A Short History of Astronomy, Arthur Berry [large screen ebook reader .TXT] 📗
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In addition to the time thus spent in quarrelling, a good deal must have been occupied in entertaining the numerous visitors whom his fame attracted, and who included, in addition to astronomers, persons of rank such as several of the Danish royal family and James VI. of Scotland (afterwards James I. of England).
Notwithstanding these distractions, astronomical work made steady progress, and during the 21 years that Tycho spent at Hveen he accumulated, with the help of pupils and assistants, a magnificent series of observations, far transcending in accuracy and extent anything that had been accomplished by his predecessors. A good deal of attention was also given to alchemy, and some to medicine. He seems to have been much impressed with the idea of the unity of Nature, and to have been continually looking out for analogies or actual connection between the different subjects which he studied.
103. In 1577 appeared a brilliant comet, which Tycho observed with his customary care; and, although he had not at the time his full complement of instruments, his observations were exact enough to satisfy him that the comet was at least three times as far off as the moon, and thus to refute the popular belief, which he had himself held a few years before (§ 100), that comets were generated in our atmosphere. His observations led him also to the belief that the comet was revolving round the sun, at a distance from it greater than that of Venus, a conclusion which interfered seriously with the common doctrine of the solid crystalline spheres. He had further opportunities of observing comets in 1580, 1582, 1585, 1590, and 1596, and one of his pupils also took observations of a comet seen in 1593. None of these comets attracted as much general attention as that of 1577, but Tycho’s observations, as was natural, gradually improved in accuracy.
104. The valuable results obtained by means of the new star of 1572, and by the comets, suggested the propriety of undertaking a complete treatise on astronomy embodying these and other discoveries. According to the original plan, there were to be three preliminary volumes devoted respectively to the new star, to the comet of 1577, and to the later comets, while the main treatise was to consist of several more volumes dealing with the theories of the sun, moon, and planets. Of this magnificent plan comparatively little was ever executed. The first volume, called the Astronomiae Instauratae Progymnasmata, or Introduction to the New Astronomy, was hardly begun till 1588, and, although mostly printed by 1592, was never quite finished during Tycho’s lifetime, and was actually published by Kepler in 1602. One question, in fact, led to another in such a way that Tycho felt himself unable to give a satisfactory account of the star of 1572 without dealing with a number of preliminary topics, such as the positions of the fixed stars, precession, and the annual motion of the sun, each of which necessitated an elaborate investigation. The second volume, dealing with the comet of 1577, called De Mundi aetherei recentioribus Phaenomenis Liber secundus (Second book about recent appearances in the Celestial World), was finished long before the first, and copies were sent to friends and correspondents in 1588, though it was not regularly published and on sale till 1603. The third volume was never written, though some material was collected for it, and the main treatise does not appear to have been touched.
105. The book on the comet of 1577 is of special interest, as containing an account of Tycho’s system of the world, which was a compromise between those of Ptolemy and of Coppernicus. Tycho was too good an astronomer not to realise many of the simplifications which the Coppernican system introduced, but was unable to answer two of the serious objections; he regarded any motion of “the sluggish and heavy earth” as contrary to “physical principles,” and he objected to the great distance of the stars which the Coppernican system required, because a vast empty space would be left between them and the planets, a space which he regarded as wasteful.63 Biblical difficulties64 also had some weight with him. He accordingly devised (1583) a new system according to which the five planets revolved round the sun (C, in fig. 52), while the sun revolved annually round the earth (A), and the whole celestial sphere performed also a daily revolution round the earth. The system was never worked out in detail, and, like many compromises, met with little support; Tycho nevertheless was extremely proud of it, and one of the most violent and prolonged quarrels of his life (lasting a dozen years) was with Reymers Bär or Ursus (?-1600), who had communicated to the Landgrave in 1586 and published two years later a system of the world very like Tycho’s. Reymers had been at Hveen for a short time in 1584, and Tycho had no hesitation in accusing him of having stolen the idea from some manuscript seen there. Reymers naturally retaliated with a counter-charge of theft against Tycho. There is, however, no good reason why the idea should not have occurred independently to each astronomer; and Reymers made in some respects a great improvement on Tycho’s scheme by accepting the daily rotation of the earth, and so doing away with the daily rotation of the celestial sphere, which was certainly one of the weakest parts of the Ptolemaic scheme.
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106. The same year (1588) which saw the publication of Tycho’s book on the comet was also marked by the death of his patron, Frederick II. The new King Christian was a boy of 11, and for some years the country was managed by four leading statesmen. The new government seems to have been at first quite friendly to Tycho; a large sum was paid to him for expenses incurred at Hveen, and additional endowments were promised, but as time went on Tycho’s usual quarrels with his tenants and others began to produce their effect. In 1594 he lost one of his chief supporters at court, the Chancellor Kaas, and his successor, as well as two or three other important officials at court, were not very friendly, although the stories commonly told of violent personal animosities appear to have little foundation. As early as 1591 Tycho had hinted to a correspondent that he might not remain permanently in Denmark, and in 1594 he began a correspondence with representatives of the Emperor Rudolph II., who was a patron of science. But his scientific activity during these years was as great as ever; and in 1596 he completed the printing of an extremely interesting volume of scientific correspondence between the Landgrave, Rothmann, and himself. The accession of the young King to power in 1596 was at once followed by the withdrawal of one of Tycho’s estates, and in the following year the annual payment which had been made since 1576 was stopped. It is difficult to blame the King for these economies; he was evidently not as much interested in astronomy as his father, and consequently regarded the heavy expenditure at Hveen as an extravagance, and it is also probable that he was seriously annoyed at Tycho’s maltreatment of his tenants, and at other pieces of unruly conduct on his part. Tycho, however, regarded the forfeiture of his annual pension as the last straw, and left Hveen early in 1597, taking his more portable property with him. After a few months spent in Copenhagen, he took the decisive step of leaving Denmark for Germany, in return for which action the King deprived him of his canonry. Tycho thereupon wrote a remonstrance in which he pointed out the impossibility of carrying on his work without proper endowments, and offered to return if his services were properly appreciated. The King, however, was by this time seriously annoyed, and his reply was an enumeration of the various causes of complaint against Tycho which had arisen of late years. Although Tycho made some more attempts through various friends to regain royal favour, the breach remained final.
107. Tycho spent the winter 1597-8 with a friend near Hamburg, and, while there, issued, under the title of Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica, a description of his instruments, together with a short autobiography and an interesting account of his chief discoveries. About the same time he circulated manuscript copies of a catalogue of 1,000 fixed stars, of which only 777 had been properly observed, the rest having been added hurriedly to make up the traditional number. The catalogue and the Mechanica were both intended largely as evidence of his astronomical eminence, and were sent to various influential persons. Negotiations went on both with the Emperor and with the Prince of Orange, and after another year spent in various parts of Germany, Tycho definitely accepted an invitation of the Emperor and arrived at Prague in June 1599.
108. It was soon agreed that he should inhabit the castle of Benatek, some twenty miles from Prague, where he accordingly settled with his family and smaller instruments towards the end of 1599. He at once started observing, sent one of his sons to Hveen for his larger instruments, and began looking about for assistants. He secured one of the most able of his old assistants, and by good fortune was also able to attract a far greater man, John Kepler, to whose skilful use of the materials collected by Tycho the latter owes no inconsiderable part of his great reputation. Kepler, whose life and work will be dealt with at length in chapter VII., had recently published his first important work, the Mysterium Cosmographicum (§ 136), which had attracted the attention of Tycho among others, and was beginning to find his position at Gratz in Styria uncomfortable on account of impending religious disputes. After some hesitation he joined Tycho at Benatek early in 1600. He was soon set to work at the study of Mars for the planetary tables which Tycho was then preparing, and thus acquired special familiarity with the observations of this planet which Tycho had accumulated. The relations of the two astronomers were not altogether happy, Kepler being then as always anxious about money matters, and the disturbed state of the country rendering it difficult for Tycho to get payment from the Emperor. Consequently Kepler very soon left Benatek and returned to Prague, where he definitely settled after a short visit to Gratz; Tycho
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