A Genius Astronomer with a Brass Nose, a Clairvoyant Dwarf, a Drunk Moose, No Telescope and a Weak Bladder!

History has had a lot of weird scientists, but Tycho Brahe might possibly be one of the most extraordinary. This 16th-century Danish nobleman was one of the greatest astronomers to have ever lived. He mapped the stars before telescopes existed, and such was his passion that he lost his nose in a duel over mathematics.

In 1566, at age 20, Tycho was at university in Rostock. He got into an argument with his cousin Manderup Parsberg about who was the better mathematician. They decided to settle the debate like adults - with swords, in the middle of the night. The duellers were so drunk that neither struck a mortal blow, but the battle ended after Manderup managed a glancing blow that removed a huge hunk of Tycho's nose.

For the rest of his life, Tycho made a feature of his rhinectomy by wearing a prosthetic nose that he glued to his face. For years people thought it was made of gold and silver, but when he was exhumed in 2010 it turned out to be brass. So he walked around for decades with a cheap fake nose glued to his face.

That is not even his strangest foible. Tycho had a pet moose with a drinking problem. He loved having it in attendance when he hosted parties at his castle, Uraniborg. At one party in Landskrona, the moose drank far too much beer, got completely drunk, wandered up a staircase, fell down, and died. He literally drank his pet moose to death.

He also had a live-in clairvoyant dwarf named Jepp. Tycho believed Jepp could see into the future. Jepp sat under the table at dinner parties and chattered away with predictions that only Tycho could understand. Everyone else just had to pretend this was normal.

During all of this madness, Tycho was doing serious work. With no telescope, he built a giant mural quadrant and sextant and manually plotted the positions of 777 stars with an accuracy no one else could match for another century. His data is what Kepler later used to prove that planets orbit in ellipses.

He died in 1601 after his bladder burst at a banquet - because he thought it was rude to leave the table. A genius with a brass nose, an alcoholic moose, and a clairvoyant dwarf.