Talk:Tycho Brahe

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[edit] cites

I have two requests for citation:

the Tychonic system became the major competitor with Copernicanism, and was adopted by the Catholic Church for many years as its official astronomical conception of the universe

and

It gained a considerable following after 1616 when Rome decided officially that the heliocentric model was contrary to both philosophy and Scripture

The first quote strikes me as dubious. When has the Catholic Church (or anyone else) ever had an "official" astronomical conception of the universe?

what is the correct pronounciation of his first and last names? Kingturtle 02:18 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

I do wish someone would put this information in the article.Dandrake 02:02, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)
It's pronounced TEE-KOE BRAH. I'd edit the article, but I don't know how to write it the pronounciation "properly." (i.e.: the confusing way)
Tycho's from Scania just like me, and I'd like to say that the E in BrahE is pronounced; more like BRAH-EE. [[User:Sverdrup|❝Sverdrup❞]] 15:37, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm from Denmark, and in Denmark/Sweden, at least, Tycho Brahe is pronounced nothing like "Teeko brah-ee". The vowels are way off. If you're interested in the correct Scanian way to pronounce a Scanian man's name, you need to pronounce the "y" like the german "ü", and the "e" in "Brahe" ike the "ur" sound in "fur". In it's entirety, it's pronounced not unlike "Chew-co Brah-ur", with the "ch" sound replaced with a "t". Quinkysan 07:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I am from across the water, Malmoe in Scania, and I must confess that I do not understand and/or recognise anything in your proposed pronounciation. In Scania, Brahe is pronounced "brah-e". Tycho may be more like "Tü-ko". The pronounciation given by you is the danish one. Please also give a reason why this should be used. Mossig 12:28, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Apart from our "a"'s, Swedish and Danish pronounce the vowels more or less identically. For instance, we both correctly state that the 'y' should be pronounced as the german 'ü'. But when one is writing a simplified pronounciation for English readers, it's nessecary to write something which sounds right when pronounced according to English conventions. Basically, you need to pretend you're an English person hearing the words and trying to spell them using your own language. I am not for a second suggesting that Tycho Brahe is pronounced "Chew-co Brah-uh" read as a swedish or danish word. However, reading those words in English give a reasonable approximation of the danish/swedish vowels 'ü' and 'e'. If an English-speaker reads the pronounciation key "Teeko Bra-he", he will pronounce it in a very odd way. Remember "ee" in English is an 'i' sound in our languages ('week','feet','sleep', etc') and "he" is spoken as "hi" in our languages (the phrase "he sleeps" would be spelled something like 'hi slipps' in our language.) Ask an english person to pronounce "Teeko Bra-hee", and he will say something like 'Tikko Brahi'. Ask him to say "Chewco Brah-huh", and he will say "Tjüko Brahe", which is a lot closer.Quinkysan 06:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Regardless of the wovels, the inclusion of a j in Tjûko is for me totally wrong. It is not pronounced in that way in swedish or in Scanian. The simplified pronounication you give is still wrong, adn furthermore not necessary even to have in the article as there is both a correct phonetical pronounciation and a sound file. And you have still not commmented on why the danish pronounciation should be used in the sound file and in your simplified text version??? Mossig 16:51, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the "j" has no place in "Tycho". If you notice, I state on the page that the "ch" sound (to us pronounced 'tj') is to be replaced with a "t" sound - thus getting rid of the "j" sound. The reason for such a trick is that there is no english word that contains the sound we want to sound like "ty". The closest we can get is "chew", which spelled in our sounds would be "tj-y-u". It might be prudent to advise the speaker to shorten "chew" to avoid the "u" sound at the end. There is no difference at all in the way Danes and Swedes pronounce Tycho Brahe. (Except possibly, that swedes emphazise the final "e" a little more.) There is no conflict here. I have not supplied the sound file, and for people without sound cards, I think it is only fair to give them a chance to pronounce the word properly. Neither mine nor yours is 100% correct, but "chew-co", minus the 'j' sound, is much, much better than "tee-koh".Quinkysan 12:36, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
I have not supplied the "Teekoh" pronounciation. I still think it is better than the new one. But I also think that neither shall be given, and only keep the one given after his name in the article. And there is still no input from anybody what pronounciation to give according to wikipdia guidelines: the danish one, the scanian one (no, they are not the same), the english one, or the Latin one? My vote is leaning towards the Latin, as it is how Tycho himself would have pronounced the Latin version of his name.Mossig 18:25, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Is any of this relevant to how it was pronounced in the 16th century? Or, more to the point, how do scholars pronounce it today? 75.7.58.246 23:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Why is he being referred to as "Tycho", instead of "Brahe"? Pizza Puzzle


It seems to be the convention. The lunar crater named after him is also called Tycho and not Brahe. ....Lee M 01:34, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)
It was already the convention by 1620; there was a book called the Anti-Tycho, to which both Kepler and Galileo referred. Dandrake 02:02, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)
It may be something to do with the way surnames worked in Scandinavia at the time. Only nobles had surnames (commoners for example his wife Kirsten had only a patronymic) and the surname belonged to the family. The given name was the part customarily used to identify the person. Which leads me to wonder why do we say Galileo and not Galilei?

Brachistochrone

Is it true that the brachistochrone was named after Tycho Brahe? --romanm 09:09, Nov 12, 2003 (UTC)


It's from the Greek "brachisto-" meaning shortest. So say the only sites I can quickly find with a derivation. Dandrake 08:37, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)

I am shocked that this article contains no mention of Tycho Brahe's pet moose. - McGravin 18:20, Mar 4, 2004 (UTC)

If it's true, be bold and add it. Anthony DiPierro 18:32, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Penny Arcade

I feel the Penny Arcade mentioning isn't suited for the article - it's just a reference on Penny Arcade's side and as such adds nothing to the article. If anything there should be a link the other way! --Lenton 15:41, Mar 30, 2004 (UTC)

I linked this article a while back to the list of Penny Arcade characters, thinking it was a reasonable thing to clarify and redirect to. It was reverted with the comment, revert; no need to crap up a biography with a wordy link to a list of fictional non-notables. Doesn't make sense to me, since Penny Arcade is certainly notable, and by extension, so are its main characters. I'm re-linking, since it seems to me that's the point of {{otheruses}}, but I wanted to mention what was going on in case of further objections or reversions. My position is that it's too small to be worth removing. And if there should be a link in the reverse, make that link instead of destroying one that exists. (I'll add a link here to the Tycho section of the Penny Arcade page.) Dextrose 23:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Scratch, that link already exists. Dextrose 23:37, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] some Tycho References

Here is a reference that not only mentions his pet elk (European elk, called a moose in North America) but also Jepp his dwarf.

And here's an engraving of the nova from his own book that would go nicely in the Cassiopeia section:

-Wikibob | Talk 21:56, 2004 Apr 24 (UTC)


           I agree wholeheartedly

[edit] Is it true

That he had a silver nose? What about his propensity to duel, which I think, is how he lost his nose. Help! Xtreme! 23:56, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Apparently, he had both a silver nose and a copper one, and that he carried an adhesive balm touching up his nose from time to time. His tomb in Prague was excavated sometime around the turn of the century, and they found traces of copper around his nasal cavity. The story goes that for day to day wear, Tycho would use the copper nose, but for special occasions, he would break out the silver.
Tycho had a bit of an ego. I gather that he lost his nose in a duel with Norderup Parsberg (sp?), a fellow student, I think in Germany. The dispute arose when Tycho made an astrological prediction about the death of an Ottoman astronomer. When the prediction was made, the astronomer in question had already been dead for a number of weeks, but, owing to the poor communications technology of the 16th century, Tycho had no way of knowing. When it came out, Parsberg made a few jokes around the dorm - or whathaveyou - which Tycho did not appreciate. A duel followed. Tycho lost his nose and history gained an eccentric.
I think this story is covered in the book by Thoren mentioned on the mainpage, but I gather that the origins of the story (as well as the silver nose) are not neceesarily set-in-stone historical fact. -MFELDM - 12:00 EST, Feb 18, 2005
I've heard it argued that if he had a 'better' nose than the copper one, then he would have wanted to have been buried wearing it. But, his prosthetic nose or noses would also have been one of the few things he was legally allowed to will to his wife and children. By requesting to be buried wearing a nose with a lower intrinsic value, he would have been leaving a slightly better inheritance.--Zerothis 17:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some name the murderer as Kepler?

User:213.65.17.7 on 22:33, 2005 Jan 30 added text that appears unsourced and unreferenced, for example "Some name the murderer as Kepler, but that part is harder to prove 400 years after the fact."

Now, the external link just afterwards makes no such reference to Kepler and only has this weak conclusion:

Even though it cannot be excluded, it is not likely that Tycho was
murdered, but most likely he conducted his own death by using his own
mercury-rich medicines the day before his death.

Unless "someone" comes up with a source for who names the murderer, the text should be cleaned up, in my opinion. -Wikibob | Talk 01:42, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)

Agree! The minimum should be some kind of reference that clears up the weasel word "some". Awolf002 16:44, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The "some" is Joshua and Anne-lee Gilder in the book "Hevenly Intrigue". The argument for murder by poison is, IMHO, convincing, convincing. Kepler is in the book put to blame, and is a plausible candidate. But it is hard to prove it 400 years after the fact.

Okay, so how do they measure up in "notablity"? Is their theory discussed in the relevant circles? Just because they publish a book with their theory does not make it a notable one in the historic sense to me. Or did it create a "media-storm" so it is well known? I did not hear of it. Awolf002 01:14, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I did. The book got press coverage. And please define "relevant circles". The research in Tycho Brahe is not big enough that it warrants its own departments. Most is published as articles and books. The discussion in the book builds upon results on tests on Tychos hair that was made with state of the art techniques at universities. (The theory of poisoning is at least more plausible than the old legend of the ruptured bladder, which is doubtful if it is a medical possibility.) But I am not sure how Wiki defines which sources to believe. The text right now presents the different theories behind Tychos death, which is a good solution, IMHO.

OK. So I removed the reference to Kepler, as it evidently did not fit with the accepted history according to Wiki. But before you remove the reference to poisoning, please tell me why. And please also tell me why the book by Gilder is not allowed in the reference part. The book is the latest about Tycho Brahe, and is well written and well referenced. And I have not seen any one that have questioned the reasoning in it. You can always discuss blaming Kepler, but the argument for murder is good, and well worth mentioning in Wiki.

Reference: www.tychobrahe.com , the homepage of the museum of Uraniborg, says on its web site: "He might have taken it himself as a medicine for his illness. He might have been deliberately poisoned. It is impossible to know for sure. It can only be concluded that he mercury poisoning might have caused his death."

Yes, this is better. I do not question the findings of mercury, just the conclusion that Kepler is somehow involved. That, from the above discussion, does not seem a well founded or widely excepted enough view. Thanks for the references! Awolf002 14:53, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is in a way getting stupid: now the text about Tycho knowing that mercury in some forms and dosis was harmful, but that it was not in other forms and dosis is questioned. If the editor "Curps" had read the books in the "further reading" section, or even read Tycho himself, he would know that this was the case. When I read wikipedia it is not obvious that all statements should be clearly referenced: much of the rest of the text about Tycho is not. And that includes parts that are not exactly precise: there is no Copenhagen sound for instance. (The name is Öresund). But I do not have the energy to correct these parts if I will have to fight this much over every detail, details that I have references for in my library and that are clear if you have read the books at the end of the article. When Tycho explicitly tells us that he has found a way of making mercury more safe, and that some forms are very dasngerous, I think that warrants mentioning. He did not go around eating mercury at every oppertunity. The poisoning theory is also very old, it has been reported that there were rumours when he died about it, and that was the reason behind that the speach at his funeral detailed exactly what he was supposed to have died from. Maybe (probably?) due to political reasons.

[edit] Elk test

I'm glad someone's added the story of his elk, and I've made a few changes to match some web references:

He also had a pet elk, which he cherished. One night during one of Tycho's wild parties, his elk drank too much strong beer, and fell down the stairs. It was killed instantly. After this day, Tycho was never the same.
changed to
Pierre Gassendi wrote[1] that Tycho also had a tame elk, and that his mentor the Landgraf Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel asked about an animal faster than a deer. Tycho replied writing there were none, but he could send his tame elk. When Wilhelm replied he would accept one in exchange for a horse, Tycho replied with the sad news that the elk/moose just died on a visit to entertain a nobleman at Landskrona. Apparantly during dinner the elk had drunk a lot of beer and fell down the stairs, and died.[2]
and footnote 1 is http://www.nada.kth.se/~fred/tycho/nose.html and footnote 2 is http://www.nd.edu/~kkrisciu/strange/strange.html.

According to Amazon.com there is a Dover Publications (1963) edition for footnote 2 (but amazon has had errors before, especially with used books) with an ASIN: B0007DO9CU, but no ISBN. Another reference to the elk, not included in the article is:

-Wikibob | Talk 14:17, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)

That elk story has made my day Murray.booth 11:49, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOW?

Trying to learn how to write wiki-articles. Curps added the last sentence in "He is universally referred to as "Tycho" rather than by his surname "Brahe". Apparently his contemporaries did so and the usage has persisted." as a "clarification". Is this to be considered a NPOW?

(Facts about the name is that is was for a long time the custom in scandinavia to refer to people by their christian name. This goes for everybody, from farmers to kings, as far as I know. Not htat it matters in the discussion of the NPOW.)

[edit] Crystalline spheres

I am removing the following text from the article:

This system is frequently described as a "compromise"; however, both the heliocentric and geocentric theories relied upon "crystal spheres", to which the planets were attached. Tycho's theory abandoned the crystal spheres, a remarkable step to take before Isaac Newton formulated the concept of "action at a distance". In this respect, then, the Tychonic universe was more revolutionary than the Copernican.

Galileo had no use for crystalline spheres. (Well, he used the idea in a satirical answer to people who insisted that the Moon was perfectly smooth despite his observations; perhaps that shows his opinion of the whole idea; perhaps not.) And Kepler's elliptical orbits really didn't fit on spheres. Without the spheres, these heliocentrists had no adequate physical theory for why the planets moved as they did: just like Tycho, and everyone else before Newton.

Perhaps Tycho deserves great credit for being bold enough to propose a system that was incompatible with crystalline spheres. Something like that might be put back in the article, without the false invidious comparison to heliocentrism. I don't know for sure whether it's warranted, and don't have any citations to back it up or attack it; someone who knows and has the citations might do the job. --Dandrake 03:21, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

I think that the text should be left in. You should add "contemporary" to the heliocentric and geocentric theories. I am not sure about to what extent Galileo theorized aout the crystalline spheres, but both his and Keplers theories was developed _after_ the death of Tycho Brahe. Two of Tychos great insights, and the reason for the fame of his book "de Nova Stella", was that he proved that the new star appeared outside the path of the moon, in the area considered perfect and timeless at that time. Furthermore his measurements on comets showed that the path of these cut through the spheres of the individual planets, contrary to conventional wisdom at that time. (-I do not really understand the ethics of changing Wikipedia articles: as you dont have any references to refute the position you erased, why did you then erase it? Shouldnt you research the area first? I am holding my selfimposed ban on editing this article until I get a better understanding of this. References for my argument above can be found in "de Nova Stella" and in any of the multiple books on Tycho Brahe.)

It's fairly difficult to get a page reference for where Galileo didn't talk about crystalline spheres in the heliocentric system. That is, if Galileo made no use of crystalline spheres in his masterwork laying forth the heliocentric system, then the whole Dialogue is a reference. Seriously, if someone claims to have found a place where Galileo relied on the spheres, he should note the fact, with a citation.
On the other hand, what you say makes a very good case for a paragraph such as I said (just above) might be warranted, noting Tycho's important innovation in abandoning the spheres.
My objection is just to the claim that the heliocentric system required the spheres while Tycho's did not. In the 16th century heliocentric theory did invoke spheres as a physical explanation of the motions (at least I think it did, not seeing any citation here for the assertion, but I can alway look it up in De Revolutionibus); Tycho quite specifically abandoned the idea; 17th-century heliocentirsm didn't use the spheres; neither of the latter had any real physical theory behind the motions they postulated; Newton fixed everything up. So, to say that both geocentric and heliocentric theories had, up to Tycho's time, relied on crystalline spheres as an explanation: that would quite nicely sum it up. --Dandrake 01:22, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry about the hasty defensive tone of that posting. The query about the ethics is well taken. There is an official policy "Be bold" in editing (there's a page on it somewhere), which is often abused: Don't like something, delete it or replace with its polar opposite; don't like a change, just revert it; never provide an edit summary or a comment on the Discussion page. These are bad methods. (In the tradition of proving that one's government is not as bad as Hitler or Stalin, I can now bask in the confidence that I'm above criticism.)
Actually I saw that paragraph as another partisan debating point in a subject (whatever-centrism) that's permanently full of such stuff. It proceeds from an unsupported assertion that can't be strictly true historically to a dubious value judgment. (Not one shared widely by contemporaries, at any rate.) So I saw it, and considered it a small enough point that one would just move it here and see if there's any problem. Arguably, a stronger action than was justified. Upon reflection, it wouldn't take much change to make the passage above criticism. --Dandrake 04:47, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. Copernicus is not my speciality, but I have assumed that he used the spheres, as numerous webpages and books refres to things like his book "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (1543)" and says things like: "Aside from this change, most of the book still held to Ptolemaic astronomy — the paths of planets remained circular, and the Ptolemaic spheres were still in place." (f.e.x http://www.loyno.edu/~seduffy/scirev.html and http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/virtual/core4-4.htm , the latter which says "Brahe thus junked the idea of perfect circular motion, and the idea of fixed spheres in the heavens." The idea that it was Brahe that removed the spheres from the heavens seems common, at least. Even kepler had the spheres in his earlier works, but (I think) removed them later.

It's a good point. Since I objected to the earlier wording and took out too much, I'll take a shot at writing something that properly credits him for decrystallizing the solar system. It's a candidate for revision, as everything is. (BTW, it would be helpful if you'd get a user name and put the four tilde ~ characters at the end of a post, so we could always know who's who.) --Dandrake 20:11, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • How literally people took the spheres to be is a matter of some historical debate. It is clear, though, that Copernicus took them to be fairly material entities, as did many of his contemporaries. Tycho, however, did not, and make a system which was completely incompatible with a notion of material spheres, which is fairly interesting (most other systems are compatible with being agnostic about the spheres). --Fastfission 16:07, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think Kepler was an assistant of Brahe as Brahe sent Kepler from his doorstep time and time again.

I Think that most reference works make it clear that Kepler was an assistant to Tycho. WilliamKF 00:46, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction

Is the notion of that "While credited with the most accurate astronomical observations of his time, he was unable to carry the implications of the voluminous data he collected to its logical consequences" have any basis in history?
Brahe had barely time to generate the enormous star catalogue that he measured. If he would have the mental capacity to also generate a star system that fits these observations must be in the real of pure speculation. That the logical consequences of a certain set of observation is unique is also questionable from a viewpoint of science theory and logic.
And to continue, while not trying to minimise Keplers insight into mathematics, is't the sentence " Johannes Kepler, whose superior mathematical faculty " a bit NPOW for an article about Brahe? And also here, do we have any idea of who was the better mathematician between Brahe and Kepler? Please enlighten me.

[edit] Tycho never existed!

An authorative professor on Danish history claims to have found proof of Tycho's existence as a fictional person.

Stephen Schwartz has uncovered a little hoax planned by one famous Dane called Ole Worm. In fact all of Tycho's "alleged" discoveries/inventions/stories are a collaboration between Ole and an Icelandic scholar whose name I can't remember at the moment. I think Arngrímur lærði. Arngrímur lærði (1568-1648) studied at København and that is where he met Ole. Ole is thought to have stolen a lot from Arngrímur.

The reason for the collaboration is the fact that the Danish king was playing power-chess with Iceland and to have Arngrímur release his discoveries would have made them go completely unnoticed. Arngrímur was a altruistic fellow with his studies and didn't care about whose name got the credit. I mean, really, do you think that anyone with a silver nose could exist? I mean come on, that's just stupid.

  • Uh, right. --Fastfission 16:02, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Cute, real cute. Somehow I'm not very convinced since I actually held one of Brahe's books in my own hands around a month ago. Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 23:45, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Most men have a iron heart, why Tycho couldn't have a metalic nose? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.19.179.192 (talk) 23:42, 29 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Tycho and Kepler

The lines about Tycho not being mathematically sophisticated enough to come to the "logical consequences" of his observations strike me as both ahistorical and false. Tycho did come to conclusions relating to his data but he wasn't trying to do the same thing as Kepler, nor was he taking the observations for the purpose of coming up with a precise cosmological system. Furthermore, Kepler's view of the "logical consequences" could be just as similarly judged as imprecise by a modern standpoint — after all, he couldn't go as far as Newton could, and even Newton didn't go as far as Einstein later did, etc. etc., an essentially presentist reading of the past. I think it should be rewritten a bit to stress exactly what Kepler did with the data and exactly what Tycho was trying to do, as best as is known. --Fastfission 16:02, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

It should also be pointed out that Kepler didn't so much "come into possession" of Tycho's data as stole it after his death. Not that it was against Tycho's will, but it was against that of Tycho's surviving relatives. - Cuivienen 02:57, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Illustrations

The illustrations need sources cited in their captions, especially the pictures from Tycho's Mechanica. They are not watercolors either - they are prints from either copperplate or woodcut, with hand-applied watercolor wash. They look like copperplates to me but can someone go into a rare book library and find out whether they are copperplates or woodcuts?

[edit] Jester

There is now a mention about the dwarf Jepp being believed to be clairvoyant. Is there any reference to this? Otherwise I vote for removal of the notion. Mossig 00:05, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

It sounds plausible, but I agree, without a reference, it's too out there to keep.--ragesoss 01:13, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


You should not remove the jester called "Jeppe". In the 16 century europe it was actually commen to have dwarfs at courts/museums and "wunderkammer"´s. Tychos friend and student Longomontanus writes about dwarf jester Jeppe that is supposed to be Tychos´ Jester in the 1590s. Jeppe made it into Gassendis biografy. Try reading "On tychos Island" By Christianson page 296. There you will find much more about Jeppe. If we can trust every word of Longomontanus, i dont know. But he spend 8 years with tycho at hven and two years in bohemia. And is almost the main oral source for the daily life on Hven.--Thomaslundjohansen 08:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sound file

The pronounciation of the name is now examplified with a sound file. What could be debated is the choice of language. It is the Danish pronounciation that is examplified. But Tycho was born and lived in Scania, that is now a part of Sweden. And the language spoken at Tychos time in what was then Denmark, now Sweden, was not Danish, but Scanian. And lastly, the name Tycho Brahe is the latinized version of the name, and thus the most "correct" pronounciation should maybe be the Latin one? Is there any standard for Wikipedia when choosing the pronounciation to examplify? Mossig 11:25, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

It is true that Tycho Brahe came from Scania, but the Scanian language was a dialect of Danish at the time. Scanian language was no doubt a very distinct dialect, but it was Danish, not Swedish. Valentinian (talk) 10:11, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
According to the Wikipedia article you reference the Scanian language is regarded as its own language.Mossig 09:00, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
SIL has it's own standards. I was referring to the situation before 1658. It is quite true that the upper stratum in Copenhagen didn't consider it to be proper Danish, but I doubt they would have thought any better of West Jutlandic, South Jutlandic or Funish for that matter. :) Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 12:28, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The same discussion goes for the "simplified" pronounciation: Teeko is at an approximation. Before it is changed some kind of consenus should be had regarding which language to use for the pronounciation of names.

This is the English wikipedia. Therefore, the pronunciation most commonly used by English-speaking people should be included in the article. We do not need to decide what pronunciation is the most "correct" - our role is to describe, not to proscribe. TOf course, the article could also mention pronunciation in other languages if desired.
Such a position is against all practice with similar material. Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 12:28, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tychos´s Legacy in china

I think it could be fun to make a link to the wiki page about the ancient observatory in Beijing. When you see the picture presented on the page, it is a Tychonic equatorial armillary, arcording to "Needham and Wang 1959" it was erected by Ferdinand Verbies ca. 1674. The beijing observatory is older than Tychos Uraniborg and Stjerneborg, but it was rebuild in after 1669 by jesuit astronomers and chinese craftsmen as a virtual reproduction of Tychos observatories. In beijing you can actualy se most of tychos instruments mentioned in the book "Astronmiæ instauratæ mecanica". se link: Beijing_Ancient_Observatory--Thomaslundjohansen 08:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


yes, there should be a link with an explanation that replicas of his instruments are on display. --69.9.29.130 04:28, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Was Tycho Brahe an amateur

Would it be fair to add Tycho Brahe to the Amateur Astronomers' category on the grounds that he was mostly self-funded? I'm trying to figure out how to frame a History of Amateur Astronomy section in the Amateur Astronomy article, and one idea is to pick out a collection of well known astronomers from history who essentially funded their own work. I think Tycho Brahe would fit this, even if he did hire people to help him. Izogi 20:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

No. Tycho was funded by the Danish king, and it may even be fair to name Uranienborg on Hven as the first state-sponsored research institute. (I have not researched this topic, there may be older ones. But it is one of the first in europe at least.)
Good point and thanks. I'd forgotten that Tycho was funded specifically to do what he did (and neglected to check the article). Somehow I'd thought he'd just funded the whole thing himself. I guess not. He might still be worth a mention for some of the assertions he made on his own about the supernova beforehand. Izogi 05:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

yeah he was

[edit] Tycho Brahe's Mars Observations - plot

Note: I posted this over on the Kepler page, but haven't gotten a response yet. It would be nice to include a plot of Tycho's data Kepler used in formulating his laws. I have the raw data (from "Brahe, Tycho. Tychonis Brahe Dani Opera Omnia (in Latin). Vol 1-15. 1913-1929. Edited by I.L.E. Dreyer.") and created a plot using R (see below). I would like to add some regression analysis in order to highlight the periodic nature of the data. This can be a bit tricky with R for non-linear fits. If anyone knows an easy way, let me know and I can recreate the plot. I can also upload the raw data somewhere, if someone would like it?--Thorwald 21:58, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be more interesting (and more worl involved) to plot this data in comparison with the predictions made by a suncentered cirkular universe, an earthcentered circular universe, and an earth-centered elliptical universe. (I have seen this plot once in polish, and it nicely shows that Tycho's rejection of the suncentered circular universe is not without merit. Mossig 13:11, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Image:Tycho Brahe - Mars observations plot-v1.png

[edit] Death section

I replaced the unattributed bits: "Tycho may have poisoned himself by imbibing some medicine containing unintentional mercuric chloride impurities. Some have even speculated that..." with an attributed verifiable statement based on the referenced book. Please, if you have other verifiable outlooks on his death, do add them, but not without proper reference and attribution. Dicklyon 01:46, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

The part about him possibly poisoning himself is from the same book, p208. Mossig 13:41, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

True, though Kaempe's 1993 conjecture is pretty much superceded by the newer analyses presented in the book. Seems hardly worth mentioning, but if we do we should put in the actual source and date, since this book just mentions it in passing as a previous interpretation of finding extremely high mercury levels in his hair. Dicklyon 05:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
But the conjecture presented in "Heavenly Intrigue" is not accepted as the final word either. One of the latest books published about Tycho Brahe, by the Dansih National Museum toghether with the ongoing (very good!) exhibition about his life and work, does not even mention it! Mossig 10:15, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
And it's not presented as final word, but as "Recent investigations have suggested." We should also present other suggestions, but we need to find them first. Dicklyon 00:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
This recent event would seem to make the "not urinating" death more plausible: [3]. I don't think his bladder would have to "explode" for him to die. —Chowbok ☠ 03:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
The book explains that the mercuric cloride causes kidney failure, stopping the production of urine, and explaining his inability to urinate in the painful week before he died. It's a great read. Dicklyon 05:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Water poisining does not give the drawn-out illness of 10 days which Tycho was experiencing. (The book is a great read, and makes a compelling case. But it is hard to say that it is conclusive. There are other possible culprits if he where poisoned, and he may still have died from another ilness.) Mossig 10:15, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Conclusive or not, if we want to represent other theories, we need other sources, don't we? Personally, I thought it was enough for a conviction. Dicklyon 17:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I took out the sentence that starts "Critics of the mercury theory point to the fact that Isaac Newton's hair had many times the mercury level of Brahe's" because the reference did not support any part of the statement. It had nothing about critics, or Brahe, or comparative mercury levels. If someone has info on these critics, or how they compared mercury levels, please do add it back with a ref. Dicklyon 18:51, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


Mossig has removed most of the meat of the Gilder conclusion. Why the reluctance to include material from this recent book, which appears to be the most thorough and detailed study of Tycho's death that is available? What are we trying to balance against it? Dicklyon 22:49, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


In the Kepler article the notion that Tycho was murdered is thought as 'fanciful'. I believe we must have some agreement between the two entries as both pertain to the same encyclopedia. This is the first time I hear about Kepler being a murderer and I confess I'm a bit shocked. I suddenly remembered two other men: Salieri and Mozart. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.19.179.192 (talk) 23:40, 29 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Pronunciations in Paragraph 2

I redid the pronunciation key to show actual English pronunciations -- only Danish pronunciations were given.

With all the variants this is impossibly long to include at the start of the first paragraph, per typical Wikipedia style. I had to break it out to paragraph 2. Style will simply have to submit to practicality here.

In general, this is getting to be a problem in many articles, and I think Wikipedia needs a formal "pronunciation widget" section somewhere near the top of articles, rather than continuing to try to do it in running text. Britannica online breaks out pronunciations in this way. Perhaps the widget could "open" with a little arrow, to provide more detailed info.

Other points:

  • I eliminated the Danish pronunciation key for the Latinized Tycho Brahe form -- Latinized forms are inherently "internationalized" and should always be pronounced in the local Latin (mis-)pronunciation of the reader.
  • I left the Danish pronunciation of the original Danish name Tyge Ottesen Brahe. But -- would a 16th Century Scanian have pronounced his own name in 21st Century Copenhagen Danish??
  • I didn't put in an English pronunciation of Tyge Ottesen Brahe as it is never used in English -- and (mis-)pronunciations would vary widely if attempted.
  • I removed the .ogg file "Da-Tycho_Brahe.ogg" as I couldn't get it to play and see what pronunciation it is giving -- and I assume it is/includes the Danish-ized version of Tycho Brahe which is no longer given in IPA. Please create (a) new .ogg file(s) of all the variant pronunciations shown if you know how to do that.
  • Note that for the American pronunciations American phonetic style is used -- [ai] for diphthong, [o] for [ou], and British phonetic style is used for British pronunciations.
  • Note that the A's used in the English pronunciations are all the correct IPA characters. If you are seeing "a" where there should be "alpha" it is your browser tormenting you (as mine seems determined to do to me). There are highly obscure devoicing diacritics in the Danish pronunciation which may be producing gibberish for you, but should be left in for that posterity which some day will see IPA correctly displayed in a browser.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.6.246.77 (talk • contribs)

1) The ogg file you removed used the standard Wikipedia sound format. If you can't make it work, you need to download an .ogg player. 2) If the "Daninized" pronunciation isn't relevant then neither is the American, British (or for that matter Canadian, South African or Australian). "Tycho Brahe" is a Latin name, but a file made by a next-to-native speaker of Latin would be very welcome. The comment "would a 16th Cent. Scanian have spoken 21th Cent. Danish" is a bit odd. Would William Shakespeare recognize the Queen's English? Probably not, since the English language of his time is closer to what is now American. Tyge Ottesen Brahe was an ethnic Dane, and thus a native speaker of Danish, in his case of the Scanian variety. I disagree with the removal of the .ogg file since its purpose is to show that "Tycho Brahe", for one reason or another, has completely replaced his original Danish name in the modern Danish language. It represents how Danes pronounce the name of Denmark's most famous astronomer, nothing more, nothing less. A soundfile of the Danish pronounciation of "Tyge Ottesen Brahe" would however be a good idea. Valentinian T / C 22:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
An even better idea would be to let a Scanian speaking person make a sound file of the pronunciation of "Tyge Ottesen Brahe", even though 16th century Scanian probably had Ottoson - or something similar (Scanian preserves unstressed vowels better than Copenhagish) - rather than 21th century Modern Danish Ottesen. (In 16th century Standard Danish it seems to have been Ottosøn.)
Jens Persson (193.10.116.24 06:57, 7 September 2007 (UTC))

[edit] century

The article begins "This article is about the 15th century astrologer," but Tycho was born in 1546 (the 16th century) and did most of his work in the 17th century.

[edit] A bit of contradiction?

The following is written on this page:

"Tycho was the last major astronomer to work without the aid of a telescope, soon to be turned toward the sky by Galileo."

while the Johannes Hevelius article states:

"He (Hevelius) is thus considered the last astronomer to do major work without lenses."

I think that this should be resolved. Since Hevelius clearly did his work after Tycho's death, it would appear that the claim for T. is a bit of an exaggeration. H. did use telescopes, but not for his positional observations. Michael Daly 20:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the important thing, that makes it possible for both articles to be correct, is the intrepretation of the qualifier "major". Tycho certainly belongs to the major ones, but H. can be discussed. (And no, I do not want to go into that discussion.) If anything, the claim for H. is weaker, as it is very hard to prove who was the last astronomer to convert to using the telescope. Mossig 12:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
It isn't who last used naked eye observations, but who did significant work naked eye. The English astronomers contemporary with H. used telescopic observations (that's what Greenwich Observatory as set up for) and they sent Halley to check out H. since they didn't believe he could do such good work without a telescope (Halley confirmed the quality). We can list the major astronomers by any reasonable definition and H. is the last to do anything naked eye. Michael Daly 15:45, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tycho's armillary

Neither the original Wikipedia entry nor the talk page mentioned Tycho Brahe's armillary, the instrument he presumably used for his observations. My recollection from many visits to the Smithsonian during the 1980's is that an "Equatorial Armillary" identified as his was prominently displayed, I think in American History near the Focault pendulum. I also recall that there was information suggesting that the displayed armillary was crucial to the quality of Tycho's observations, which were themselves crucial to Kepler's success because of their quality. To be more exact, my memory is that the information stated that Tycho's observations with said armillary were the most accurate of any prior to telescope based observations.

So why is there nothing about this critical part of his life in the article and why no discussion of it in the talk page? The nose and moose story are amusing, but nearly irrelevant to the scientific issues of how such accurate observations were made. If those observations had been of average or lower quality (for their time), this guy would have been just another nobleman dabbling in astronomy.

For reference, the paragraph below is from the Wikipedia entry on armillary spheres (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armillary_sphere).

Further advances were made by Tycho Brahe, whose elaborate armillary spheres passing into astrolabes are figured in his Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica. Armillary spheres became popular in Europe during its Renaissance; the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) constructed several such instruments.

An additional reference to the Smithsonian library on this topic is at this link:

http://www.sil.si.edu/imagegalaxy/imagegalaxy_imageDetail.cfm?id_image=3312

It seems obvious to me that some modification is needed here to be complete, consistent, and scientifically accurate.

Bob Harrison74.69.194.171 10:07, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] citations needed

I restored the refimprove tag, but accidentally failed to get my reason in the edit summary. The problem is that the details in the article don't include specific citations in many cases, so it's impossible to tell what points are claiming to be verifiable and which are not. Specific citations would make the article better, and that's what the tag says. Dicklyon 18:02, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

But to what degree do you want citations? Should every sentence that bring forth a fact have a separate citation? I think it is enough that the text confirms to what can be found in the reference books listed at the end, and then mainly Thorens biography. If you have any specific items that you think are wrong, remove them and cite the reason.Mossig 18:06, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
It's not about what's wrong, it's about where to verify. I think a footnote on every substantive paragraph would be appropriate, but I'm not going to push that far. At this point there are only 7 footnote citations, and no clue which statements are supported by the other 7 or 8 sources. The Thoren book you mention is not even listed as a source, just as further reading. The tag is just to remind editors to work on these problems. Dicklyon 23:34, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Correcting problems with parallax

In its 'Supernova' section the article currently states "Tycho, however, observed that the parallax of the object did not change from night to night, suggesting that the object was far away. Tycho argued that a nearby object should appear to shift its position with respect to the background."

However, this statement is seriously misleading in respect of the phrase I have italicised, since it was daily parallax within the same night Tycho was looking for, rather than annual stellar parallax changing from day to day which arises from the Earth's annual orbit of the Sun, but which he did not believe in since he was a geocentrist, and therefore would not expect. But if the phenomenon were something in the Earth's atmosphere and thus sublunar, then it should have had a greater daily parallax than the Moon. But Tycho found no daily parallax, not even as much as the Sun's, and thus concluded the object was so far away as to be in the realm of the daily rotating sphere of the fixed stars. I therefore propose the following replacement

'Tycho, however, observed that the object showed no daily parallax against the background of the fixed stars within the same night. A terrestrial atmospheric object nearer than the Moon should show a greater daily parallax than the Moon's, which is in the order of 1 degree of arc in six hours. But since it had no daily parallax whatever, not even as much as the Sun that Tycho put at 3' of arc, he concluded the object was so far away as to be in the realm of the daily rotating sphere of the fixed stars.' --Logicus (talk) 19:10, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

In de Nova Stella, and in the danish comments to the 1901 facsimile, it is said that Tycho uses the fixed position to the stars during one night to show that it is further away from the earth than the moon, and the fixedness during a 6 month observation interval to show that it indeed must be on the celestial sphere of the stars, and not on the one of one of the planets. I thus think that your new text is fine. Mossig (talk) 19:37, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Mossig, thanks very much indeed for this most interesting information and its sources. See my comments in your User Talk --Logicus (talk) 17:14, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

After helpful discussion with Mossig in his User Talk, I now propose the current Supernova section's text "Since it had...background" be replaced by:

'Because it had been maintained since antiquity that the world beyond the Moon's orbit was eternally unchangeable (celestial immutabilty was a fundamental axiom of the Aristotelian world-view), other observers held that the phenomenon was something in the terrestrial sphere below the Moon. However in the first instance Tycho observed that the object showed no diurnal parallax against the background of the fixed stars, implying it was at least further away than the Moon and all those planets that do show such parallax. Moreover he also found the object did not even change its position relative to the fixed stars over several months as all planets did in their periodic orbital motions, even the outer planets for which no diurnal parallax was detectable. This suggested it was not even a planet, but a fixed star in the stellar sphere beyond all the planets.'

NB This requires a weblink to a good explanation of 'diurnal parallax', but which is typically maldefined as caused by a motion of the observer, but which it may not be. Thus Ptolemy observed the lunar daily parallax, but did not conclude the Earth rotates daily, but rather presumed the fixed stars along with the Moon do. Unfortunately the current Wikipedia article on parallax is also typically deficient and misleading in this respect, and requires correction. A simple diagram showing how daily parallax would also arise from a fixed observation position on the surface of a fixed Earth viewing a daily rotating Moon and fixed stars is required. The article is also misleading on stellar parallax, overlooking simple single object parallax, used in the 1830's first confirmations of annual stellar parallax due to the Earth's annual solar orbit by Bessell (61 Cygni) and Henderson (Alpha Centauri), and as opposed to dual object parallax. --Logicus (talk) 19:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


Further parallax problems and Longomontanus missing In its 'Heliocentrism' section the article currently states

"Tycho believed in a modified geocentric model known as the Tychonic system, for the same reasons that he argued that the supernova of 1572 was not near the Earth. He argued that if the Earth were in motion, then nearby stars should appear to shift their positions with respect to background stars. In fact, this effect of parallax does exist; but it could not be observed with the naked eye, or even with the telescopes of the next two hundred years, because even the nearest stars are much more distant than most astronomers of the time believed possible."


However, the italicised clauses are seriously mistaken because (i) Tycho did not believe in geocentrism "for the same reasons he argued...Earth". Rather he argued the Earth is fixed at the centre and does not orbit the Sun because there was no observable annual stellar parallax, whereas his argument that the 1572 supernova was a star was that it had no observable daily parallax. And (ii), his argument was not that nearby stars should show parallax against others, but rather that in observations six months apart at the two extremes of the Earth's solar orbit, and thus reflecting its maximum change of position by 2 AU with respect to the sphere of the fixed stars, the angular location of the same fixed star should show a detectable difference. This is called 'annual parallax', albeit in fact semi-annual.

Also the article crucial scientific role of Tycho's assistant and disciple Longomontanus in popularising the Tychonic system in the 17th century.

I therefore propose the following replacement and additions in a section retitled 'Tycho's Geoheliocentrism'.

'Kepler..... heliocentric system. Tycho believed in geocentrism because he held the Earth was just too sluggish to be continually in motion and also that if the Earth orbited the Sun annually there should be an observable stellar parallax at six month intervals in which the angular orientation of the same star changed. But none was observable at the time in the absence of sufficiently fine instruments. This parallax does exist, but is so small it was not detected until the 1830s. But unlike the Ptolemaic geocentric system, Tycho proposed a geoheliocentric system, possibly first proposed by Heracalides in the 4th century BC, in which the Sun orbits a central Earth annually and all the other 5 planets orbit the Sun. But in Tycho's model the Earth does not rotate daily but is static. And another crucial difference between his 1587 geoheliocentric model and those of such as Wittich, Ursus, Roslin and Origanus was that the orbits of Mars and the Sun intersected. This was because he had come to believe the distance from Mars at opposition to the Earth was less than that of the Sun because it had a greater daily parallax than the Sun, albeit he had claimed in a 1584 letter to an astronomer Brucaeus that it was further away at opposition in 1582 because he had observed it had little or no daily parallax, whereby he had rejected Copernicus's model because it predicted Mars would be at only two-thirds the distance of the Sun. <See p178-80 of Dreyer's 1890 'Tycho Brahe'> But having apparently later changed his mind to the opinion that Mars was indeed nearer the Earth than the Sun, with consequentially intersecting Martian and Solar orbits this meant there could be no solid celestial spheres because such rotating spheres could not possibly interpenetrate. Arguably this conclusion was independently supported by the conclusion that the comet of 1577 was superlunary because it showed less daily parallax than the Moon, and thus must pass through any celestial orbs in its transit and would thus be sphere-busting.

But it was Tycho's research assistant and disciple Longomontanus who really developed his geoheliocentric model empirically and publicly in his 1622 astronomical tables. When Tycho died in 1601, his program for the restoration of astronomy was unfinished. The observational aspects were complete, but two important tasks remained, namely the selection and integration of the data into accounts of the motions of the planets, and the presentation of the results on the entire program in the form of a systematic treatise. Longomontanus, Tycho's sole disciple, assumed the responsibility and fulfilled both tasks in his voluminous Astronomia Danica (1622). Regarded as the testament of Tycho, the work was eagerly received in seventeenth-century astronomical literature. But unlike Tycho's, his geoheliocentric model gave the Earth a daily rotation as in the models of Ursus and Roslin, and which is sometimes called the 'semi-Tychonic' system. <It should be noted that mere diagrams allegedly of the Tychonic system would actually be indistinguishable from this semi-Tychonic system, unless they indicated whether the Earth or the fixed stars rotated daily.> As an indication of his book's popularity and of the semi-Tychonic system, it was reprinted in 1640 and 1663. Having originally worked on calculating the Martian orbit for Tycho with Kepler, he had already modelled its orbit to within 2 arcminutes error in his geoheliocentric model when Kepler had still only achieved 8 arcminutes in his heliocentric system. --Logicus (talk) 17:14, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Cosmos Brahe.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 20:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] grammar?

Under Danish law, when a nobleman and a common woman lived together openly as husband and wife, and she wore the keys to the household at her belt like any true wife, their alliance became a binding morganatic marriage after three years.

I cannot parse that sentence. Is the wearing of the keys a necessary requirement for the marriage to become binding, or is it a parenthetical comment? However, Even without the keys clause it does not parse.-84user (talk) 21:30, 18 May 2008 (UTC) (corrected -84user (talk) 21:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Astrology copyvio?

I moved the whole Astrology section here, because it is a near exact copy of http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/tychoastrol.html . The cam.ac.uk claims a copyright from 1999, and this internet archive is from 2001 April, so it looks like wikipedia was a copy from cam.ac.uk and not the other way around. Here is the text I moved from the article, with text added in bold and text skipped in struck-through italics like this.

[edit] Astrology

Like the fifteenth centuryfifteenth-century astronomer Regiomontanus, Tycho Brahe appears to have accepted astrological prognostications on the principle that the heavenly bodies undoubtedly influenced (yet did not determine) terrestrial events, but expressed skepticismscepticism about the multiplicity of interpretative schemes, and increasingly preferred to work on establishing a sound mathematical astronomy. Two early tracts, one entitled Against Astrologers for Astrology, and one on a new method of dividing the skyheavens into astrological houses, were never published and are now lost.

Tycho also worked in the area of weather prediction, produced astrological interpretations of the supernova of 1572 and the comet of 1577, and furnished his patrons Frederick II and Rudolph II with nativities and other predictions (thereby strengthening the ties between patron and client by demonstrating value).The horoscope shown here is the nativity of King Christian IV of Denmark, composed by Tycho a few weeks after his birth in 1577. An astrological world viewworld-view was fundamental to Tycho's entire philosophy of nature.[citation needed] His interest in alchemy, particularly the medical alchemy associated with Paracelsus, was almost as long-standing as his study of astrology and astronomy simultaneouslyastronomy, and Uraniborg was constructed as both observatory and laboratory.

In an introductory oration to the course of lectures he gave in Copenhagen in 1574, Tycho defended astrology on the grounds of correspondences between the heavenly bodies, terrestrial substances (metals, stones etc.) and bodily organs (medical astrology). He was later to emphasise the importance of studying alchemy and astrology[citation needed] together with a pair of emblems bearing the mottoes: Despiciendo suspicio (- "By looking down I see upward") - and Suspiciendo despicio (- "By looking up I see downward").." As several scholars[who?] have now argued, Tycho's commitment to a relationship between macrocosm and microcosm even played a role in his rejection of Copernicanism and his construction of a third world-system.

(Above was moved from Tycho Brahe and marked to show differences from cam.ac.uk page. Note the misleading added text (medical astrology)', and astrology and astronomy simultaneously replacing astronomy) -84user (talk) 22:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC) (The above had been inserted back in this edit from 19 September 2004; The cam.ac.uk page has "This page is Copyright 1999, Adam Mosley and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science of the University of Cambridge. All Rights Reserved." -84user (talk) 23:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC))