The Mystery Behind Tycho Brahe’s Death

Tycho Brahe

Tycho Brahe’s grave was exhumed this month by the Danish and the Czech scientists, and what they found was very surprising. Besides the bones and the hairs of the scientist, they also found a mystery which looks more suitable in the Hollywood movies.

It seems that the scientist died in very mysterious circumstances, and it is a known fact that during his life he was in conflict with his assistant, Johannes Kepler, who was envious on his professor. It is also said that Brahe was involved in a relationship with the mother of a king, and that the king hired an international assassin to kill him. It is also said that this relationship inspired Shakespeare to write his famous play “Hamlet”. Of course, the scientists consider that all of these stories are pure speculations, and that none of them are real. They try to focus on the real things, and not on the stories. They do not believe that the affair was true, and they have stated that even if it is discovered that he died of mercury poisoning, that would not prove the reason for the poisoning, and that would not reveal who was the murderer.

It seems that Hollywood does not really care about the facts, and one of the best examples for this is the movie “Amadeus” which portrays Antonio Salieri as being Mozart’s killer. The movie was a success at the box office, and this might mean that Tycho might have a movie of his own. The movie would be a very interesting one, as Tycho Brahe had a very interesting life. He was involved in a duel in 1566, when he was 20 years old, and as a result he lost a part of his nose. It is said that the duel was started because the two men argued over a mathematical theory. Soon afterwards he will receive a metal nose prosthetic, and he will live on an island which has a castle and an observatory, all of them being paid by the king of Denmark. Tycho had access to the latest instruments for tracking new stars, and with the aid of the instruments he has managed to identify numerous new stars and a supernova as well. However, after the king died, his son did not continue to finance his research.

Since he no longer had a patron in Denmark, he decided to go to Prague, where his new patron would become Rudolf II, who was the Holy Roman Emperor at that time. Tycho believed that all the planets revolved around the Sun, but that the Sun revolved around the Earth. This is the theory he wanted to publish in his book. He needed help, so he hired a news assistant, Johannes Kepler, who had a very interesting idea about the Universe as well. Kepler believed that God created the planets to orbit around the Sun. Tycho was the one who introduced Kepler to the emperor, and 11 days after the introduction he was found dead. Tycho was 54 when he died. It was believed that he died because he did not urinate when he got drunk at a banquet, and thus he damaged his bladder. The medical experts have stated that they noticed a problem with his kidneys, and that they might be responsible for his death.

In the 1990s, the some pieces of his hair were analyzed and it was discovered that his body contained large amounts of mercury, and they stated that in his last 24 hours he took a very high dose. Because of these findings, it is believed that he was poisoned with mercury, first at the banquet which was held prior to his death, and then while he was on his deathbed. Joshua Gilder and Anne-Lee Gilder wrote a book about it, and they believe that Kepler was the man who did it, as he had the motifs and the means to do it. Since he was Tycho’s assistant, he lived in his home, and as a result he had access to all the chemicals from his laboratory. Kepler could have poisoned him for the first time at the banquet, and then the second time at home. Of course, some might say that since Kepler was a devoted religious person, he could not have murdered another man. However, the Gilders have stated that he was capable of murder as he was unhappy, and that he wanted to be more famous. Kepler often stated that he was mad because Mars made him that way, and that he would do anything to crush his enemies. It is said that he once told a friend that he would attack Tycho with a sword. It is said that Tycho did not allow him to see all his data, and that Kepler tried on numerous instances to have access to it. He tried to trick him, begged him, and even tried to bribe him in order to see the data.

Mr. Gilder said that Kepler wanted to prove that the Universe was created by God, and that every time Tycho was against his theory, he verbally assaulted him. He believes that Kepler would have been able to kill for the vision he believed in, as that has happened on numerous instances. He is convinced that Kepler believed that such a discovery would make him famous, as he often considered that he was not fully appreciated. Owen Gingerich, who is a professor of astronomy at Harvard, does not agree with these theories. He is an expert on Kepler, and he said that it would not make sense for Kepler to kill Tycho because during the time when he died, he tried to convince the emperor to make Kepler the imperial mathematician. By killing Tycho, Kepler would have ruined that opportunity. However, Kepler did get the job even after Tycho’s death. Kepler even got a hold on Tycho’s data, even if he stated that it should be passed to his family in case he dies.

Kepler did not manage to prove that God created the Universe, but thanks to the data he stole from Tycho, he managed to prove that the Sun has a force on the planets, and he even issued the three laws of planetary motion. He was the one who discovered that the planets do not move around the Sun in a circular motion, but in an elliptical one. It is believed that Eric Brahe might have also been the killer, as he was a relative of Tycho, so he lived in his home as well. Besides that, it was discovered in his journal that he might have poisoned another person in the past. It is said that he was the assassin whom Christian IV, the Danish king hired to kill Tycho. It is believed that Tycho might have been Christian’s real father, as he might have had an affair with Queen Sophie, Christian IV’s mother. The only way through which they could verify this, is by collecting DNA samples from Christian IV, but it is very unlikely that that will happen. Jens Vellev, the archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark it the leader of this study, and he had to ask for more than ten years to be allowed to exhume Tycho’s body.

Professor Vellev believes that the mercury from Tycho’s body might have been there because he might have attempted to treat his kidney problem, and he does not believe that he was murdered. We will have to wait and see.