It's a fun read. There are some surprisingly lively parts, like the unattributed chestnut analogy from Grothendieck , which Tao seems to have taken to heart, or this bit on Kepler calculating Mars' sidereal period:

> Kepler likely did not say “Bingo!” because that word hadn’t been coined yet, but this was precisely what Kepler needed. Bingo!

The Brahe-Kepler brouhaha also provides good evidence that the (much-derided on HN) territoriality of modern academia is not at all a new thing or limited to unimportant minds.