Tycho Brahe ( 1546 - 1601 ) might quite peradventure bind the preeminence of history ’s most freaky astronomer . His scientific accomplishment include thediscovery of the supernovain 1572 and a serial publication of essay on the movement of comets , not to mention aheated feud with Galileo .
A fantastically wealthy Isle of Man of noble birthing , Brahe once possess roughly one percent of all the money in Denmark , and often elected to use his personal treasury to fund some rather unusual projects . For case , after losing his nose in a duel while intoxicated in 1566 , Brahepurchased a replacementmade of a gold - silver alloy rather than more established wax ( he always made certain to carry a little ampoule of paste around with him to reattach the opening should it bulge out off ) . He also lease a nanus named Jepp , whom he believed to be clairvoyant , as his court motley fool … and inquire him to corrode under the table during each repast ( the inauspicious niggling individual was recently used as the supporter in awell - receive vernal grownup novel ) .
But perhaps the oddest aspect of Brahe ’s individual spirit was his taste in pets . In 1591 , Brahe ’s frequent pressman Lantgrave Wilhelm asked about a cryptical animal he ’d recently heard of anticipate a " rix . ” According to word of mouth , the fauna was debauched than a deer , but wield curt horns ( or antlers ) .
In Brahe ’s response , he asked if Wilhelm had ever look a alive moose , for the astronomer just so befall to have once owned a tamed one .
The hoofed critter would trot alongside Brahe ’s equipage like a firm wiener and survive inside his castle . But , unfortunately , it also appears to have uprise a too bad taste for Danish beer . of course , Brahe could n’t baulk shew off such a off-the-wall young animate being to his various associates and , before long enough , a nearby nobleman had asked him to send the Alces alces to his castle to entertain the guests at a party .
As the dinner party wore on , the creature get progressively tipsy until it finally injure up roaring drunk . consort to Brahe ’s biographer Pierre Gassendi , in short thereafter , “ the moose had ascended the castle stair and intoxicated of the beer in such amount that it had fallen down [ them ] ” to its eventual dying .
