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How Tycho Brahe really died (2001)

74 points by benbreen 3y ago

tpmx 3y ago
The Ven (Hven) island where he built his observatories is well worth visiting. There's not much left of the observatories, but it's a really beautiful island. I went there in the early 2000s. There are ferries from Landskrona/Helsingborg/Copenhagen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ven_(Sweden) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ven_(Sweden) The island was historically under Danish rule. Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) built two observatories there, Uraniborg and Stjerneborg, during 1576–1596. The observatories were built by the inhabitants of the island with Tycho Brahe as their Lord. The Swedish took over control in 1658, as the rest of Scania was ceded to Sweden by the Treaty of Roskilde. The island was not specifically mentioned in the treaty, and according to the Danes it was not part of Scania, but part of Zealand and therefore still under Danish rule. The Swedes did not agree with that interpretation, and sent troops to occupy the island on 6 May 1658. The transfer to Sweden was confirmed in 1660 by the Treaty of Copenhagen. It's particularly unfortunate that Uraniborg does not exist any longer. It was glorious (supposedly): https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uraniborg#/media/Fil:Uranienborg_ubt.jpeg https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uraniborg#/media/Fil:Uranienbo...
- jonsen 3y ago
  As late as 1983 Denmark and Sweden had a dispute about another small island in the area: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesselø https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesselø
  - lazide 3y ago
    If you can’t fight about something pointless, are you really siblings/an old married couple?
- drsim 3y ago
  I agree, very beautiful and otherworldly when compared to the average Danish landscape. Sailed there three years ago.
- litenboll 3y ago
  I grew up in Scania and Ven is a very common day trip in the summer. Glad to see it mentioned on HN!
- Msurrow 3y ago
  Just visited two nights this summer (from Denmark), and I must say it is a very nice place to visit either for a daytrip or weekend getaway. The Hven distrillery is worth a visit either for the resturant it self or for the tour of the distillery tour combined with a dinner!
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
    I went with my wife several years ago and it is just the absolute coziest place to rent a tandem bike and ride around the island. A memory that will stay with me for a long time
fsh 3y ago
A later, more comprehensive analysis found that there was insufficient mercury in Brahe's system to cause death: https://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/17/was-tycho-brahe-poisoned-according-to-new-evidence-probably-not/ https://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/17/was-tycho-brahe-poisone... They also didn't find any other poison in the samples.
IAmGraydon 3y ago
TLDR: According to the article, he had a urinary problem and took medicine containing a high amount of mercury in hopes of curing it (heavy metal poisoning was not known back then) and accidentally poisoned himself.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
marbletiles 3y ago
Site has a cookie permission box where “Deny” takes you to Wikipedia, which is both non compliant and pointless
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- midasuni 3y ago
  Are they targeting EU citizens or doing business in the EU? If not why would the bother trying to be “compliant” On the other hand why do they want to steal your personal data?
  - marbletiles 3y ago
    That’s my thought: if you’re not doing it to be compliant, why do it at all? Seems pointless.
  - developer93 3y ago
    Regardless of whether they mean to, if it's shown in the EU they're obliged to follow the rules. You can't just decide they don't apply to you. Some sites just plain don't show to EU customers or present a very paired down set of pages for this reason.
    - midasuni 3y ago
      That’s wrong. You are under no obligation to work out eu customers - you can’t. If an EU citizen buys a bagel while in NY that doesn’t make the bagel shop under any obligation to comply with the gdpr. Their website can steal all the data it wants to. If the shop specifically targets eu customers that’s different. If the shop offered bagel drivers to France for example. Either way the GDPR basically says “don’t steal people’s data”. Ther is no reason to have cookie banners unless you want to take personal data, and the easy solution to that is to not take personal data.
- dylan604 3y ago
  Sounds like one of those "Get me outta here" type links. If you don't want to comply with the cookie rules, you don't get to see the site. Doesn't seem so pointless to me
max_ 3y ago
>Using the growth rate of hair it was concluded that Tycho was poisoned by mercury one day before his death. I knew mercury was poisonous, but can it really kill someone in just 2 days?
romusha 3y ago
Tycho Bruh
klempner 3y ago
Why is this entire article using an 8 point font? The good news is that whatever asshole made that UI decision is presumably 22 years older now and probably dealing with presbyopia.
- inkyoto 3y ago
  It gets more interesting if one does not accept the analytical/tracking cookies: the user gets thrown ouf of the website and is redirected to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_planetariums https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_planetariums Which I think is very rude of a scientifically inclined website hosted in the .org domain zone to deny knowledge to the general public as a retaliation to the user to reject to be tracked. If they are really that strapped for cash, they could have rendered the message differently at the very least.
  - developer93 3y ago
    Plus which it might be illegal, I think GDPR requires that the service still work without tracking.
  - cardiffspaceman 3y ago
    Reader mode may overcome this, it did for me on Mobile Safari
danans 3y ago
Tangentially, the Round Tower observatory in Copenhagen where Brahe worked is a neat site to visit.
- sjcsjc 3y ago
  Thanks for the tip - I'm going there for a weekend later this year
- derkha 3y ago
  The tower was built after Brahe's death https://www.rundetaarn.dk/en/article/tycho-brahe-was-not-here/ https://www.rundetaarn.dk/en/article/tycho-brahe-was-not-her...
  - danans 3y ago
    Interesting. They don't make that very obvious when you visit.
    - NBJack 3y ago
      Better for marketing, better for tourists. So often the DS9 joke comes to mind here: "Would you want to buy a book called 'The Suggestions of Acquisiton'?"
demondemidi 3y ago
I will always think of him as portrayed in "The Mechanical Universe" series, having his excessive parties (complete with jester) while Kepler stirred in his seat impatiently, waiting to get Brahe's measurement journals after traveling weeks to meet him. Obviously a recreation (!), but I saw those videos almost 40 years ago and that's what they look like in my head.

74 points by benbreen 3y ago

tpmx 3y ago

The Ven (Hven) island where he built his observatories is well worth visiting. There's not much left of the observatories, but it's a really beautiful island. I went there in the early 2000s. There are ferries from Landskrona/Helsingborg/Copenhagen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ven_(Sweden) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ven_(Sweden) The island was historically under Danish rule. Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) built two observatories there, Uraniborg and Stjerneborg, during 1576–1596. The observatories were built by the inhabitants of the island with Tycho Brahe as their Lord. The Swedish took over control in 1658, as the rest of Scania was ceded to Sweden by the Treaty of Roskilde. The island was not specifically mentioned in the treaty, and according to the Danes it was not part of Scania, but part of Zealand and therefore still under Danish rule. The Swedes did not agree with that interpretation, and sent troops to occupy the island on 6 May 1658. The transfer to Sweden was confirmed in 1660 by the Treaty of Copenhagen. It's particularly unfortunate that Uraniborg does not exist any longer. It was glorious (supposedly): https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uraniborg#/media/Fil:Uranienborg_ubt.jpeg https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uraniborg#/media/Fil:Uranienbo...

jonsen 3y ago
As late as 1983 Denmark and Sweden had a dispute about another small island in the area: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesselø https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesselø
- lazide 3y ago
  If you can’t fight about something pointless, are you really siblings/an old married couple?
drsim 3y ago
I agree, very beautiful and otherworldly when compared to the average Danish landscape. Sailed there three years ago.
litenboll 3y ago
I grew up in Scania and Ven is a very common day trip in the summer. Glad to see it mentioned on HN!
Msurrow 3y ago
Just visited two nights this summer (from Denmark), and I must say it is a very nice place to visit either for a daytrip or weekend getaway. The Hven distrillery is worth a visit either for the resturant it self or for the tour of the distillery tour combined with a dinner!
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
  I went with my wife several years ago and it is just the absolute coziest place to rent a tandem bike and ride around the island. A memory that will stay with me for a long time

fsh 3y ago

A later, more comprehensive analysis found that there was insufficient mercury in Brahe's system to cause death: https://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/17/was-tycho-brahe-poisoned-according-to-new-evidence-probably-not/ https://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/17/was-tycho-brahe-poisone... They also didn't find any other poison in the samples.

IAmGraydon 3y ago

TLDR: According to the article, he had a urinary problem and took medicine containing a high amount of mercury in hopes of curing it (heavy metal poisoning was not known back then) and accidentally poisoned himself.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

marbletiles 3y ago

Site has a cookie permission box where “Deny” takes you to Wikipedia, which is both non compliant and pointless

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
midasuni 3y ago
Are they targeting EU citizens or doing business in the EU? If not why would the bother trying to be “compliant” On the other hand why do they want to steal your personal data?
- marbletiles 3y ago
  That’s my thought: if you’re not doing it to be compliant, why do it at all? Seems pointless.
- developer93 3y ago
  Regardless of whether they mean to, if it's shown in the EU they're obliged to follow the rules. You can't just decide they don't apply to you. Some sites just plain don't show to EU customers or present a very paired down set of pages for this reason.
  - midasuni 3y ago
    That’s wrong. You are under no obligation to work out eu customers - you can’t. If an EU citizen buys a bagel while in NY that doesn’t make the bagel shop under any obligation to comply with the gdpr. Their website can steal all the data it wants to. If the shop specifically targets eu customers that’s different. If the shop offered bagel drivers to France for example. Either way the GDPR basically says “don’t steal people’s data”. Ther is no reason to have cookie banners unless you want to take personal data, and the easy solution to that is to not take personal data.
dylan604 3y ago
Sounds like one of those "Get me outta here" type links. If you don't want to comply with the cookie rules, you don't get to see the site. Doesn't seem so pointless to me

max_ 3y ago

>Using the growth rate of hair it was concluded that Tycho was poisoned by mercury one day before his death. I knew mercury was poisonous, but can it really kill someone in just 2 days?

romusha 3y ago

Tycho Bruh

klempner 3y ago

Why is this entire article using an 8 point font? The good news is that whatever asshole made that UI decision is presumably 22 years older now and probably dealing with presbyopia.

inkyoto 3y ago
It gets more interesting if one does not accept the analytical/tracking cookies: the user gets thrown ouf of the website and is redirected to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_planetariums https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_planetariums Which I think is very rude of a scientifically inclined website hosted in the .org domain zone to deny knowledge to the general public as a retaliation to the user to reject to be tracked. If they are really that strapped for cash, they could have rendered the message differently at the very least.
- developer93 3y ago
  Plus which it might be illegal, I think GDPR requires that the service still work without tracking.
- cardiffspaceman 3y ago
  Reader mode may overcome this, it did for me on Mobile Safari

danans 3y ago

Tangentially, the Round Tower observatory in Copenhagen where Brahe worked is a neat site to visit.

sjcsjc 3y ago
Thanks for the tip - I'm going there for a weekend later this year
derkha 3y ago
The tower was built after Brahe's death https://www.rundetaarn.dk/en/article/tycho-brahe-was-not-here/ https://www.rundetaarn.dk/en/article/tycho-brahe-was-not-her...
- danans 3y ago
  Interesting. They don't make that very obvious when you visit.
  - NBJack 3y ago
    Better for marketing, better for tourists. So often the DS9 joke comes to mind here: "Would you want to buy a book called 'The Suggestions of Acquisiton'?"

demondemidi 3y ago

I will always think of him as portrayed in "The Mechanical Universe" series, having his excessive parties (complete with jester) while Kepler stirred in his seat impatiently, waiting to get Brahe's measurement journals after traveling weeks to meet him. Obviously a recreation (!), but I saw those videos almost 40 years ago and that's what they look like in my head.