CHAPTER III.

TYCHO BRAHE.



The age following that of Copernicus produced three outstanding figures
associated with the science of astronomy, then reaching the close of
what Professor Forbes so aptly styles the geometrical period. These
three Sir David Brewster has termed "Martyrs of Science"; Galileo, the
great Italian philosopher, has his own place among the "Pioneers of
Science"; and invaluable though Tycho Brahe's work was, the latter can
hardly be claimed as a pioneer in the same sense as the other two.
Nevertheless, Kepler, the third member of the trio, could not have made
his most valuable discoveries without Tycho's observations.

Of noble family, born a twin on 14th December, 1546, at Knudstrup in
Scania (the southernmost part of Sweden, then forming part of the
kingdom of Denmark), Tycho was kidnapped a year later by a childless
uncle. This uncle brought him up as his own son, provided him at the age
of seven with a tutor, and sent him in 1559 to the University of
Copenhagen, to study for a political career by taking courses in
rhetoric and philosophy. On 21st August, 1560, however, a solar eclipse
took place, total in Portugal, and therefore of small proportions in
Denmark, and Tycho's keen interest was awakened, not so much by the
phenomenon, as by the fact that it had occurred according to prediction.
Soon afterwards he purchased an edition of Ptolemy in order to read up
the subject of astronomy, to which, and to mathematics, he devoted most