h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Tycho de Brahe - How the truth can be stranger than fiction - A708536
Author: Portable Chaos - U171738

This entry has been moved to the flea market.

I thought I might be interested, but it's physics innit (spit, cough, cough, retch).

I'm sure someone else can have a go

yeah, I'll take it!

Unlucky:

This is something that might be of interest to add to the entry - here in Sweden we call a day when everything goes wrong a 'Tycho Brahe' day.

As far as I've been able to find out, the background seems to be that Tycho Brahe "did, as was common at the time, calculate a list of days, which were specially unlucky, when it was best to do nothing important at all"
http://www.nada.kth.se/~fred/tycho/tychomalnak.html

Trivia:

When a shipping company decided to name one of their passenger ferries 'Tycho Brahe' everyone shook their heads, saying it would bring bad luck.

And sure enough - the ferry was involved in several minor accidents, and in February 1996 ran into the quay with such force that it had to be taken out of traffic to be repaired at a shipyard.

Thanks for that Titania, I'll add them in over the weekend.

Now in PR F48874?thread=4047541