Article View: sci.astro
Article #3343Re: Tycho Apocrypha
From: Heidi Hammel
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 23:43
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 23:43
19 lines
1520 bytes
1520 bytes
buehler@sybil.mit.edu (Royce Buehler) writes:
>A historical question: Did Tycho Brahe sport a prosthetic
>nose? If so, how did he come by it? If not, how did the
>story (reported for example by Will and Ariel Durant) gain currency?
It is frequently reported that at the age of twenty, Brahe fought a
duel, during which the tip of his nose was lost, and that he wore
a tin (or gold and tin) tip from then on. Berry's "A Short History
of Astronomy" (Dover Publications, 1961) devotes some 16 pages to
Brahe's life and does not mention the duel or prothestic, but the
word "violent" in connection with Tycho's disposition appears several
times and he seemed like an all-around snooty guy: "... as he combined
the irritability of a genius with the haughtiness of a medieval
nobleman, continual quarrels were the result." So there could very
well be some truth to the rumors ....
heidi
--
Heidi B. Hammel (hbh@astron.mit.edu) MIT 54-416 EAPS Dept.
Technical Details
Message-ID:
<1993Jan20.234308.20564@athena.mit.edu>Path:
arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!hbhReferences:
<1993Jan20.215204.16371@athena.mit.edu>Show Full Headers
Complete Article Headers
Newsgroups: sci.astro Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!hbh From: hbh@athena.mit.edu (Heidi Hammel) Subject: Re: Tycho Apocrypha Message-ID: <1993Jan20.234308.20564@athena.mit.edu> Keywords: Tycho, Brahe, nose Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system) Nntp-Posting-Host: mercury.mit.edu Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology References: <1993Jan20.215204.16371@athena.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 23:43:08 GMT Lines: 19