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Originally Posted by Daithi
Indeed it was Keplar.
His mom was charged as a witch and it is probably only because Keplar was her son that they didn't kill her, and she had to spend the remained of her days living with her daughter because the people from the town she was from threatened to stone her if she came back.
Keplar wrote a book called Somnium where the protagonist is the son of a witch. This witch was taught how to travel to the moon by a demon, and she teaches her son. He then explained what it looked like as planetary bodies revolved around the moon -- backing up Copernicus. A manuscript of this book was used in his mom's trial.
Tycho Brahe was the guy with golden nose. He was wounded in a sword fight and lost his nose. A replacement was made from most likely an alloy of gold, copper, and who knows to come up with a skin colored prosthetic.
The guy they worked for was Emperor Rudolph II. He employed several famous astrologers, including Keplar, and so many famous alchemists that there is a street near his castle in Prague still known as the Golden Lane. He also employed John Dee, known as Queen Elizabeth's sorcerer, and Edward Kelley who was Dee's cohort. If you want to read about somebody who was truly sick and twisted then read about Rudolph's oldest son, Don Julius DŽAustria.
When Tycho Brahe died, some people thought Keplar may have killed him to get his position. Several years ago some scientists even did a toxicology tests on some of Brahe's hair. They found staggering amounts of mercury. The theory now is that Brahe probably had a kidney stone and poisoned himself trying to treat it with mercury.
Keplar is known for his three laws of planetary motion. The third law appeared in his book Harmonices Mundi that was about how the orbits of the planetary bodies produced a "music of the spheres". Keplar believed in astrology, and twenty years before writing Harmonices Mundi he wrote De Fundementis Astrologiae Certioribus ('On the more Certain Fundamentals of astrology) where he tried using orbits based on the Platonic solids as a basis for grounding his beliefs in astrology. He went to work with Tycho to help him prove his theories, but when he found out the orbits didn't match his theories, he revised them into the "music of the spheres".
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I've been to Prague several times (wife's cousin has lived there for over 20 years). I recall seeing a plaque about Brahe when we were walking down from the castle to the centre of Prague - now I know that that may well have been Golden Lane, thanks
I'm afraid that I am just about to go to bed. I'l happily post a question in the morning, but if somebody wants to slip one in in the meantime, feel free.