Tycho Brahe

I would like to start this essay off by saying that i don't have a favourite scientist, but i do
find this one fairly amusing. Tycho Brahe was a Danish astronomer, scientist, alchemist and
nobleman who lived in the 16th century.

Tycho was born on December 14th 1546 in the then Danish peninsula of Scania. Since he
was a member of several noble families he received a thorough education, during which he
took an interest in astronomy and the aspiration to create more precise tools of
measurement. Later in his life Tycho would create his own system for astronomy by
combining the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems to make the Tychonic system. This system
was correct, for the most part.It correctly saw the moon orbiting the Earth, and the planets
orbiting the Sun and yet, for some reason, the Sun still orbited the Earth.He did all this with
his naked eye, as he was one of the last naked-eye astronomers.He discovered a good
number of other astrological phenomena for which he was awarded an estate on the island
of Hven by king Frederick II. which he used for his research for a few years before scrapping
it, and for paper mills which got him an enormous amount of money. At one point in time
Tycho owned 1% of all the money in Denmark.After a disagreement with the king he was
exiled, but was later taken in by the Bohemian king and Holy Roman emperor Rudolph II. to
be the official royal astronomer in Prague.While there he was assisted by Johannes Kepler,
who later used his research to create his three laws of planetary motion.Tyho died just one
year later in 1601.It was assumed that he was poisoned, but later exhumations concluded
that he died of a burst bladder.

By now i think i have described Tycho's succes as a scientist pretty well, but that's not what
drew me to make this essay about him.What really inspired me were all the downright weird
and insane things he did besides science.For one example you only have to look at his face,
his nose to be exact.His first nasal incident was in 1556 at the University of Rostock, where
he and another scientist argued over who was the better mathematician, which resulted in a
duel that led to Tycho losing the tip of his nose.He replaced the missing tip with a shiny new
brass nose.He didn't have many more olfactory dismantlings until just 19 days later when he
had a drunken scuffle with his cousin which ended with another sword duel, IN THE DARK!
Tycho lost the rest of his nose in that duel and got it replaced with a bigger brass prosthetic
nose.Other than his nasal antics he also had some other weird habits.Tycho being the
wealthy madman that he was decided to hire a dwarf for his court which he named Jepp
(sidenote: not his real name) that he was convinced could see into the future.He also had a
pet elk.One day his neighbor wanted to borrow the elk to entertain his guests at a party
(somehow), but his guests got a little rowdy and ended up getting the elk drunk, at which
point it fell down the stairs and snapped its neck. Tycho's reaction to this was to buy another
elk.

I hope this essay was informative as to how eccentric people can get when given enough
money,and also the incredible scientist that was Tycho Brahe.