, duties. It's an awesome deal from
Tico's point of view. Yeah, so he gets to build
his observatory, picks his own architect and he calls it Urannaborg,

(13:06):
which translates to Castle of the Heavens, and it's complete
with it's a pretty swanky place, even complete with indoor plumbing,
which is ironically I think you're considering his unusual death.
Yet it's a little ironic. But he designs his plumbing himself,
and it was very uncommon at the time, so it's
always something that you'll see mentioned about Uranna borg Um,

(13:29):
even though it's kind of a funny thing to mention,
I guess. And this was considered the world's first large
research institute. So he has all these assistance that help
him and he is just observing away and they do
a lot of work there. All of Tico and all
of his assistance catalog the positions of at least seven
seventy seven stars. Some people say it's more like a

(13:50):
thousand stars, and the work replaces Ptolemy's it becomes the
standard astronomical text, I guess or or data set. Yeah,
it was a pretty big deal. And then in the
fifteen eighties he came up with what he thought to
be his biggest achievement ever, and that was a theory
about the Solar system that contradicted Copernicus. Basically, he hoped

(14:12):
with this, he hoped to eventually confirm this with his data. Yeah,
and just to give you a rundown of how these
theories differed. Copernicus thought that the Sun was the center
of the universe and all the planets revolved around the Sun.
But Tico thought that the Earth stayed put, it remained
in this stationary position, and the Sun and the Moon

(14:33):
revolved around the Earth, orbiting the Earth, and the other
planets orbited the Sun. So it was kind of a mishmash,
I guess. Yeah, it was a little topsy turvy compared
to Copernicus his theory. And of course, and now we
know that Copernicus was actually correct, but that came later on.
So all of his data collecting, all of his observations
later in life were to help confirm this theory. Up

(14:56):
until this point, he appears to have led a charm
to Life Islands his observatory two estates from his family.
I mean, he's well known, he's well respected. But then
in fifteen six things start to go south a little bit.
Frederick the second has died and his son Frederick son,

(15:18):
that is, Christian the fourth assumed the throne of Denmark
and Norway, and he's not as fond of Tico. Yeah,
and you mentioned earlier that you saw different accounts of that.
Maybe Christian just doesn't like Tico and wants to completely
shut down his operation. Maybe it was more of a
budgetary issue, you know, he just didn't have room to

(15:38):
fund this astronomer as much as his father had. Yeah,
and I mean Tico was not cheap. He was living
large out on the island of then, throwing parties, drinking,
eating lots, and really not treating his tenants very well
at all. So because of this clash with Christian the fourth,
he ends up moving to Prague with his wife, where

(16:00):
or Roudolph the Second gave him refuge and he continues
his work there. But really at that point he had
collected the majority of the data that he was going
to collect over the course of his lifetime. So he
has all of that. He's still working with it, he's
still observing things, um, but at this point he most
of his life's work is complete. Time to analyze everything

(16:21):
you've gotten and what happened to the island and his
large observatory. Well, Christian the Fourth reportedly had it torn down,
so unfortunately it doesn't exist today. We can't even visit
this place, you and your plumbing and everything, you know.
So while he's in Prague, another significant thing happens. Tico

(16:43):
takes on an assistant named Johannes Kepler in six hundred Yeah,
and Kepler is a very different guy in away from Tico.
He comes from a different background. He's not a nobleman,
but by the time they meet, he's got a good reputation.
He's a respected sigh antis and he's also a Copernican.
So opposite opposite theories. They don't believe the universe works

(17:08):
the same way, so he thinks that the planets orbit
the Sun. It seems like it would be really hard
to have a productive partnership with another astronomer if you
had such a fundamental difference, but it seems like it
could have worked well together. They could have worked well together.
Kepler was a theory guy and Tico was the data guy,
So if they had put their heads together, who knows

(17:30):
what could have happened. But it turns out that they
had kind of a tough working relationship. But couple really
wanted to work with Tico because he had come up
with sort of his own theory about um the orbits
of the planets. He thought that they were spheres, one
inside of the other, and so he really wanted to
work with Tico so that he could use his data.

(17:50):
But then, of course he comes to Tico, and Tico's
totally stingy with all his observations in his data and
completely at odds with his own beliefs. You don't want
your data to prove something that disproves what you've been
working on. Sure, so, as we mentioned that the two
butted heads, they argued. Kepler even walked down and left
at one point, and then Tico kind of came back

(18:11):
and relented and they came back together. But then, of
course Tico dies suddenly in six o one, and Kepler
after that point becomes the Imperial Mathematician in Prague, which
gives him access to all of Tico's data, So what
he wants, he's finally got what he needs. Unfortunately, though,
once he has all this data he's been waiting for

(18:34):
for so long, it doesn't confirm his theory about the
spherical orbit. That's true. At least he knows this, and
he did confirm Copernicus' view of the Solar system and
to come up with the important laws of planetary motion
that he's still known for today. Yeah. So Kepler's work
definitely benefits from having this data, which of course comes

(18:56):
from Tico's death. So suspicious. Yeah, And in things about
the mercury poisoning came out, a lot of people started thinking, well,
what did this guy have to gain from it? And
it makes them a pretty likely suspect, but there's no proof,
there's no proof. A lot of people suggest that he
might be a suspect, but there's no real hard proof

(19:16):
I don't think to support that. Fortunately, we have we
have some other suspect. There are some other suspects lined
up here. One suspect is the Jesuit Order. They could
have been to blame because they didn't really like the
influence that Tico had as a Protestant over Prague's emperor
Routolf the second. So that was what would have made

(19:39):
them a suspect. Their motive in it, I guess, And
there are others that think that Christian the Fourth may
have had something to do with it, since he's not
a fan, no, not a big fan of Tico at all,
so he might have had a score to settle there,
and there's been some sort of recent theorizing about that front,
at least, hasn't there. Yes, there has a guy named

(19:59):
Peter andrews En who is a Strasburg German studies expert.
He a couple of years ago came up with a
scenario that has Christian the Fourth as a mastermind and
a plot that also involves Tico's distant cousin, Eric Brahe,
and it's assumed in this scenario that Eric Brahe is
the killer. And the reason Anderson came up with this

(20:21):
theory is that he found he discovered Eric Brahe's six
hundred page diary in the Royal Library of Stockholm, and
he says it contains some pretty definitive evidence that shows
it shows Eric Brahe going away on this huge mission.
Around this time, he's wrangling an invitation to the banquet
that Tico attended, the one where he didn't use the

(20:43):
bathroom the entire time, And it also shows that Eric
visited Tico at his home after the banquet in the
day's length, and he also expresses some remorse in his
diary in his writing, so there's one theory for you. Um,
but other people think and this is not maybe not
quite as exciting and scandalous, but some people think that

(21:06):
Tico's death was accidental mercury poisoning. That because he was
also a bit of an alchemist, he might have tried
to cure himself by dosing himself with too much mercury
and accidentally dying from it. Yeah, that's another possibility. And unfortunately,
scientists say that we'll never know the truth because even

(21:31):
though they can find out that they might find out
if it's murder or if it was accidental poisoning, but
after former plus years, it's unlikely that they'd be able
to identify specific killer. So we this may have to
remain a mystery. We do have one thing we can
look forward to though. Yes, they may solve the mystery
of the fake knows, and that came about the first

(21:51):
time they exhumed Tico bra Hay in nineteen o one.
They discovered that the metal plate that was his nose thesists, Yes,
it was missing, it was not in his tomb, and
when they sort of tested the area, they found copper
there rather than silver and gold, which everyone thought it was.
So they're hoping to test now and see if they

(22:15):
can figure out what the nose was actually made up
with a silver and gold Was it a silver and
copper alloy? Maybe he had multiple notes. Maybe he had
multiple ones. That's also a theory. Maybe he had one
for special occasions and one for just everyday use. Yeah,
you need a females need different looks, So that's one
thing that we can look forward to hopefully. Yes, I

(22:35):
would like to learn about the nose, if not the
murder something um. But I guess that about wraps it
up with Tico. If you have any more fun stories,
you should email us. We talked about Katie and I
talked about his moose or Elk earlier on the Animals podcast.
So poor l pretty interesting guy. Yep, there's so much

(22:56):
more we could say about Ticco if we had all
the time in the world. So do you have any
other specific questions or you want to add something, definitely
write us. Yeah, you can email us at History Podcast
at how stuff works dot com. We're also on Twitter
at mist in history, and we have a Facebook fan page,
so we have a lot of ways to share your
Tico stories with us. And if you want to learn

(23:18):
a little more about supernovas and other stellar events. You
can check out our article how stars Work on our
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(23:39):
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