Philosophy
Why did they do this? Was it worth the expense?
by
Karel Janicek
November 15th, 2012
The Huffington Post
Ever since Tycho Brahe died suddenly more than 400 years ago, there has been mystery about whether the Dane whose celestial observations laid the groundwork for modern astronomy fell victim to natural causes or was murdered.
On Thursday, scientists who had exhumed his body said one thing is clear: if he was murdered, it wasn't with mercury, as many rumors had claimed.
"We measured the concentration of mercury using three different quantitative chemical methods in our labs" in the Czech Republic and Denmark, said Kaare Lund Rasmussen, associate professor of chemistry at the University of Southern Denmark.
"All tests revealed the same result: that mercury concentrations were not sufficiently high to have caused his death. In fact, chemical analyses of the bones indicate that Tycho Brahe was not exposed to an abnormally high mercury load in the last five to 10 years of his life," Rasmussen said in a statement.
The scientists didn't say what did kill the astronomer, but tests on the remains are still being conducted.
Brahe's death in 1601 at the age of 54 was long believed to have been due to a bladder infection. Legend said it was the result of his reluctance to breach court etiquette during a reception by leaving for a toilet. Kidney disease was another suspect.
But some speculated that he might have been poisoned with mercury, even at the hands of a king or a rival astronomer.
"Brahe's famous assistant (astronomer) Johannes Kepler has been identified as a possible murder suspect, and other candidates have been singled out for suspicion throughout the years." said Jens Vellev, a professor of medieval archaeology at Aarhus University, Denmark, who heads the Czech-Danish team of scientists that conducted the research.
Some even contend that a cousin of Brahe's killed him on the orders of Danish King Christian IV for allegedly having an affair with the king's mother.
Tests conducted in 1996 in Sweden, and later in Denmark, on samples of Brahe's mustache and hair obtained in a 1901 exhumation, showed unusually high levels of mercury, supporting the poisoning theory.
But Vellev wasn't satisfied with that conclusion and he won permission from the church and Prague authorities to reopen the tomb, saying the remains needed to be analyzed with contemporary technology.
His team opened Brahe's tomb in the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn near Prague's Old Town Square two years ago.
Tests on Brahe's beard and bones resolved the mercury question, Vellev said, but work is still being done on his teeth and that could determine his cause of death.
Brahe was born in 1546 at his family's ancestral castle in Scania, then part of Denmark, and he studied astronomy at the University of Copenhagen and in Germany. He worked at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II at a time when Prague was an imperial city.
In 1572, Brahe detected a new star in the constellation Cassiopeia. At the time the heavens were thought to be unchanging, so his discovery was startling. The next year, he became the first astronomer to describe a supernova, or exploding stars.
The exhumation also shed light on another mystery linked to Brahe – his artificial nose.
The astronomer had part of his nose sliced off in a 1566 duel with a fellow nobleman while a student in the German city of Rostock, and the missing piece was replaced by a metal plate.
"Surprisingly, our analyses revealed that the prosthesis was not made of precious metals, as was previously supposed," Vellev said. He said the samples contained "traces of equal parts copper and zinc, which indicates that the prosthesis was made of brass."
Macabre...Galileo's lost tooth and fingers
- Franceso Ingoli, Galileo And The Roman Inquisition
In January of 1616, the month before before the Roman Inquisition would infamously condemn the Copernican theory as being “foolish and absurd in philosophy”, Monsignor Francesco Ingoli addressed Galileo Galilei with an essay entitled “Disputation...
- An Issue Between Tycho Brahe And Copernicus
Tycho Brahe, the most prominent and accomplished astronomer of his era, made measurements of the apparent sizes of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets. From these he showed that within a geocentric cosmos these bodies were of comparable sizes, with the...
- Tycho Brahe...an Early Astronomical Observer
Goes to illustrate that science is a function of team work. "A feisty man of science" by Perry Vlahos October 27th, 2011 The Sydney Morning Herald Tycho Brahe observed the sky before the age of telescopes. MANY think of Tycho Brahe as the most significant...
- Deceased--aage Bohr
Aage Bohr June 19th, 1922 to September 8th, 2009 "Denmark's Nobel prize winner Aage Bohr dies at 87" by Jan M. Olsen September 19th, 2009 Associated Press COPENHAGEN — Aage Bohr, a nuclear physics professor and Nobel laureate like his father,...
- Bad Boys Of Astronomy
I was amused at a recent entry at New Scientist..."Meet the scoundrels of astronomy"... History is littered with astronomers who doggedly pursued fame at the expense of the scientific method. While researching a biographical encyclopaedia, Thomas Hockey...
Philosophy
Exhumation of Tycho Brahe
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," said Marcellus [an officer] having just seen the ghost of Hamlet's father, the late king of Denmark----"Hamlet" Act I, Scene 4...William Shakespeare.
Why did they do this? Was it worth the expense?
"Mercury poisoning of Danish astronomer ruled out"
by
Karel Janicek
November 15th, 2012
The Huffington Post
Ever since Tycho Brahe died suddenly more than 400 years ago, there has been mystery about whether the Dane whose celestial observations laid the groundwork for modern astronomy fell victim to natural causes or was murdered.
On Thursday, scientists who had exhumed his body said one thing is clear: if he was murdered, it wasn't with mercury, as many rumors had claimed.
"We measured the concentration of mercury using three different quantitative chemical methods in our labs" in the Czech Republic and Denmark, said Kaare Lund Rasmussen, associate professor of chemistry at the University of Southern Denmark.
"All tests revealed the same result: that mercury concentrations were not sufficiently high to have caused his death. In fact, chemical analyses of the bones indicate that Tycho Brahe was not exposed to an abnormally high mercury load in the last five to 10 years of his life," Rasmussen said in a statement.
The scientists didn't say what did kill the astronomer, but tests on the remains are still being conducted.
Brahe's death in 1601 at the age of 54 was long believed to have been due to a bladder infection. Legend said it was the result of his reluctance to breach court etiquette during a reception by leaving for a toilet. Kidney disease was another suspect.
But some speculated that he might have been poisoned with mercury, even at the hands of a king or a rival astronomer.
"Brahe's famous assistant (astronomer) Johannes Kepler has been identified as a possible murder suspect, and other candidates have been singled out for suspicion throughout the years." said Jens Vellev, a professor of medieval archaeology at Aarhus University, Denmark, who heads the Czech-Danish team of scientists that conducted the research.
Some even contend that a cousin of Brahe's killed him on the orders of Danish King Christian IV for allegedly having an affair with the king's mother.
Tests conducted in 1996 in Sweden, and later in Denmark, on samples of Brahe's mustache and hair obtained in a 1901 exhumation, showed unusually high levels of mercury, supporting the poisoning theory.
But Vellev wasn't satisfied with that conclusion and he won permission from the church and Prague authorities to reopen the tomb, saying the remains needed to be analyzed with contemporary technology.
His team opened Brahe's tomb in the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn near Prague's Old Town Square two years ago.
Tests on Brahe's beard and bones resolved the mercury question, Vellev said, but work is still being done on his teeth and that could determine his cause of death.
Brahe was born in 1546 at his family's ancestral castle in Scania, then part of Denmark, and he studied astronomy at the University of Copenhagen and in Germany. He worked at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II at a time when Prague was an imperial city.
In 1572, Brahe detected a new star in the constellation Cassiopeia. At the time the heavens were thought to be unchanging, so his discovery was startling. The next year, he became the first astronomer to describe a supernova, or exploding stars.
The exhumation also shed light on another mystery linked to Brahe – his artificial nose.
The astronomer had part of his nose sliced off in a 1566 duel with a fellow nobleman while a student in the German city of Rostock, and the missing piece was replaced by a metal plate.
"Surprisingly, our analyses revealed that the prosthesis was not made of precious metals, as was previously supposed," Vellev said. He said the samples contained "traces of equal parts copper and zinc, which indicates that the prosthesis was made of brass."
Macabre...Galileo's lost tooth and fingers
- Franceso Ingoli, Galileo And The Roman Inquisition
In January of 1616, the month before before the Roman Inquisition would infamously condemn the Copernican theory as being “foolish and absurd in philosophy”, Monsignor Francesco Ingoli addressed Galileo Galilei with an essay entitled “Disputation...
- An Issue Between Tycho Brahe And Copernicus
Tycho Brahe, the most prominent and accomplished astronomer of his era, made measurements of the apparent sizes of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets. From these he showed that within a geocentric cosmos these bodies were of comparable sizes, with the...
- Tycho Brahe...an Early Astronomical Observer
Goes to illustrate that science is a function of team work. "A feisty man of science" by Perry Vlahos October 27th, 2011 The Sydney Morning Herald Tycho Brahe observed the sky before the age of telescopes. MANY think of Tycho Brahe as the most significant...
- Deceased--aage Bohr
Aage Bohr June 19th, 1922 to September 8th, 2009 "Denmark's Nobel prize winner Aage Bohr dies at 87" by Jan M. Olsen September 19th, 2009 Associated Press COPENHAGEN — Aage Bohr, a nuclear physics professor and Nobel laureate like his father,...
- Bad Boys Of Astronomy
I was amused at a recent entry at New Scientist..."Meet the scoundrels of astronomy"... History is littered with astronomers who doggedly pursued fame at the expense of the scientific method. While researching a biographical encyclopaedia, Thomas Hockey...