Tycho Brahe and the Invention of Data
By Jeff Lundy
There are many books about the early history of science. There are even several histories of statistics. Yet, I’ve not seen a social history exclusively devoted to data; even though, without data, statistics could not even exist. In this blog post, I’m going to argue that there was a time when data, as we know it in the contemporary sense, was “invented.” I’m also going to speak about how I think that the 16th century astronomer Tycho Brahe can be considered the inventor of both data and the database.
What is data and how can I possibly say it was “invented”?
To most people data simply exists – like rocks buried in the ground. Human beings didn’t invent data, or even discover it; rather it is always there, ready to be uncovered.
The word itself lends strongly to this impression – datum (the rarely used singular of data) literally comes from the Latin word for “gift.” A datum is a gift to us, or to put it in more modern terms: a “given.” To many, data points are givens, knowns, or facts. It is a synonym of basic and self-evident information. Please note that, when I’m talking about our modern understanding of data, I do not mean the term as a synonym for the very broad term “information” (as it is occasionally used). I mean specifically recorded information.
But, you might protest, information has been recorded for a much longer time than the 16th century, when Tycho Brahe came on the scene. In a sense, animals store information in their minds in the form of memories, and so it could be said that recording information goes back to the early history of life. Let me make another limitation and say that I think the modern use of “data” refers to information that is stored in an external and inanimate format.
But, you might further ask, don’t the cave paintings created by our early ancestors transmit information to us in an external (and very durable) format? What we typically mean when we say “data,” is something more systematic and “shallow” than cave paintings. A single cave painting can convey deep information – about man’s place in the world, about the stars and the seasons, about society and religion.
When we reference data today, we are speaking about very shallow, very specific, and very unambiguous observations. Consider a buoy out at sea. One data point from the buoy will tell you the sea temperature, elevation, and direction of the ocean current at a very specific GPS location at 2:05:05 PM on June 22nd, 2015. In fact, the information is so shallow, that we need to take these data points and combine them with many others to get a bigger picture. This is precisely why the word data is almost always encountered in the plural. It could be said that a datum is only valuable when it is combined into data (it’s about as valuable as a single pant that’s not joined into pants).
The buoy example also points out another feature of data, as we typically mean it: it is systematically and mechanically gathered. This difference helps explain why written accounts from ancient times are not “data” in the sense we mean today. Written accounts can systematically convey information that is shallow and specific. However, written accounts of events rarely are as shallow as data, and importantly, they aim to convey holistic meaning.1
Thus, we’ve put some nice scope limitations to our contemporary meaning – data is shallow, mechanically-gathered, systematic information that is recorded in an inanimate device.
“Great!” you may say, “but, didn’t the ancients have this well before the 16th century?” Certainly, the kind of thing I’m describing shows up in fits and spurts throughout history. Ancient scientists around the world gathered many observations from experiments. In ancient Rome they had tabularia – storehouses of receipts from individual purchases that gave the Romans vision into the state of commerce within the city.
It is probably unproductive to split hairs too much and say these are, or are not, “data” in some sense. Rather, it is instructive to look at why they are not exactly like our typifying buoy.
First, many ancient experiments were designed precisely to exclude repetitions of measurement, rather than modern experiments that are based on repetitious measurements. If you are asking “do stones float?”, it may only take putting one stone in a tub of water to prove that not all stones float. The kinds of questions we answer with data today are usually different – for instance: how many stones will I likely find in a given square foot of earth? This is not a fundamental question about the constituent nature of all stones; it’s a question about the distribution of stones. Questions about distribution are pretty hard to answer without the mathematical formulation of statistics.
Similarly, the receipts collected in the tabularia are the effluvia, the byproduct, of commerce. They are useful when examined in aggregate; but no one went out to self-consciously gather them. Rather they are the result of another activity. This last bit gets us even closer to the modern meaning of data: data is self-consciously gathered – it does not result from another activity.
With these specifications in place then, it indeed becomes an open question: when did someone first start self-consciously collecting lots of shallow and very specific observations, in a systematic and mechanical fashion, with the clear thought that these shallow pieces of information, through their aggregation, would reveal something previously unknown?
The Enigma of Tycho Brahe
First and foremost, if you learn anything from this post, hopefully it is that Tycho’s name is not pronounced TIE-ko – it’s TEE-ko! His given name in Danish was Tyge (pronounced “tee-gah”), and if he wanted his Latinized name to be pronounced “TIE-ko” he knew Latin well enough to spell it “Taecho” and not “Tycho.”
Second, Tycho Brahe represents an enigma. Tycho lived well before the 17th and 18th centuries, when people like Newton and Leibniz began formalizing natural philosophy with experimentation. He lived ages before the 19th century, when people like Sir Francis Galton formalized statistics. And yet, back in the 16th century, he spent countless nights during frigid Danish winters observing the positions of stars to a level of rigor that was far above any of his contemporaries.
This seemed very strange to me. I could not imagine why he assembled such detailed records on the positions of stars – it appears as though he was creating a dataset. Why was he inspired to gather information in this way, so early in the history of “modern” science? Why did he think this unusual method of collecting information would ever convince people to adopt a new understanding?
When I learned more about Tycho only more questions emerged.2 Why was he the first recorded person to take multiple observations at the same time and average them together (the first use of the average to combat measurement error)? Why, when most astronomers of his time measured the distance between heavenly objects by holding up a piece of string between their hands, did Tycho spend his life innovating metal tools with previously unheard-of precision? I was surprised to learn, for instance, that Tycho Brahe invented the sextant.
Consider another enigma – it’s possible that Tycho not only created the first data set, but also the first data model. One of his early inventions was a remarkable great globe. This was a technical achievement, because of the extreme lengths he took to make the globe perfectly spherical. But even stranger is how he populated the globe: he inscribed on it the position of over 1,000 stars from his highly precise observations.
This globe may not have had the sophistication of our modern abstract models that are recorded in tables, and which can be manipulated in truly diverse ways. Yet, I believe this might be the first case of statistically combining simple and abstract measurements into a precise visualization (or in this case, you might call it an “actualization,” given that it’s a real object).
How to explain these enigmas?
Tycho was an unusual man
In terms of personality, Tycho Brahe had an unusual conviction to stick to his guns. He was a fastidious man, and unlike most people of his time (and all times), he simply couldn’t let inconsistencies go. He always needed to get it right.
Also, he was very mechanically oriented and inclined. That certainly led him to love precision. He was bugged his whole life that the existing ephemerides (diaries of the positions of stars) were so poor at predicting astronomical events. So, one big driver for his data collection was the simple desire to do an incremental task – make the records better – not some grand vision for revising the field of intellectual endeavor.
Another clue to why Brahe might be the first data scientist is that he strongly believed that the surface of observations was misleading. Tycho was strongly skeptical that anything you saw on the surface of reality was likely to be the right way to understand that phenomenon.3 In fact, for his custom-built observatory, Uraniborg, Brahe adopted the Latin motto Non Haberi Sed Esse (“not as it appears, but as it is”) to proclaim the falseness of base appearances.
It’s hard to say exactly where Tycho gained his skepticism. The clearest explanation is probably his very bad relationship with Danish court life and its falseness. As a Danish nobleman, this led him to much personal pain, especially in his youth (and likely killed him … a story for another time).
These personal convictions and traits are clues to Brahe’s focus on data. Yet, alone, none of these explanations are enough to completely explain why Tycho concluded that systematic data collection would serve as a basis for proving things.
What explains why Tycho was the turning point in the creation of data?
We are accustomed to the “great person” view of history. However, as numerous sociologists have pointed out, biography is rarely the true key to history. Yes, every great person has been unusual. They possess unusual and exceptional characteristics that stun us. Yet, even more so, unusual people need to live in unusual times.
How many people equal to Lincoln, Gandhi, and Hitler have lived amongst us? How unusual are these unusual souls? One in a billion? If so, then 7 live on the planet right now. Or, maybe the genetic and social influences that lead someone to be exceptionally smart, passionate, and savvy could be just one in a million; meaning that 7,800 Lincolns and Hilters live with us right now.
What makes the difference between quiet vs. renowned greatness is the occasion to free millions of enslaved people, to liberate a subcontinent, or to rise as a dictator amongst world war. These occasions are less frequent than the circumstances that produce human beings with exceptional potential, and explain why so few “great people” exist in history.
So, our view of Tycho (who led a much smaller revolution than the examples I just gave) cannot stop at telling us why Tycho was an exceptional human being; it must tell us what was different about his times that allowed his unique perspective to thrive in the context that surrounded him.
Magic and Science
I believe one of the key elements to understanding why Tycho Brahe created the first database is because he was very much into magic. In particular, he was seriously into alchemy, and even more into astrology.
To those unacquainted with the history of science, this may seem weird. You might not expect that a scientific mind could coexist with the pseudo-science of alchemy and astrology. However, if you’ve ever spent time learning about the first “scientists,” you know that everyone from Newton to Paracelsus was an alchemist.
Many pages have already been written on the importance of magic to the early history of science. My goal will be to summarize what I believe is important in these writings, and to connect them to Tycho.
Magic creates the space to think differently from everyone else
Historically, there is a “local” way of explaining why things happen, and it can be dangerous to even question that viewpoint. To invent data (or science for that matter), Tycho and the early natural philosophers needed a mechanism to imagine the world beyond the “obvious” interpretation. So, above all else, magic was necessary for Tycho, because he needed a system of thought that could even suggest that things might be systematically different from common understandings and perceptions.
Furthermore, magic drives an interest in predicting the future. In the 15th century, prophesying future world events was called “prognostication” among magicians. It often took the form of creating astrological charts for the birth of important people. Even though these were hardly scientific or accurate, making predictions about the future is a necessary element of what will eventually become science. Furthermore, to make those predictions and judge their accuracy, you need a detailed record of your successes (i.e. data).
Critiques of magic turn its adherents into scientists
Our modern viewpoint often takes for granted that people of the past were ignorant and superstitious, whereas we are now rational and scientific through-and-through. This view underestimates the extent to which magic was criticized in its own time.
Consider the following take on astrology from the 16th century:
Astrology is no art; it has no principle, no demonstration, whereupon we may take sure footing; `tis all haphazard work. … They set forth, in their almanacs, that we shall have no snow in summer time, nor thunder in winter; and this the country clowns know as well as the astrologers. … An astrologer, or horoscope monger, is like one that sells dice, and bawls: Behold, here I have dice that always come up twelve. If once or twice their conjectures tell, they cannot sufficiently extol the art; but as to the infinite cases where they fail, they are altogether silent. Astronomy, on the contrary, I like; it pleases me by reason of her manifold benefits.
This sounds like a very modern critique of astrology. Yet, when you look at the names of the critics and supporters of magic from the period, it seems all mixed up. The above quote is from the religious leader Martin Luther, who sounds every bit like a modern skeptic. Yet famed scientist Isaac Newton sounds like a crazed fanatic when, in 1704, he tried to predict the end of the world from biblical references. I believe that the tension between magic and its critics was part and parcel of how science came to exist as we know it.
Some of the strongest critics of magic in the renaissance were a group that modern scholars lump together as “humanists.” The humanists were focused on the methodical (even slavish) allegiance to past writings. Because they believed that it was vital to preserve the wisdom of the past, this group was very keen to study the history of accepted writings.
This strong impulse to “check the sources” meant that they were quick to note when magical writings did not seem to have the provenance they claimed. In particular, the writings of a supposed ancient Egyptian alchemist, Hermes Trismegistus, was a particular favorite of renaissance alchemists – which led to quite the scandal in the 17th century when it was exposed that the writings were half as old as they claimed to be, and thus were fakes (by the humanist Isaac Casaubon).
In contrast to humanist critics, supporters of magic focused on direct empiricism, and thought that there was a hidden order that belied the surface of reality, and which could only be uncovered by systematic study.
It’s not surprising that the juncture of these two systems (empiricism and strong checking of sources) sounds a lot like the tenets of modern science. I believe, in responding to their humanist critics, the early magicians more and more were forced to make arguments that relied upon careful documentation of their methods and observations, to prove the track record of their successes. In so doing, they became scientists.
Turning back to Tycho, he desperately wanted to prove that astrology was correct. When the common approaches of his time seemed paper-thin, he embarked to correct the very basis for proving astrology’s veracity, by inventing a wholly new way of proving things: collecting data.
In the end, his commitment to consistency drove him away from his beloved astrology when he simply couldn’t find a way to make it consistent with observations. Like most ideologues, he hid behind the need for “more study,” and hoped one day that the mechanisms of astrology would be found. However, to his credit, he could not fully sustain his belief in something that had no evidence behind it; and it’s likely the attempt to prove astrology’s truth drove him toward the collection of the first database.
The fall of the Roman empire, and the rebuilding within the power vacuum
When most people think of the renaissance, the first explanation for its “explosion” in learning was the rediscovery of Greek and Roman thought. It’s the 5th-grade social studies answer to why modern life began in “Europe” – and annoyingly, it’s right in a lot of ways.
The knowledge gained by the Greeks and Romans was preserved and advanced by Muslim scholars, and it can’t be denied that many advancements starting in the 13th century derived from re-learning what the Roman empire knew from these Muslim teachers. However, an added wrinkle is that it wasn’t simply the techniques of logic, math, etc. that Christendom learned; it was the belief that there were systematic schools of thought that are different from their native beliefs (akin to how magic helped). Put another way: there was now new trains of thought (which carried the legitimacy of Rome), and suddenly, it was much more possible to be of “two minds” on any subject.
Another wrinkle is that the rebuilding is much shorter than most people imagine. Far from 1,000 years of darkness, it was merely 300 years after Rome when Charlemagne starts the reconsolidation of the European landmass. In fact, it is often forgotten that the Roman Catholic church never fell, and a network of scholars speaking the common language of Latin never ended.
When you really break it down, the people of the middle ages were not slovenly or slow to learn. Much of the “Renaissance break” ideology is the result of the leaders of the 17th century renaissance promulgating this idea. Along the same lines, astronomy didn’t start with Galileo—in the 15th and 16th centuries people were starting to do serious astronomy without a telescope.4
Thus, Tycho is just one incremental step in a long line of learning and experimentation that culminates in the 15th-16th centuries. That he was working just at the start of a scientific and social revolution is partly an accident of history.
The printing press
Again, it’s a 5th-grade answer that is annoying correct. Twenty years after the creation of the printing press, more than 1,000 presses existed in Europe and the number of published books grew to 8 million. But the impact of the printing press is not just its obvious capacity to spread ideas. I believe it influenced thinkers in more comprehensive ways.
The printing press showed that a machine could be used to standardize outputs. It also showed that a mechanism could exist which produced diverse outcomes, but which operated on simple reconfigurations. Both of these facts must have gotten into the minds of thinkers around this time to devise other ways of creating replicable machines, and to look for mechanisms hidden within nature’s diversity of appearances.
We also cannot forget that, in addition to spreading information and ideas, the printing press created the ability to be a celebrity on a mass scale. The press gave Tycho the ability to widely share his ideas; but it also gave him the incentive to appear correct in front of a wide audience. As the stage of celebrity grew, so did the need to make sure you correctly made predictions.
Urbanization
Ultimately, this seems to be the “mega-trend” of greatest importance. Everything hinges on the density of human existence. It permits the surplus resources to do science, it creates communities to receive scientific ideas, and it creates the government structures that support science.
Imagine a bootstrap vision of history where you re-run human existence thousands of times, making slight random variations in the starting conditions. In our bootstrap scenarios, modern science might happen 200 years earlier or later; or it may happen in a variety of places with different frequencies (like China 20% of the time, India 20% of the time, North America 10% of the time). It may not always blossom in Europe twenty-one centuries after humans cease to be nomadic – yet, I believe it will always co-occur with human beings reaching the level of density that permits the resources and proximity to spread ideas and technologies.
Like many people on the cutting edge of history, Tycho was part of a new class of people who are so new, no one even knows they are part of a new class yet. In his time, Brahe appeared to be a strong aberration from the military careers of his noble ancestors. However, in short order, his newly minted career path of “Court Astrologer” became an accepted path for noble children.
That he represents the first of this new line is a sign not just of the change in data and science to come, but also portends the great shifts towards urban over rural, merchant over aristocrat, democracy over hegemony, etc. that we typically characterize as the shift to the “modern” world. All of this is to say that one of the reasons Tycho might be the first data scientist is simply that he lived in one of the first times when human density reached a tipping point.
A giant caveat
I really can’t speak for the volumes of Arab and Asian scientific history, because these are so excluded from English language histories. I really can’t be sure that someone with better knowledge of these won’t come forward with a Tycho-like person centuries before him. I truly apologize if I neglected this scientist (or scientists). However, within the canonized “Western” scientific history, I can say more strongly I think he is the first data scientist.
Footnotes:
- Poetry could be considered the exact opposite of data.
- See the excellent academic biography: V. Thoren, The Lord of Uraniborg: A Biography of Tycho Brahe, Cambridge 1990.
- It’s interesting to me that one of the key foundations of modern science is not a formal principle, but rather, an opinion or attitude. A cornerstone of modern science is a belief: a person should never take for granted what is convenient, obvious, or commonly held to be true. Hence, one of the core tenets of science is an attitude about how to exist as a person. There is nothing in the scientific method that declares you must be hard-nosed and skeptical; yet, that is certainly what is held by modern scientists to be essential to their field.
- In fact, the telescope might have hindered Tycho’s data collection. Had he been able to observe astronomical objects with his eyes, would he have tried the approach of collecting lots of data?
I really enjoyed reading your article. Kudos to you for having put in the effort for this piece. My only suggestion is that it would be greatly enhanced if you could enumerate your sources. Cheers from down under