WEBVTT

00:00:06.566 --> 00:00:09.419
How do you imagine the life of a scientist?

00:00:09.419 --> 00:00:10.739
Boring and monotonous,

00:00:10.739 --> 00:00:12.362
spending endless hours in the lab

00:00:12.362 --> 00:00:14.391
with no social interaction?

00:00:14.391 --> 00:00:17.978
Maybe for some but not Tycho Brahe.

00:00:17.978 --> 00:00:21.725
The 16th century scholar who accurately predicted planetary motion

00:00:21.725 --> 00:00:25.783
and cataloged hundreds of stars before the telescope had been invented

00:00:25.783 --> 00:00:29.015
also had a cosmic-sized personal life.

00:00:29.015 --> 00:00:32.987
Tycho Brahe was born in 1546 to Danish nobles,

00:00:32.987 --> 00:00:37.421
but at age two was kidnapped to be raised by his uncle instead.

00:00:37.421 --> 00:00:40.154
His parents didn't seem to mind.

00:00:40.154 --> 00:00:42.466
Tycho was supposed to have a career in law,

00:00:42.466 --> 00:00:45.046
but after witnessing a solar eclipse at thirteen,

00:00:45.046 --> 00:00:46.496
he began spending more time

00:00:46.496 --> 00:00:48.743
with mathematics and science professors,

00:00:48.743 --> 00:00:52.266
who taught him the art of celestial observation.

00:00:52.266 --> 00:00:55.568
By the time Tycho's uncle sent him off to Germany a few years later,

00:00:55.568 --> 00:00:57.523
he had lost interest in his law studies,

00:00:57.523 --> 00:00:59.479
instead reading astronomy books,

00:00:59.479 --> 00:01:00.791
improving his instruments,

00:01:00.791 --> 00:01:03.583
and taking careful notes of the night skies.

00:01:03.583 --> 00:01:05.553
It wasn't long before his own measurements

00:01:05.553 --> 00:01:08.685
were more accurate than those in his books.

00:01:08.685 --> 00:01:11.402
While in Germany, Tycho got into a bit of an argument

00:01:11.402 --> 00:01:12.940
with another student at a party

00:01:12.940 --> 00:01:14.738
over a mathematical formula,

00:01:14.738 --> 00:01:16.272
resulting in a sword duel

00:01:16.272 --> 00:01:19.524
and Tycho losing a good-sized chunk of his nose.

00:01:19.524 --> 00:01:21.275
After that, he was said to have worn

00:01:21.275 --> 00:01:23.615
a realistic prosthetic of gold and silver

00:01:23.615 --> 00:01:26.573
that he would glue onto his face.

00:01:26.573 --> 00:01:28.468
Fortunately, Tycho didn't need his nose

00:01:28.468 --> 00:01:30.939
to continue his astronomical work.

00:01:30.939 --> 00:01:32.442
He kept studying the night sky

00:01:32.442 --> 00:01:34.295
and creating all sorts of instruments,

00:01:34.295 --> 00:01:36.664
including a building-sized quadrant for measuring

00:01:36.664 --> 00:01:38.749
the angles of stars.

00:01:38.749 --> 00:01:40.553
After months of careful observation,

00:01:40.553 --> 00:01:42.012
Tycho discovered a new star

00:01:42.012 --> 00:01:44.842
in the constellation Cassiopeia.

00:01:44.842 --> 00:01:48.265
The publication of this discovery granted him rock star status

00:01:48.265 --> 00:01:51.972
and offers of scientific positions all over Europe.

00:01:51.972 --> 00:01:53.446
Wanting to keep him at home,

00:01:53.446 --> 00:01:55.159
the King of Denmark offered to give Tycho

00:01:55.159 --> 00:01:59.483
his own personal island with a state of the art observatory.

00:01:59.483 --> 00:02:03.992
Called Uraniborg and costing about 1% of Denmark's entire budget,

00:02:03.992 --> 00:02:06.150
this observatory was more of a castle,

00:02:06.150 --> 00:02:07.698
containing formal gardens,

00:02:07.698 --> 00:02:10.962
rooms for family, staff and visiting royalty,

00:02:10.962 --> 00:02:15.160
and an underground section just for all the giant instruments.

00:02:15.160 --> 00:02:17.491
Tycho also built a papermill and printing press

00:02:17.491 --> 00:02:19.477
for publishing his papers,

00:02:19.477 --> 00:02:21.714
and a lab for studying alchemy.

00:02:21.714 --> 00:02:23.223
And since no castle would be complete

00:02:23.223 --> 00:02:24.547
without entertainment,

00:02:24.547 --> 00:02:26.425
Tycho employed a clairvoyant dwarf

00:02:26.425 --> 00:02:29.148
named Jep as court jester.

00:02:29.148 --> 00:02:30.377
Tycho lived on his island,

00:02:30.377 --> 00:02:33.586
studying and partying for about 20 years.

00:02:33.586 --> 00:02:35.975
But after falling out with the new Danish King,

00:02:35.975 --> 00:02:38.764
he took up an invitation from the Holy Roman Emperor

00:02:38.764 --> 00:02:42.337
to become the official imperial astronomer in Prague.

00:02:42.337 --> 00:02:45.551
There, he met another famous astronomer Johannes Kepler,

00:02:45.551 --> 00:02:47.830
who became his assistant.

00:02:47.830 --> 00:02:49.657
While Kepler's work interested him,

00:02:49.657 --> 00:02:51.459
Tycho was protective of his data,

00:02:51.459 --> 00:02:54.528
and the two often got into heated arguments.

00:02:54.528 --> 00:02:57.308
In 1601, Tycho attended a formal banquet

00:02:57.308 --> 00:02:59.031
where he drank quite a lot

00:02:59.031 --> 00:03:01.593
but was too polite to leave the table to relieve himself,

00:03:01.593 --> 00:03:03.759
deciding to tough it out instead.

00:03:03.759 --> 00:03:05.423
This proved to be a bad idea,

00:03:05.423 --> 00:03:07.358
as he quickly developed a bladder infection

00:03:07.358 --> 00:03:10.071
and died a few days later.

00:03:10.071 --> 00:03:11.808
But over 400 years after his death,

00:03:11.808 --> 00:03:15.359
Tycho still had a few surprises up his sleeve.

00:03:15.359 --> 00:03:17.997
When his body was exhumed and studied in 2010,

00:03:17.997 --> 00:03:20.088
the legendary gold and silver nose

00:03:20.088 --> 00:03:21.900
was nowhere to be found,

00:03:21.900 --> 00:03:23.366
with chemical traces suggesting

00:03:23.366 --> 00:03:26.216
that he wore a more casual brass nose instead.

00:03:26.216 --> 00:03:28.696
Tycho's mustache hair was also found

00:03:28.696 --> 00:03:32.397
to contain unusually high levels of toxic mercury.

00:03:32.397 --> 00:03:35.709
Was it from a medicine used to treat his bladder infection?

00:03:35.709 --> 00:03:38.411
A residue from his alchemy experiments?

00:03:38.411 --> 00:03:40.731
Or did his quarrelsome coworker Johannes Kepler

00:03:40.731 --> 00:03:43.626
poison him to acquire his data?

00:03:43.626 --> 00:03:45.089
We may never know,

00:03:45.089 --> 00:03:47.794
but the next time you think scientists lead boring lives,

00:03:47.794 --> 00:03:49.182
dig a little deeper.

00:03:49.182 --> 00:03:52.239
A fascinating story may be just beyond the tip of your nose.