- published: 03 Oct 2013
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Keith Gerald "Jerry" Holkins né Parkinson (born February 6, 1976) is the primary writer of the webcomic Penny Arcade along with its artist Mike Krahulik. He is also a co-founder of Child's Play, a multimillion dollar charity which organizes toy drives for children's hospitals. Holkins sometimes uses the pseudonym "Tycho Brahe," the name of a Penny Arcade character based on Holkins. They are similar in their interests and personalities. However, the character Tycho does not resemble Holkins in appearance (for example, Tycho has mussed hair and sideburns, while Holkins is mostly bald - which has led to the generation of its own Internet meme). Holkins, along with Krahulik, posts written updates accompanying each comic. These posts are often computer and video game commentary, but also include personal reflections or rants. It has been mutually agreed between Krahulik and Holkins that Penny Arcade would not be the same with just one of them. The two have been said to give an indication of the diversity of styles among gamers, with Krahulik representing action-oriented gamers and Holkins representing the more cerebral players.
Tycho Brahe (14 December 1546 – 24 October 1601), born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations. Coming from Scania, then part of Denmark, now part of modern-day Sweden, Tycho was well known in his lifetime as an astronomer and alchemist.
In his De nova stella (On the new star) of 1573, he refuted the Aristotelian belief in an unchanging celestial realm. His precise measurements indicated that "new stars" (novae or also now known as supernovae), in particular that of 1572, lacked the parallax expected in sub-lunar phenomena, and were therefore not "atmospheric" tail-less comets as previously believed, but occurred above the atmosphere and moon. Using similar measurements he showed that comets were also not atmospheric phenomena, as previously thought, and must pass through the supposed "immutable" celestial spheres.
Tycho Brahe was granted an estate on the island of Hven and the funding to build the Uraniborg, an early research institute, where he built large astronomical instruments and took many careful measurements, and later Stjerneborg, underground, when he discovered that his instruments in the former were not sufficiently steady. Something of an autocrat on the island he nevertheless founded manufactories such as paper-making to provide material for printing his results. After disagreements with the new Danish king in 1597, he was invited by the Bohemian king and Holy Roman emperor Rudolph II to Prague, where he became the official imperial astronomer. He built the new observatory at Benátky nad Jizerou. Here, from 1600 until his death in 1601, he was assisted by Johannes Kepler. Kepler later used Tycho's astronomical results to develop his own theories of astronomy.