Planetary Orbits #2: Tycho Brahe

Refer to my blog on the planetary models of the old days. This blog, again based on Kitty Ferguson’s Tycho and Kepler, focuses on the first half of the Tycho-Kepler pair, a Danish nobleman cum astronomer par excellence:
“Tycho Brahe was renowned throughout Europe as a prince among astronomers and an astronomer among princes.”
Tycho believed that “the future of astronomy lay in numerous and exact observations”. To that purpose, he designed sophisticated instruments, many of which required “highly skilled, specialist instrument makers”.

In 1572, he saw a new object in the sky, brighter than any other star or planet:
-         He determined that it wasn’t a comet.
-         He figured it lay beyond the Moon, a contradiction to Aristotle’s point that nothing changed in the regions beyond the Moon.
He published all this in a book, De Stella Nova, meaning The New Star. An ironic title given that what he’d observed was the death of a star, not its birth: he’d seen a Type I supernova. (This was confirmed in the late 20th century by detecting the radio emission from the location identified by Tycho, providing yet another instance of the meticulous details Tycho had maintained).

King Frederick of Denmark agreed to pay for a suitable residence for Tycho, the astronomer. Thus he came to the isle of Hven, where he designed his castle cum observatory cum boarding house for his assistants!
“The triangular panels of the cone-shaped observatory could be removed individually to allow Tycho and his assistants to study one part of the sky or the other.”

Yet another demonstration of Tycho’s analytical powers were with a comet:
-         He proved that it lay beyond the Moon.
-         He proved that it orbited the Sun.
-         He found that the comet’s speed varied as it went around the Sun, defying yet another ancient assumption that celestial motion must be uniform.

For all his observations, Tycho kept meticulous records to show “which instrument he used for each observation”. He would even have two sets of assistants procure data from different parts of his observatory, making sure they couldn’t see each others’ readings, thereby reducing errors in his data! Such meticulousness was why his data was such a treasure for future analysts.

When it came to Ptolemy v/s Copernicus, Tycho couldn’t decide:
“The only way to prove that Earth was not standing still was to find stellar parallax, and that Tycho could not do. There was simply no physical evidence to show that Copernicus was right.”
It just seemed like a matter of preference to Tycho. But as can be seen, his conclusion wasn’t based on dogma: it was based on the (lack of) evidence. Instead, Tycho proposed a 3rd option for the planetary system, calling it the Tychonic system:
-         All the planets orbit the Sun.
-         The Sun and the Moon orbit the Earth.
He was now looking for someone who could analyze the data and confirm that his system was right. That analyst would eventually be Johann Kepler.

But the Brahe-Kepler partnership was clouded by what one of Brahe’s earlier assistants had done. That assistant, one Nicolaus Reimers Bär, stole Tycho’s readings and published them under a different identity, Ursus. Not knowing any of this, Kepler, who had published his own book, used hyperbole to praise Ursus’ work. Ursus then used Kepler’s praise to consolidate his claim, something that brought Kepler to Tycho’s attention. But Tycho wasn’t sure if Kepler might be genuinely ignorant of the whole Bär/Ursus plagiarism…

Impressed by Kepler’s book, Tycho wanted him as an assistant. He also tried to get Kepler to retract against Ursus, but Kepler resented being used as a pawn. Even when Kepler worked for Brahe, the latter had a nagging fear that Kepler was Ursus’ spy. So he wouldn’t share all his data with Kepler, much to Kepler’s annoyance. And Kepler wanted all the data to get the big picture; his inquisitiveness would only raise Brahe’s suspicions. All this led to what the author called a “dysfunctional collaboration” between the two men.

This need-you-but-don’t-trust-you setup led to periodic flare-ups, and multiple instances when Kepler almost left. Finally, when he felt his end was near:
“Tycho at last made the leap of faith and wagered his earthly immortality on Kepler.”
Thus, upon Tycho’s death, “the legacy was Kepler’s” to analyze. What conclusions would Kepler draw from all that data?

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