The scientistic revolution and reformation
The progress of science during 1500 century
The 1500 century has a very important part in the Europe history. Reformation began and science took a big step with many new and important inventions. This was the epoch of creativity.
The reformation
The biggest religion in Europe during the 1500 was the catholic Christianity. The reformation began when the German munch Martin Luther put up 95 thesis on the church gate in Wittenberg. The thesis was mostly about his critical thought against pardon - when the church sold a sort of apology for the sinners act. This was something Luther disliked, and the thesis was a way to demonstrate. The consequences of Luther's act torn the Christianity into two parts - the catholic and the Protestants, witch Luther took stand for.
The scientistic revolution
Another name for the scientistic revolution is the enlightenment. The reason is, that many inventions and scientistic theories change the peoples view and proved that many superstitions were incorrect. Scientists like Leonardo da Vinci, Nicolaus Cusanus and many others presented new theories and ideas, for example theory that denied earth to be the centre of the world, new discoveries about magnetism, and many other.
One invention that had a big influence on the astronomy world is the binocular. The binocular made it possible to study the stars and planets more precise. It's not certain, but the inventor of the binocular is probably Hans Lipper from Netherlands. For more than 400 years, the binocular has had a great influence on the world, and is still a very well-used instrument. Other inventions from the scientistic revolution are still affecting us today, and will probably continue to do that for many many years.
Frederick II of Denmark
Frederick II, son of King Christian III, was the king of Denmark and Norway in the 16th century. He lived from the 1st July 1534 to the 4th of April 1588. Frederick was married to Sophia of Mecklenburg-Gustrow and they had five children. Unlike his father he was strongly affected by military ideals and already as a young man he made friendship with German war princes. Shortly after his succession he won his first victory by the conquest of Dithmarschen in the summer of 1559. The dominating conflict of his rule was the Scandinavian 7 year's war1563-1570. During this war he managed to take over Sweden which was ruled by his insane cousin King Eric XIV. It was Frederick himself who lead is army on the battlefield. This developed and became a very expensive war and showed Frederick's and his Denmark and Norway's weakness. He almost lost it all but after the war, a peace pact saved him.
He was also a very important person for science as he was the person who gave Tycho Brahe the island Ven and supported him with money for his examinations. Without him Tycho Brahe would never have had the same opportunities to improve his work as much as he did on Ven. Frederick gave Tycho 5% of Denmark's gross national product. But then Frederick also expected him to make a huge progress and really use the money to improve his
About Tycho Brahe's observatory
After Tycho Brahe had been offered the Island Ven by the Danish king as a grant, Tycho decided he needed a proper place to live and a good place from where he could be able to continue his studies of the stars and our planet system, so received the gift with grand pleasure. The king supplied him with money and Tycho ordered the building of Uraniborg. The building is a combination of an observatory and fort/castle with a quadrangle earth wall surrounding it, the edges of the square ordered after the four weather directions. It was equipped with the very best of instruments used for observing stars and planets. Tycho Brahe himself had designed and crafted most of them because he didn't deem the other common equipment used back then accurate enough and thus wasn't worthy his effort. The main point of this fort-like observatory was to make sure his measurements wouldn't be defiled or tainted by civilians and local townsfolk in any way and he wished for a citadel where he could easily reside without having to leave his observations.
His instruments rapidly grew larger and more accurate, therefore it wouldn't take long until his old habitation wasn't large enough and he had to build a new appropriate spot from where he could continue his research. One major problem with his large instruments was the fact they almost worked as enormous sails and so the wind affected their position and rotation. This meant he could not make accurate measurements from one day to the next, due to the wind disquieting them. This gave him an idea, to avoid the wind reaching them; he would have to build them downwards, in some kind of wind-protective pit. He built Stellaburgi, a quite large semicircle-shaped building, rising from the underground, where his instruments would be very well protected from the wind and weather on the surface.
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