Tycho Brahe

In Our Time: Science

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2023

⏱️ 54 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546 – 1601) whose charts offered an unprecedented level of accuracy. In 1572 Brahe's observations of a new star challenged the idea, inherited from Aristotle, that the heavens were unchanging. He went on to create his own observatory complex on the Danish island of Hven, and there, working before the invention of the telescope, he developed innovative instruments and gathered a team of assistants, taking a highly systematic approach to observation. A second, smaller source of renown was his metal prosthetic nose, which he needed after a serious injury sustained in a duel. The image above shows Brahe aged 40, from the Atlas Major by Johann Blaeu. With Ole Grell Emeritus Professor in Early Modern History at the Open University Adam Mosley Associate Professor of History at Swansea University and Emma Perkins Affiliate Scholar in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to introduce myself.
0:03.7	My name's Stevie Middleton and I'm a BBC Commissioner for a load of sport podcasts.
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0:50.2	I hope you enjoyed the programme.
0:51.8	Hello, Tiko Brahe, 1546-1601, was born into a powerful Danish aristocratic family and
0:59.3	was destined for the conventional life of a noble one.
1:02.8	But as a young man, he started studying the heavens and he's now regarded as one of the
1:07.1	great figures in the history of astronomy, even though he was working without telescopes
1:12.2	which hadn't yet been invented.
1:14.7	In 1572 his observations of a new star challenged the idea inherited from Aristotle that the
1:20.8	heavens were unchanging.
	...

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