WEBVTT - How Tycho Brahe Saw the Stars 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.720 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:08.240 and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky Listener Discretion is advised. 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:16.239 There's an anecdote that's often included in biographies of sixteenth 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:21.080 century astronomer Tico Braie that, while almost entirely irrelevant to 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.360 his life or scientific achievements, I think is worth talking about. 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:30.280 You see, Tico Brie had a pet elk. He had 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:34.080 a few pet elks, we can determine that from primary sources, 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:38.240 but one in particular was Tame, who would trot along 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.599 at the side of his carriages and join him inside 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:45.040 the house. He and his family would feed it beer 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:47.879 and delight in the way that it lapped it up. 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:52.320 One of Brie's German friends wrote to him once asking 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:54.640 if it was true that in Denmark there was an 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:58.120 animal called a ricks that was bigger and faster than 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.360 a deer. Brian, you, his friend. He knew he was 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:05.480 one of those wealthy aristocratic types who just wanted as 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:09.160 many different animals as possible for his own private zoo. 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:14.160 Brian wrote back, saying, no, there's no ricks. You're probably 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.480 thinking of a reindeer. But hey, if you happen to 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:19.720 want an elk, I have a tame one that you 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:23.479 can borrow. The letter was sent off to Germany, and 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:26.959 by the time the friend wrote back saying sure it 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:30.600 was too late, bra he had already sent his tame 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.120 elk over to a neighbor's house for a party. That 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.479 party's guests were so amused by the animal that they 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.559 kept giving it more and more alcohol. The elk made 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:44.800 it to the top of a staircase and then drunk 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:50.360 it stumbled down and broke its neck. Now I reiterate 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:54.520 the tame drunk elk who fell down the stairs isn't 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:59.760 relevant to Tako Brie's scientific achievements, but the story strange 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.120 does sort of capture why Bray has become such a 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:08.919 figure of fascination for centuries. A drunk pet elk is 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.880 a detail you expect to find in the biography of 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:16.400 a romantic Arab poet. It's genuinely astonishing that it didn't 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:21.799 happen to Lord Byron. It's debauchrous and whimsical, and yet 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:27.440 Ticobry's scientific legacy is basically the opposite of that. It's 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:32.720 an incredibly precise and comprehensive data that he collected. He 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.560 was the last of the major naked eye astronomers working 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:40.760 in the era before telescopes, and for decades of his 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:45.080 life he pioneered equipment that brought a brand new level 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:50.680 of accuracy to the astronomical community in Europe. But he 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:54.680 was also the wildly strange figure that paraded around Europe 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.120 with a brass nose, who became lord ruler of an 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:02.360 entire island, who worked as an alchemist, and whose death 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:07.560 was either humiliating and mundane or a captivating murder of 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:13.040 scientific jealousy, depending on who you ask. Personally, I believe 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:16.160 the science even when it disproves the fun murder theory. 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:21.760 But as Ticobrie taught us, a devotion to science doesn't 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:26.440 have to be boring. I'm Danish schwartz and this is 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:38.920 noble blood. Ticobra was actually born by the name tegobri In, 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:44.000 but since starting university he would refer to himself by 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.640 the Latinized version of his name, Tico, and since that's 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:51.000 the name by which most history refers to him, that's 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.200 the name will go with here. He was the oldest 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:59.160 son of an incredibly storied lineage of Danish nobles. Almost 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.160 every one of his male relatives had a prominent position 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.960 in the Danish or Swedish king's privy council. They almost 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:09.680 all had castles. He was the oldest of eight children 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.160 who lived to adulthood, and all of his brothers went 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:16.600 on to become well respected government or military officials. Tico 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.839 probably would have shared their fate had it not been 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:22.359 for the strange decision to send him off as a 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:26.440 toddler to be raised by his aunt Anger and Uncle Jorgan. 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:31.960 Books often refer to the couple as childless, which paints 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.640 sending them Ticco as a polite act of charity, giving 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:37.960 them a child to raise since they didn't have one 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:42.200 of their own. But that's an incorrect impression based on hindsight. 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:45.599 At the time that they got the little tych Tico 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.920 Inger was only twenty. It's strange to think that they 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:52.120 would have known at the time that they would have 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:56.560 been childless. But Uncle Jorgan was a military hero and 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:01.320 an intellectual. Maybe Tico's parents thought the were reason enough 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:05.960 to have him raise a child. Jrgen valued education in 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.280 a way that Tico's actual father might not have. Tico 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:12.720 attended a prominent church school, and then at age thirteen, 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.760 he was sent to the University of Copenhagen to study 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.680 law as his uncle requested. It was at the University 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:24.440 of Copenhagen that Tico's love of astronomy sparked into focus. 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:30.359 On August one, fifteen sixty, when Tico was fourteen years old, 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.640 the Moon passed between the Earth and the Sun, resulting 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:38.840 in a total solar eclipse. Even though the eclipse was 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:43.279 only partial from Mortico observed it, it was incredible, the 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.360 type of profound event that makes you wonder about the 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.479 meaning of life and mankind's place in the universe. But 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:55.000 Ta Tico even more fascinating was that it had been predicted. 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.559 By tracking the positions of the Sun and the Moon, 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.640 astronomers had been able to predict that a solar eclipse 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:07.479 would occur decades or even centuries before it happened. It 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.640 was the closest thing to actual magic in a world 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:13.840 that did still believe in alchemy and being able to 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:21.920 foretell the future. The problem Tico realized was that these 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:25.440 predictions of the solar eclips by astronomers had been a 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:29.840 full day off. If only they're observational tools had been 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:35.160 more precise, Tico thought, then humans could fully understand the universe. 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:39.080 Tico's uncle Jorgan tried to get his nephew to focus 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:43.159 on a more respected and conventional field, but Tico wouldn't 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:48.240 be deterred. He had found his passion. At sixteen, Tico 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:50.800 was sent on a tour of Europe to learn foreign 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.760 languages and about the other major European courts. It was 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:56.880 a rite of passage for noblemen who would need to 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:01.359 become not only well educated in intellectual matters, but also 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:06.520 matters of decorum and diplomacy. Escorting Tico on the tour 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.720 was a twenty year old middle class student named Andrew 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:13.240 Sorns and Fidel, hired to teach Tico and also to 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:17.200 keep him in the line. Fidell begrudgingly pretended not to 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:21.240 notice when Tico secretly purchased books of astronomy, and he 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:25.120 also pretended not to notice the tiny, fist size celestial 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:29.200 globe that Tico would consult whenever he thought Fidel wasn't looking. 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:32.960 By the time the two boys returned to Denmark in 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:38.160 fifteen sixty, they were met with two surprises. First that 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:42.240 Denmark was at war with Sweden, and also that Tico's 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:46.760 uncle Jorgan was dead. Jorgan was vice admiral of the 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.840 Danish fleet, and he had achieved several prominent military victories, 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:55.320 including sinking Sweden's biggest worship. But he died a hero 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:59.560 in a different way. The King of Denmark, Frederick the Second, 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.160 got drunk following a victory and fell off his force 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:07.760 into a canal in Copenhagen. Jorgan leaped into the icy 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.800 water to rescue him, got pneumonia and died two weeks later. 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.760 Tico wouldn't stay in Denmark long. He left to go 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:21.040 to Germany to study medical alchemy at the University of Rostock. 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.760 It was there that Tico would experience one of the 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:28.800 most infamous events of his life, the duel where he 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:36.520 lost his nose. The duel didn't actually start with a duel. 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:41.000 It started with a lunar eclipse. Tico Bri, who had 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.920 just turned twenty years old, analyzed the lunar eclipse of 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:50.480 October fifteen sixty six and decided that it foretold the 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:54.960 death of the Turkish Sultan Suleman the Great. So certain 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.560 was he about the accuracy of his interpretation that Tico 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:02.840 wrote a long Latin poem about it and posted it publicly. 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:07.800 There was only one problem. Word came that Suleiman the 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:12.360 Great did die, but he had died six weeks before 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:18.560 the eclipse even happened. Bray was humiliated, and the humiliation 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:23.920 would continue for months. In December, Bry's host in Germany 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.960 through a party and happened to invite along another Danish noble, 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:32.440 Mandraup Parsburg, who also happened to be Tico's third cousin. 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:38.480 Parsburg mocked Tico for his hilariously earnest and completely wrong 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:42.360 Latin poem, and Tico did not have a sense of 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:46.200 humor about it. The two almost came to blows, but 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:50.960 they were pulled apart until a little over two weeks later, 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:53.880 when the two met again, this time in a dimly 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:58.199 lit bar. Parsburg snorted at Tico's assertion that he was 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:03.120 a better mathematician. Tico stood and touched the sword at 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:07.360 his hips. In that dark bar lit only by candles, 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:11.240 with everything obscured by their smoke, the two decided to 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.400 duel to decide once and for all who was the 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:19.840 better mathematician. With a single stroke of his blade, Parsburgh 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:24.559 hacked off the bridge of tico bride's nose. The injury 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:29.160 led to weeks of lonely, panic and uncertainty. The real 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:32.840 danger was not the injury itself, but the deadly infection 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.720 it could lead to. Besides, until the scar tissue formed, 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:42.240 the extent of the disfigurement couldn't be known. Eventually, Tico 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:44.559 Brie came to terms with the fact that he was 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:49.280 missing most of his nose. Rather than get a wax prosthetic, 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:53.720 he chose to instead affix a brass false nose. He 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.560 had another nose made of a mixture of silver and 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.360 gold as to be more or less skin colored, that 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:03.760 he brought for special occasions. Tico kept a small box 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:07.400 filled with adhesive with him at all times for the 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:12.200 moment that his nose began to slip in public. When 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.280 he returned to Denmark again when his father was dying, 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.800 it was as a new man. Literally upon his return, 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:23.880 he built an observatory at Harevard Abbey, a property belonging 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.000 to one of his maternal uncles, and it was there 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:30.080 that he would make the discovery that would turn him 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:40.440 into an overnight scientific celebrity. Tikobri had been memorizing the 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.480 stars in the sky since he was a child, and 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:48.240 so when on November eleventh, seventy two, a brand new 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:51.160 star seemed to appear in the sky right next to 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:56.600 the constellation Cassiopeia. Tico noticed right away. First, he asked 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.520 his sister, Sophia Brie, who worked alongside him as a 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:04.680 research assistant. She confirmed that star definitely hadn't been there before. 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.480 Batiko Brian couldn't wrap his mind around it. He couldn't 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.120 believe his eyes. He begged servants and passing peasants to 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:14.800 look up at the sky, see that star there that 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.960 wasn't there before. Right, My guess is the passing peasants 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:23.880 and servants weren't much help. The thing is, nothing new 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:28.080 was supposed to happen in the stars. New things happened 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.440 in the sky all the time. That was different. In 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.920 Bride's day, there was an understanding that the Moon revolved 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:38.400 around the Earth, and things could happen and change beneath 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:41.840 the Moon in the sub lunar space, but beyond the 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:46.280 Moon that was supposed to be fixed and unchanging. And 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:49.920 this new star, this was further away than the moon. 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:55.880 The heavens were changeable. One quick aside to explain how 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:58.840 Tiko knew for a fact that the star was beyond 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:02.400 the moon. It was using the principle of parallax, or 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:06.240 the idea that closer objects will move more relative to 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.199 their surroundings when you look at them from a different perspective. 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:13.000 It's a little tough to explain orally, but have you 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:15.840 ever noticed that, when you're driving in a car, the 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.760 nearby scenery right alongside the window seems to whip past, 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:24.679 while the further scenery moves incredibly slowly. That's an illustration 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:30.040 of parallax. With his observation of the new star, Tico 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:33.400 worked alongside his sister to write a short book called 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:38.440 to Stella Nova, or fittingly, the New Star. He had 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:43.120 found what we now know was a super nova. Tico 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:49.560 Brie is where we get that name. This feels like 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:52.600 the right moment to go back a bit and understand 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:55.960 just a little about astronomy as it was understood before 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:59.560 the sixteenth century. Bear in mind this will be just 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:04.680 a really cursory overview. In three hundred and sixty BC, 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:09.080 Plato posited a version of the universe to explain the 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:13.120 way the moon, stars, and sun all would move across 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:17.280 the sky. The Earth was the center of the universe, obviously, 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.280 and then the Sun, the Moon, and planets all moved 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:26.320 around us in perfect celestial spheres. But if you actually 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:30.600 observe the motion of the planets, there's a problem. They 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.960 don't move consistently across the sky the way they were 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:38.280 if they were in a perfect divine sphere. The planets, 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:42.360 at certain points in their trajectory moved back and then 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.680 forth again. It was Ptolemy who came up with a 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:50.360 solution for this retrograde orbits along the route of a 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:56.160 planet's main orbit. In simple terms, little epicycles are little 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:00.080 loops that planets would make during their big loop. It 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:04.560 made sense mathematically with the observations they were seeing, sort of, 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:09.680 but philosophically it was a mess. God created the universe, 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:13.320 and he created it to be divine and perfect circles 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:20.880 were symmetrical and mathematically clear. These epicycles were complicated and messy. 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.520 It was Copernicus, then, who actually figured things out for 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:29.880 European astronomers when he posited a heliocentric model, a model 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.640 of the Solar system with the Sun at the center. 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:36.760 For the record, there were Islamic astronomers who had more 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:39.920 or less been figuring out the exact same thing both 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:43.840 can currently and also a little bit before Copernicus, but 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:48.560 in European circles, it was Copernicus and his controversial theory 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:52.840 that scientists were butting their heads up against, because while 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:55.640 it flew in the face of the religious teachings that 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:59.560 were accepted as gospel, science was seen as just a 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:04.080 way to better understand God's divine vision. It would be 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:07.320 absurd to conceive that we were not the center of 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:16.240 the system that God created. Copernicus died three years before 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:20.640 Tico Brahe was born, and it's important to recognize Brie 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.920 was not a heliocentrist. He never believed that the Sun 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:27.360 was at the center of the Solar system or that 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:31.520 the Earth revolved around it. He the pre eminent astronomer 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.240 of his day, went to his grave thinking that the 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:39.160 Earth was stationary sixty years after Copernicus published his more 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:44.479 correct model. Science is not a series of steady accomplishments 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:47.960 at even intervals, where one great man takes on the 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:51.640 mantle of a great man before him. That's a convenient 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:55.520 way for some people to oversimplify and create a pretty 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:59.280 narrow and a little sexist understanding of history, but it's 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:03.600 also just not the truth. After his publication of Distella 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:09.160 Nova Ticobrai was an established European astronomer. It was around 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:13.439 this time that he almost completely rejected the responsibilities of 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:17.160 his noble position. He had no interest in a castle 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:21.680 or lordship or fancy aristocratic marriage. Most of the scholars 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:24.919 that he was engaging with weren't married for that very reason. 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:29.399 An aristocratic marriage was an ordeal. It took time, energy, 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:34.280 and attention away from science. But Tico didn't remain unmarried. 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:38.160 He fell in love with a woman named Kirsten Jorian's daughter, 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.920 a commoner. Though they lived together for almost thirty years 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:47.159 and had eight children, it was technically illegal for a 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:51.679 noble and a commoner to get married. Technically illegal, but 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:56.840 not entirely unusual. There was an established term under judish 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:01.359 law for what they had together, basically modern day equivalent 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:05.800 of a common law marriage. The main consequence of their 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:10.800 relationship was that Tico's children would be commoners. They would 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:14.240 have to enroll in school as commoners, and they wouldn't 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:18.520 be allowed to inherit any of his noble property. Presumably, 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:21.440 the twenty year old Tico who just got his nose 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.600 hacked off, who met a pretty girl named Kirsten wasn't 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:29.040 thinking about inheritance when they met, and again it wasn't 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:32.800 scandalous necessarily, or even uncommon that he took up with 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.639 a commoner. It was more just seen as a rebuffed 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:42.080 Danish high society. Another rebuff Tico Brie was touring around 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:46.000 Europe looking for a better place to build a laboratory. 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.800 When King Frederick the Second caught wind of Brye planning 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:54.320 on building a lab in Basil, Switzerland, he panicked that 0:18:54.520 --> 0:19:00.200 simply wouldn't do. Brie had just become a well known scientist, 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:04.119 and he was Danish. For God's sake. Denmark needed to 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:07.119 hold on to its scientific celebrities if it wanted to 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:11.119 be a world player, and so King Frederick offered Bride 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.960 a number of castles and positions, all of which Tico 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:19.600 Brye rejected. And then the king made another offer, the 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:24.160 island of Ven, a small island with forty farms which 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:29.120 Brian could rule over like a fiefdom. Brie thought about it. 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:33.120 On one hand, Denmark was a little further north than 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:37.320 he would have liked in terms of astronomical observations, and 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:42.800 it was often wet and cloudy, but fun was attempting offer. 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.639 It was isolated. That was a plus plus. Frederick the 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.439 second was prepared to give Ticco whatever funds he needed 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:56.639 to build a truly spectacular laboratory. And remember those farms 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:59.840 on the island, the king would throw in their free labor, 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:07.119 and so Ticobrie accepted. Uraniabourg was about to come into being. 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:14.879 Though the island of Ven had always technically been owned 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:18.359 by the Crown, the forty or so families that lived 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:23.040 there were freeholding farmers. They made their own community laws 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:27.200 and interacted with the outside world in a very limited capacity, 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:30.800 maybe when someone went to sell on the mainland. But 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:35.040 when Frederick the second gave ven to Ticobry, that all 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:40.000 would change. Tico first insisted that they cultivate twice as 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.760 much on their farms, and he was allowed to make 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.560 that insistence. Also, as part of his position as lord, 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:49.879 he was entitled to two full days from sun up 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.960 to sundown a free labor from each of the farms 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:57.920 every single week. These farmers were the foot soldiers who 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:02.119 would help him build Uraniabourg, the Castle of the Heavens, 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:07.080 named for the Greek muse of astronomy Urania Uranni Aborg 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:10.720 was a Palladian style castle meant to represent, in its 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:15.800 dimensions and architectural symmetry, the elegance and order of the cosmos. 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:20.800 The castle itself was surrounded by a square wall oriented 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:26.240 perfectly to the north, southeast, and west. Diagonal paths cut 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:30.840 through perfectly manicured gardens towards the main central castle, which 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:34.600 was three stories high and home to dozens of people 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:38.600 at any given time. On the top floor, Braye built 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:43.159 unheeded apartments where his servants and assistants lived. On the 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:46.320 second floor there was a summer room, the Queen's Chamber 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:49.520 where Queen Sophia of Denmark once came to stay, and 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:54.080 the king's chambers. The first floor had living quarters, four 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:59.440 huge observatories, a kitchen, and a massive museum library, where 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:03.880 Tico kept the giant brass celestial globe that he had 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:08.320 personally commissioned. The globe took years to make and get 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:11.800 to bra but in a sense it would actually take 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:16.080 twenty five years to be completed Brah. He would carefully 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:19.640 engrave it with the position of stars he measured one 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:24.359 by one. In the basement of Uranniaborg were salt and 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:29.240 wood sellers and also Tico's alchemy lab for someone who 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:32.959 became famous for the rigor of his mathematical precision and 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:37.960 skills of observation. Bray was also fascinated by alchemy and 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:43.000 other sciences that are let's say, dubious at best. He 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:47.720 studied not just astronomy but also astrology for his entire life. 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:50.720 He did readings of the lives of famous men from 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:54.160 history and would sometimes perform them for the royal family. 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:59.280 At some point, Tico Brie kept at Uranniaburg a dwarf 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:02.800 named Jip who acted as a sort of court jester. 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:06.760 Brian would bring Jep out at parties to tell the 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:09.560 future for his guest because he believed that he had 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:15.119 psychic abilities, and Tico's guests were often incredibly prominent people 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:20.160 the Danish royal family, famous writers and fingers, even King 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:23.560 James the sixth of Scotland later King James the First 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:26.199 of England came to visit Ven when he came to 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:29.399 Denmark to pick up his new wife to be. If 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:32.320 you're a longtime listener of the podcast, you might remember 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:35.800 James the six the witch hunter King, and his trip 0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:41.600 to Denmark. Another of the visitors to then would be 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:46.240 a young astronomy student named Johannes Kepler. He'll come back 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:49.439 into the story later, so remember that name. And if 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:53.280 you're listening to this podcast and planning a Mozart Salieri 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:57.400 Onmadeus Style Oscar drama about these two men. I imagine 0:23:57.440 --> 0:24:00.520 the scene of a young Kepler in tram By the 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:04.560 strange and enigmatic, brass nosed Tico Brie at the height 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:09.000 of his power, would make a good cold open. Uranni 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:12.480 a Boorg was sort of a Wonka's factory for science. 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:16.639 There was running water, something Queen Elizabeth the First didn't 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:19.439 have at Hampton Court, nor did Henry the third of 0:24:19.480 --> 0:24:22.840 France at the Louver. And it wasn't just the castle. 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:28.920 Uranniaboorg became a compound. Bray recognized the importance of publishing 0:24:28.960 --> 0:24:32.520 his own work, but he was also highly suspicious of 0:24:32.600 --> 0:24:36.600 thieves and copycats, and so he hired a printer and 0:24:36.680 --> 0:24:40.159 built his own printing press on the island. When he 0:24:40.160 --> 0:24:43.200 couldn't find access to paper of a high enough quality 0:24:43.240 --> 0:24:47.040 that he demanded, he also built a paper mill that 0:24:47.160 --> 0:24:50.800 produced sheets with a water mark, the name and an 0:24:50.800 --> 0:24:55.520 illustration of his castle. The island also had a tannery 0:24:55.520 --> 0:24:58.600 that made the parchment for book binding, a grain mill, 0:24:59.200 --> 0:25:02.280 and a machine shop for Tico to continue to build 0:25:02.480 --> 0:25:08.600 new and better astronomical instruments. Telescopes weren't in use yet, 0:25:08.640 --> 0:25:13.080 but Brahi designed and built large specialty equipment that would 0:25:13.119 --> 0:25:17.520 allow him to record measurements far more precisely than anyone 0:25:17.600 --> 0:25:22.119 else in Europe. His instruments out on balconies, though, were 0:25:22.160 --> 0:25:25.960 exposed to wind and the elements, and that could distort 0:25:26.080 --> 0:25:31.440 his readings, and so Tico Brahi built another laboratory called Serenberg, 0:25:31.680 --> 0:25:35.719 or Castle of the Stars. This one dug under the ground, 0:25:36.160 --> 0:25:39.760 so he and his many assistants and proteges could measure 0:25:39.800 --> 0:25:43.639 angles and distances in the sky from beneath ground level, 0:25:43.720 --> 0:25:51.880 where wind couldn't affect the readings. Along the halls of Serenberg, 0:25:52.240 --> 0:25:56.840 Tico hung portraits of great astronomers throughout history, with the 0:25:56.880 --> 0:26:01.600 stated purpose of inspiring his students. Of course, one of 0:26:01.640 --> 0:26:06.560 the portraits was of himself, and the final portrait was 0:26:06.600 --> 0:26:10.199 of someone who hadn't even been born yet. It was 0:26:10.560 --> 0:26:16.000 an imaginary person named Ticondas, a descendant of Tico Brye, 0:26:16.560 --> 0:26:20.480 whose inscription beneath his portrait read that he only wished 0:26:20.520 --> 0:26:25.120 to be worthy of his great ancestor. Modesty wasn't one 0:26:25.119 --> 0:26:30.840 of Ticobrie's strongest suits. It was that ego that would 0:26:30.920 --> 0:26:36.320 eventually lead to trouble for Ticobrye. His laboratory was renowned, 0:26:36.440 --> 0:26:40.840 but it was also a massive expense. At one point 0:26:41.160 --> 0:26:44.960 one percent of Denmark's wealth was going to urania Borg. 0:26:45.840 --> 0:26:49.359 After Frederick the Second died, his son, Christian the fourth 0:26:49.960 --> 0:26:54.320 was far less amused by Tico's science and his antics. 0:26:55.160 --> 0:26:58.800 Tico had already made a number of enemies at court, 0:26:59.400 --> 0:27:02.600 and these enemies were far closer to Christian the fourth. 0:27:02.680 --> 0:27:06.480 When he came of age, Tico was just a thorn 0:27:06.640 --> 0:27:12.400 in his side, and incredibly expensive thorn. For one thing, 0:27:12.560 --> 0:27:17.280 the peasants on Fen kept complaining about Tico exploiting them. 0:27:17.320 --> 0:27:20.919 If you can imagine, the commoners would riot sometimes in 0:27:20.960 --> 0:27:25.400 front of Brye's family home in Copenhagen. The winds were 0:27:25.480 --> 0:27:29.040 changing for Tico Brie, and he knew it. He tried 0:27:29.400 --> 0:27:32.480 quickly before he lost too much favor, to get the 0:27:32.520 --> 0:27:35.760 Dowager Queen to put into writing that his kids could 0:27:35.800 --> 0:27:39.679 maybe be an exception to the no commoners inheriting noble 0:27:39.720 --> 0:27:44.840 property rule. But Soon after, he left Fen and then Denmark. 0:27:45.880 --> 0:27:48.560 On his way out, he wrote one of his famous 0:27:48.640 --> 0:27:52.840 Latin poems about his exile, called an Elegy to Denmark, 0:27:53.400 --> 0:27:56.119 all about what fools they were for letting him go. 0:27:57.200 --> 0:28:01.080 It was the Latin poem equivalent of the email you 0:28:01.119 --> 0:28:04.000 write to your ex who breaks up with you, the 0:28:04.040 --> 0:28:08.280 one that you're not supposed to send. Brie spent a 0:28:08.359 --> 0:28:11.399 year at a friend's castle in Germany before he became 0:28:11.600 --> 0:28:16.200 court astronomer to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph the Second. Tico 0:28:16.320 --> 0:28:19.960