Kepler and Tycho Brahe: the odd couple Physics World

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Kepler and Tycho Brahe: the odd couple
Father Job Kozhamthadam
From
Physics World
December 2002
© IOP Publishing Ltd 2013
ISSN: 0953-8585
Institute of Physics Publishing
Bristol and Philadelphia
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CHRISTMAS BOOKS
Job Kozhamthadam
Kepler and Tycho Brahe: the odd couple
The Nobleman and His Housedog: Tycho Brahe and
Johannes Kepler – The Strange Partnership that
Revolutionised Science
Kitty Ferguson
2002 Review 372pp £15.99/$31.98hb
Kitty Ferguson presents a double biography
with a single theme: the founding of modern
astronomy. Johannes Kepler is rightly acclaimed
as the father of modern astronomy,
but he could not have achieved this distinction
without Tycho Brahe’s observational
data, which are unanimously considered the
most accurate and comprehensive in pretelescopic
astronomy. Science needs imaginative,
daring theorists who can soar high in
the world of the almost impossible; Kepler
belonged to this tribe. Science also needs
accurate observational data to keep this
search bound to the ground; Tycho’s data
did just this. But this merging of theory and
experiment was by no means straightforward
or easy.
The Nobleman and His Housedog recounts the
strange and intricate way in which this unusual
collaboration came about. The story
begins with Tycho Brahe – the Danish
nobleman of the book’s title – who was 25
years older than Kepler. Breaking with the
established traditions of his society, which
frowned upon any nobleman engaging in a
scientific career, Tycho had been interested
in astronomical observations since his youth.
It was from his home observatory at Herrevad
that he observed the well known nova
of 1572, which challenged the Aristotelian
doctrine of the immutability of the celestial
world. Later he found lavish favour with
King Frederick II of Denmark, who went all
out to help him set up an extravagant stateof-the-art
observatory at Uraniborg and the
subterranean observatory of Stjerneborg
on the island of Hven.
However, Tycho fell badly out of grace
with King Christian IV – Frederick’s successor
– and was forced to leave Denmark in
disgrace in 1597. Soon Emperor Rudolph II
of the Holy Roman Empire welcomed him
in Prague and extended generous support
to set up an observatory at nearby Benatky.
Unfortunately, Tycho’s life and activities at
Benatky were cut short by his rather untimely
death in 1601, although he left a
priceless legacy in the form of the most
accurate astronomical observations – the
fruit of 38 years of tireless, ingenious labour.
Tycho had been unhappy with the old
Ptolemaic system; the new Copernican theory
also failed to satisfy him. He in turn proposed
a different system, popularly known
as the Tychonic system, in which all the
planets (except the Earth) went round the
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Stormy relationship – Johannes Kepler (top) was a
self-effacing theorist, while Tycho Brahe (bottom)
was an arrogant, flamboyant experimentalist.
Sun, and the Sun orbited round the Earth.
This system, he claimed, steered clear of the
mathematical absurdity of Ptolemy and the
physical absurdity of Copernicus.
Kepler, meanwhile, was following a very
different path. Born in Weil der Stadt near
Stuttgart in 1571, he could hardly claim any
noble lineage. Deeply religious and fired by
a powerful desire to become a Lutheran
minister, he went to study theology at the
University of Tübingen. There he came
under the influence of the crypto-Copernican
astronomer Michael Möstlin, and became
a Copernican himself. Soon he had to
physicsweb.org
interrupt his theological studies to become
a mathematics teacher and district mathematician
in Graz in present-day Austria.
Kepler first came to the notice of the
scholarly world when he published Mysterium
Cosmographicum in 1596. The book detailed
his “polyhedral theory”, which explained
the arrangement of the different planets in
terms of the five regular solids. Although a
theorist, Kepler longed impatiently to consult
Tycho’s data to confirm his theory.
A very strange confluence of circumstances
offered Kepler the opportunity to
fulfil his desire. Religious persecution and
poverty drove Kepler out of Graz. While his
polyhedral theory turned out to be a phantasm,
its ingenuity and originality revealed
a brilliant and highly creative genius in the
making. He quickly received a shower of
encomiums from many scholars including
Tycho, who extended an open and warmsounding
invitation to join him at Benatky.
Rarely can one find two personalities so
poles apart as Tycho and Kepler. Flamboyant
and extravagant, the Dane wallowed in
pomp and luxury, even though his lifestyle
meant emptying the royal coffers and
squeezing the sweat out of his impoverished
Danish tenants. For Kepler, however, the
wayward life of his mercenary father, the
sporadic, witch-like behaviour of his mother
and the chronic poverty of his family had
always prevented him from claiming a place
in high society.
Tycho was arrogant and merciless towards
his opponents – he went after Nicolas
Ursus’s blood (even after the latter’s ignominious
death) because he believed that Ursus
had plagiarized his astronomical system.
Kepler, on the other hand, was self-effacing
and self-disparaging – he referred to himself
as a “housedog” and a “worm”. The Dane
was a genius at observations and devising
observational instruments. The German –
with his highly creative mind and imaginative
insights – was a grand master at
theorizing. Tycho was self-centred and overprotective
of his observational data, persistently
refusing to share his scientific treasure
with Kepler. Kepler for the most part was
generous and ready to share his knowledge
with other scholars.
No wonder the so-called collaboration
was strange and stormy. During the first
months of their time together, the pair
pouted at each other, argued constantly,
quarrelled frequently and finally – in a fit of
anger and disappointment – Kepler walked
out. But Tycho had the good sense and magnanimity
to relent, and finally the differences
were patched up. Kepler was given
the formidable task of studying the erratic
P HYSICS W ORLD D ECEMBER 2002

movement of Mars, which neither Tycho
nor any of even his best assistants could
tackle. This was providential since the path
of Mars deviated most from the circular
path, and Tycho’s accurate data were able to
render this deviation perceptible.
Tycho’s untimely death in 1601 also
turned out to be a blessing in disguise for
Kepler since this led him to become the
prestigious Imperial Mathematician in
Prague, and gave him relatively free access
to Tycho’s data. Although he struggled with
the Martian orbit for several years, he was
finally rewarded with the discovery of the
first two laws of planetary motion that now
bear his name. He discovered the third law
several years later while working on musical
harmony applied to the motion of planets.
Ferguson succeeds in bringing out the
complex lives of these two giants and the
enormity of the challenges that lay before
them. She also beautifully locates them in
the social, religious and political milieu –
thereby affirming that scientists and the
science that they help to create cannot be
Radio Man: The Remarkable Rise and Fall of C O Stanley
Mark Frankland
2002 Institution of Electrical Engineers 368pp
£25.00/$39.00hb
Biographies comes in two distinct varieties.
One kind gets piled high at the front of the
bookshop; the other languishes on the back
shelves. These days, a single fact determines
which goes where. The books at the front
are about people on television.
Charles Orr Stanley is definitely backshelf
material. Few bookshops are likely to
highlight Mark Frankland’s biography of
this remarkable Irish entrepreneur – superbly
researched, written and illustrated
though it is. But those who do not read it will
miss a riveting story and a splendid irony.
For this is the tale of a man who did more
than most to make television the only medium
that really counts, ensuring fame for
the few and near-oblivion for himself.
Most younger readers have probably
never heard of Pye, the brand that Stanley
built. But in 1960 Pye companies supplied
a quarter of all British television receivers,
controlled a sizeable chunk of the radio
market, and enjoyed a virtual monopoly
of mobile communications. Six years later,
however, Pye was forced into the arms of its
one-time collaborator – the Dutch electronics
giant Philips – and before long the brand
was dead. Its death, says Frankland, was predictable,
caused by the demon that made Pye
great in the first place: Stanley’s personality.
An incurable optimist, with no time for
divorced from the people they are and the
world they live in. The book also provides a
good feeling for the Europe of the period,
especially of Denmark. The style is lucid
and smooth, avoiding all unnecessary technical
complexities. Indeed, the entire text
reads almost like a historical novel.
However, the sections dealing with Kepler’s
long and arduous struggle with Mars
are somewhat weak. In her legitimate concern
for simplification, Ferguson falls into
the trap of all simplifiers: underplaying the
role of non-empirical factors in Kepler’s
discovery. The crucial role that philosophical
and religious principles played cannot
be overlooked, particularly the immense
struggle Kepler had to undergo to extricate
himself from astronomers’ millennia-long
attachment to the circular orbit.
Still, the author has made a laudable contribution
in casting Tycho in a far better
light than others have achieved. Particularly
touching is her description of how he broke
with tradition to marry a commoner – Kirsten
Jørgensdatter – at considerable per-
petty details of the depressingly realistic
kind, Stanley transformed Pye from a small
Cambridge instrument maker into a worldwide
electronics giant. In the early days, not
worrying too much about little things like
keeping the books straight was a source of
strength. But once British television grew to
be a major economic force, Stanley’s swash-
CHRISTMAS BOOKS
sonal cost all through his life.
Some readers, however, may feel uneasy
with the metaphorical reference to Kepler
as Tycho’s “housedog”. This self-description
is quoted at least three times, and referred
to many more. A man with a poor
self-image, Kepler was embarrassingly selfeffacing.
Psychologists tell us that statements
from such people about themselves should
not be given too much weight. In any case,
if Kepler was the “housedog”, this was the
rarest case in which the housedog outlived
and outsmarted his master.
These comments aside, Ferguson’s work
renders valuable and timely service to the
Kepler–Tycho scholarship. Non-specialists
will learn much about the world of modern
science in its infancy. Specialists, meanwhile,
will find its many details and insights stimulating
for further study and reflection.
Father Job Kozhamthadam is professor of history and
philosophy of science at Inana Deepa Vidyapeeth,
Pontifical Institute of Philosophy and Religion, Pune,
India, email denobili2@pn2.vsnl.net.in
Roger Bridgman
Charting the course of the Pye pioneer
Boom to bust – Charles Orr Stanley turned Pye into a
global electronics giant before the wrong decisions
killed the firm, which was then taken over by Philips.
buckling approach would ultimately prove
to be fatal.
The road from Cambridge to Lisselan –
the mansion in County Cork where Stanley
spent his enforced retirement – traversed
a dramatic landscape of technical achievement.
Stanley believed in giving people creative
freedom, and by 1939 his engineers
had responded with a new type of valve, developed
with Philips, that Pye used to make
the best television set in the world.
When war broke out, the guts of this
set powered the first good airborne radar.
Pye produced several more mission-critical
radars and also, despite opposition from
baffled bureaucrats, the first really good military
radios. Towards the end of the war,
Pye began to develop the instrument-landing
system that gets you home when holiday
sunshine turns to fog, and a few years later
equipped Britain’s first radio-controlled
taxis. Pye was also the world’s first company
licensed to use that crucial electronic invention
– the transistor.
Strange, then, that Stanley’s technical
education did not extend beyond a course
in civil engineering at Finsbury Technical
College, and that he got into electronics
entirely by accident. This apple-cheeked innovator
was at heart not a technocrat but a
persuader, an explosive mixture of salesman
and bully. When he began his career in
1923, he set up not a factory but an advertising
agency. One of its first clients happened
to be the Mullard Valve Company, and
Stanley was soon deep into radio – the dot-
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