Tycho Brahe, the great Danish astronomer (Fig. 75), was a native of Knudtstrup near Helsingborg, born in the year 1546.[354] The care of his early education was assumed by an uncle, George Brahe, who in the year 1559 sent him to the Academy of Copenhagen with the intention of fitting him for the legal profession. Three years later we find him registered at the University of Leipzig, then famous for its department of jurisprudence. Like many another of the world’s great men for whom, in the days of his youth, interested relatives or friends have chosen a life career only to find in later life the choice not well made, Tycho’s bent was not for the legal profession but for science, that is, for mathematics and astronomy. While yet a student in Copenhagen an eclipse of the sun which occurred August 21, 1560, interested him greatly, and here we seem to find the beginning of that great future which was to be his. Forbidden by his schoolmaster to give his time to a study of the stars, in the quiet of the night he would secretly betake himself into the open, there to watch with unaided eye the movements of the heavenly bodies, or to follow these movements as best he could with the assistance of a simple astronomical circle and a small celestial globe which he had been able to purchase. It probably was in his Leipzig days that he became intimate with Bartholomaus Scultetus (Schultz), lecturer on mathematical subjects, and by him was encouraged to pursue further his astronomical studies. Among the first practical results of his activities in this field we have his correction table for readings with the Jacob staff. The death of his uncle in the year 1565 occasioned his return to his native country, but Germany offering him special opportunities for continued study in his favorite field, we soon find him in Wittenberg, later in Rostock, where in a quarrel with a peasant he lost part of his nose and thereafter to the end of his days wore a silver substitute. In 1567 we find him in Lauingen engaged in the study of astronomy with the distinguished Cyprian Leowitz, in 1568 in Basel with Peter Ramus, and for two years thereafter in Augsburg with the brothers Johan and Paul Hainzel, with whom he constructed a large quadrant having a radius of seventeen and one half feet. While in Augsburg it appears that he began the construction of a celestial globe four feet in diameter, but there is some uncertainty as to his completion of this work. A short but unhappy sojourn in his native town followed his years of congenial study in Germany, and we soon learn of his visit to the observatory of Landgraf Wilhelm of Cassel, an event of great significance for him. His travels carried him to other cities of Germany, including the city of Regensburg, where he witnessed the coronation of the Emperor Rudolf II. Landgraf Wilhelm, a Maecenas of wide repute in his day, had been greatly impressed with the abilities of