The Hunt for Vulcan: . . . And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the UniverseThe Hunt for Vulcan: . . . And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe by Thomas Levenson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An interesting look at the search for the planet Vulcan, which does not exist. The book is pretty short and to the point, which I appreciated! (here is a short Wikipedia article that summarizes it)

In 1845, during a transit of Mercury (when Mercury passes directly between the Earth and the sun), astronomers measured that it was 16 seconds "late" relative to what Newton's gravitational equations predicted. One reason that could be is if there was another planet nearby we hadn't discovered which was pulling on Mercury. Indeed, a similar "problem" in calculating the orbit of Uranus led to the discovery of Neptune in 1846.

So everyone was convinced that there must be a planet Vulcan, and over time lots of people claimed to have seen it; in 1860 Urbain Le Verrier (who had predicted where Neptune was going to be) announced the discovery of Vulcan.

But over time more skeptical astronomers looked for Vulcan and couldn't find it. By 1882 or so the consensus turned towards Vulcan not existing. And in 1915, Einstein explained Mercury's "lateness" with the theory of relativity.

So I think the lessons to take away are that:
- theories are great but they really do have to be confirmed by observations
- it's easy, even for scientists, to find something you expect to find, even if it doesn't exist

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