THE NEW COSMOLOGY 



the most famous of the immediate successors of 

 Copernicus declined to accept the theory of the earth's 

 motion. This was Tycho Brahe, one of the greatest 

 observing astronomers of any age. Tycho Brahe was 

 a Dane, born at Knudstrup in the year 1546. He 

 died in 1601 at Prague, in Bohemia. During a con- 

 siderable portion of his life he found a patron in 

 Frederick, King of Denmark, who assisted him to build 

 a splendid observatory on the Island of Huene. On 

 the death of his patron Tycho moved to Germany, 

 where, as good luck would have it, he came in contact 

 with the youthful Kepler, and thus, no doubt, was in- 

 strumental in stimulating the ambitions of one who 

 in later years was to be known as a far greater theorist 

 than himself. As has been said, Tycho rejected the 

 Copernican theory of the earth's motion. It should 

 be added, however, that he accepted that part of the 

 Copernican theory which makes the sun the centre of 

 all the planetary motions, the earth being excepted. 

 He thus developed a system of his own, which was in 

 some sort a compromise between the Ptolemaic and 

 the Copernican systems. As Tycho conceived it, the 

 sun revolves about the earth, carrying with it the 

 planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, 

 which planets have the sun and not the earth as the 

 centre of their orbits. This cosmical scheme, it should 

 be added, may be made to explain the observed motions 

 of the heavenly bodies, but it involves a much more 

 complex mechanism than is postulated by the Coper- 

 nican theory. 



Various explanations have been offered of the con- 

 servatism which held the great Danish astronomer 



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