Day 4, Book 4: The Hunt for Vulcan

For fun, I’m reading a book a day, for a week.

Today’s Book:

My 30 Second Takeaway:

When the current explanation of things don’t match facts or observations, one must be very careful. Don’t even trust experts.

Most people believed for a while that there was a planet between Mercury and the Sun: Vulcan. It wasn’t until Einstein explained the universe in a new way that this planet! that “must” have existed and that some claimed “seeing” was debunked.

The Notes (as I listened):

Scientists knew about Mercury’s misbehavior — it sometimes didn’t follow physics calculations. So scientists thought there must a planet besides it, Vulcan. They even “observed it”.

Einstein explained why Vulcan does not exist.

Newton’s equations described a whole lot about the cosmos, but there were some facts that didn’t match.

Laplace realized and showed that deity need not play a role for describing the universe. He didn’t publicly denied God’s existence, he just ignored it because it wasn’t necessary to describe how the universe works.

Uranus was the farthest known planet. Because it was going too slow, astronomers inferred there must be another planet close to it. The scientist was right, and the telescope astronomers found the planet.

Newton is regarded as the greatest / most influential physicist.

Scientist who discovered Neptune wasn’t the greatest mathematician and also want the most knowledgeable astronomer. He just combined the two in a seemingly not important problem (why some orbits weren’t following the path as some equations).

Name of scientist: LeVerrier.

LeVerrier’s apprentice argued there’s a planet close to mercury, Vulcan. After examination, Lavalier agreed, and because of his status and expertise, the world trusted him.

It was 1847. This was before! Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Everyone with a telescope was looking for Vulcan. Some even “saw” it.

But all the sights were debunked.

universe inflation phenomenon was discovered by trying to find Vulcan.

Theories are just hypotheses. Experiments are supreme. Observation is the judge.

People just couldn’t find Vulcan. But they didn’t question Newton’s equations for some reason.

Einstein saw a guy on a roof, and imagined what would happen if he fell. This gave him the insight that the man would not feel his weight. This was the essential connection for special relativity.

Gravity bends time.

Einstein’s general relativity explained Mercury’s behavior finally. No more Vulcan.

Vulcan is a cautionary tale that it’s too easy to see what one wants.

Hope you learned something cool or useful!

We are what we repeatedly do. I’m also doing this while improving across 15 areas each week.

This is one of my Re Human project experiments.

Read my notes on the next book. Read my notes on the previous book.