astronomer murdered?

[rowan46]

And i thought we were such a nice lot. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/science/30tierney.html?_r=1&ref=science

[acey]

Tycho's death was discussed on Radio 4 recently: Alan Chapman didn't reckon much to the murder theory. Mercury was common in medicines and too slow as a murder weapon: arsenic would have been the poison of choice.

BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - Material World, 18/11/2010

[rowan46]

still fascinating though, I never knew that some of the greats had such a murky past.

[acey]

True, most of the great astronomers seemed to have lived peacefully to a fine old age. Someone who didn't was Hypatia - the first woman astronomer.

"The Christian monks stripped her naked and dragged her through the streets to the newly Christianised Caesareum church, where she was brutally killed. Some reports suggest she was flayed with ostraca (pot shards) and set ablaze while still alive..."

Hypatia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia