34 (tie)
Tycho Brahe39 points - 3 lists - Highest Position: 1 (goflyblind) Short BiographyTycho was a Danish astronomer in the sixteenth century, and had one of the most exciting and bizarre lives ever. As a toddler, he was kidnapped by his uncle. He was raised by his uncle, mostly because his parents didn't care enough to retrieve him. At the age of twenty, he lost most of his nose in a duel. He had false noses made, reputedly of gold and silver, but likely containing copper as well. He earned the patronage of the king of Denmark when Tycho's uncle saved the king from drowning (although the uncle subsequently died of pneumonia). Tycho owned a pet moose, and kept a dwarf (whom he thought was a clairvoyant) at his home to entertain guests. Tycho had a lifelong interest in alchemy, which may have led to his death by mercury poisoning (though some think he may have been deliberately poisoned). This is a more recent supposition, based on samples of moustache hair from his exhumed corpse. The usual story of his death involves a dinner party where he felt it would be impolite to leave the table to pee, and as a result his bladder or kidney ruptured. He was paranoid that someone would steal his data, and so would not allow his assistants to see all of it. Turns out, that paranoia paid off, as after his death Johannes Kepler stole as much as he could carry, did some calculations, and became famous as a result.
Major DiscoveriesTycho's most significant contribution to science is the idea of repeated, regular, and recorded observations, particularly in astronomy. Before him, astronomical observations were done haphazardly. In particular, the astronomical tables that predicted positions of planets, stars, eclipses, and so on, were horribly inaccurate. To remedy this situation, he decided to undertake systematic observations of the night sky. His first chance to do so (in impressive fashion, no less), came when he was walking home, drunk, from the pub. He observed a new star in the sky. Over the ensuing weeks, he made detailed observations of the star, and found that it displayed no parallax (apparent motion against the backdrop of the stars) and determined that it must be further distant than the moon.

Later, on the island of Hven, he established what may have been the world's first research institution. It included two observatories with many new or improved precise astronomical instruments, which allowed him to make even more and better observations. These observations allowed him to reject the Copernican model. Due to Copernicus' poor observation habits, his model contained wildly inaccurate assumptions and needless complications. Tycho then proposed his own model, based on the Ptolemaic model that had been in use for nearly two thousand years by that point. In it, the Earth was at the centre of the Universe being orbited by the moon and the sun, while the other planets orbited the sun. It allowed him to keep circular motion, geocentrism, while disposing of crystalline spheres and explaining retrograde motion--the apparent backwards motion of the planets. Unfortunately, his adherence to geocentrism and his paranoia about his observations being stolen kept him from truly following the data and discovering what Kepler would find decades later.
Up Next (Tomorrow): We can call the next entry "the reduced scientist" if we divide him by two pi.