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In Search of Planet Vulcan: The Ghost in Newton's Clockwork Universe, by Richard P Baum, William Sheehan
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Presented for the first time in popular form is the fascinating true story of the search for the phantom planet Vulcan. As with legends of "the lost continent of Atlantis," scientists and dreamers alike have sought to prove that Vulcan is more than just a myth. Historians of astronomy Richard Baum and William Sheehan have combed the continents, digging through dusty letters and journals, to unravel this mysterious and captivating tale. The planet first assumed a shadowy reality against a backdrop of war and revolution early in the nineteenth century. Le Verrier, the autocratic Director of the Paris Observatory, had unveiled a problem with the motion of the planet Mercury. The indications were of a planet closer to the sun than Mercury. Incredibly, the prediction was immediately fulfilled by an obscure French country doctor using no more than a homemade telescope. The planet, named for the Roman god of fire, was no sooner discovered than it was lost. Still it reappeared often enough to tantalize even skeptics into considering its shadowy existence possible. This fast-paced tale follows the exploits of Le Verrier, and later of his followers, in a pursuit of his unbridled obsessions: to extend the universality of Newton's Laws, to prove Vulcan's existence, and to secure his place in history as one of the greatest astronomers of his time. Stranger than fiction, the story reaches an exciting climax in the final showdown in the unlikeliest of places: America's Wild West. Like gunslingers at high noon, determined astronomers of the opposing camps brave Indians and the elements in their attempt to prove once and for all whether the planet exists. They congregate with some of the most illustrious names of their time for the final test: a grand eclipse of the sun.
- Sales Rank: #2391407 in Books
- Published on: 1997
- Released on: 1997-01-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x .74" w x 5.51" l, 1.07 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 310 pages
Amazon.com Review
Today every schoolchild learns that our solar system contains nine planets in orbit around the sun--plus a variety of other bodies such as asteroids--but as Richard Baum and William Sheehan describe in In Search of Planet Vulcan, the discovery of these facts was far from straightforward. In a book rich with historical anecdotes, Baum and Sheehan depict centuries of efforts to enumerate the inhabitants of our solar system. In some cases the successes are stunning proof of the veracity of Newtonian mechanics; in others, such as the quest for a hypothetical planet "Vulcan" orbiting well inside Mercury, the fallacies and failures are equally staggering.
From Booklist
Before it spawned Spock, the "planet" Vulcan was proposed to orbit inside Mercury to account for a chronic deviation in Mercury's predicted orbit. When amateur astronomer Edmond Lescarbault claimed to see the culprit, case closed, right? But try as they might, no one else could observe the fugitive; still, theoretically, its existence suited world-class mathematician Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier, so he offered proof. A curiosity in the history of astronomy, the case demonstrates how a scientific authority can get the whole world barking up the wrong tree. Baum and Sheehan readably recount how Le Verrier made his name by explaining perturbations in Uranus' orbit in terms of an unknown planet, duly discovered as Neptune in 1846. The authors give a merry rendition of astronomers tramping to solar eclipses to glimpse Vulcan, the repeated futility of which finished it off, but the problem of Mercury's orbit persisted. Einstein eventually solved it: a curvature of space-time, not a planet, explained Mercury's orbit. Enjoyable recreational reading for astro-buffs. Gilbert Taylor
From the Back Cover
Presented for the first time in popular form is the fascinating true story of the search for the phantom planet Vulcan. As with legends of "the lost continent of Atlantis", scientists and dreamers alike have sought to prove that Vulcan is more than just a myth. Historians of astronomy Richard Baum and William Sheehan have combed the continents, digging through dusty letters and journals, to unravel this mysterious and captivating tale. The planet first assumed a shadowy reality against a backdrop of war and revolution early in the nineteenth century. Le Verrier, the autocratic Director of the Paris Observatory, had unveiled a problem with the motion of the planet Mercury. The indications were of a planet closer to the sun than Mercury. Incredibly, the prediction was immediately fulfilled by an obscure French country doctor using no more than a homemade telescope. The planet, named for the Roman god of fire, was no sooner discovered than it was lost. Still it reappeared often enough to tantalize even skeptics into considering its shadowy existence possible. This fast-paced tale follows the exploits of Le Verrier, and later of his followers, in a pursuit of his unbridled obsessions: to extend the universality of Newton's Laws, to prove Vulcan's existence, and to secure his place in history as one of the greatest astronomers of his time. Stranger than fiction, the story reaches an exciting climax in the final showdown in the unlikeliest of places: America's Wild West. Like gunslingers at high noon, determined astronomers of the opposing camps brave Indians and the elements in their attempt to prove once and for all whether the planet exists. They congregate with some of the most illustrious names of their time for the final test: a grand eclipse of the sun.|Here is a beautiful blend of detective story, character profile, and history of science that will keep readers glued to the pages as they explore this fascinating and largely forgotten chapter of astronomy.
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting History of Planetary Astronomy
By George Poirier
In this very engaging book, the authors recount the history of the planetary astronomy of our solar system, focusing mainly on the search for planet Vulcan – a hypothetical planet that was thought to be located between Mercury and the Sun. The existence of such a planet was proposed in order to account for the anomalous advance of Mercury’s perihelion – an advance that was not entirely accounted for by the perturbative effects of the known planets.
Starting with ancient Greek ideas, the story progresses swiftly through the contributions of Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler and especially Newton to more detailed examination of the successes of Le Verrier and Adams in discovering Neptune from a strictly theoretical (Newtonian mechanics) point of view, subsequently confirmed by direct observation. The contemplations about the possible existence of Vulcan begin about half way through the book. Despite Einstein’s resolution of the problem through General Relativity, the authors illustrate how the Vulcan hypothesis was slow to die away.
Before reading this book, I was reasonably acquainted with the Vulcan story. However, I was not familiar with the level of detail provided in this book. I found the prose to be clear, lively and often quite captivating. Although I believe that his book could be enjoyed by anyone, I suspect that readers with an interest in planetary astronomy will appreciate it the most, especially if they are familiar with basic astronomical terminology.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Another home run by Sheehan...
By John Rummel
Another gem of a book by William Sheehan, joined in this venture by astronomer Richard Baum. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Newton's theory of universal gravitation had enjoyed some incredible triumphs, and stood as a monument to the mathematization of science. Three thorny problems remained however, to disrupt the harmony of Newton's universe: the motion of the moon, Mercury, and Uranus. Sheehan and Baum tell the amazing tale of mathematics and astronomy in their pursuit of the answers to these puzzles. This book is a must-read for any buff of astronomy history - Newton, Horrocks, Clairaut, Laplace, Lagrange, and so on. Considerable time is given to the discovery of Neptune, first on paper by Adams and Le Verrier, and by Galle at the telescope. Sheehan and Baum's retelling of his historic tale is even better documented than Grosser's book on the subject. Finally, the problem of the shift in Mercury's orbit. The pressure to find a Newtonian solution was immense, given the previous victories obtained using Newtonian mechanics. Le Verrier was susceptible to this pressure, owing at least in part to his previous success with Neptune. However, this problem resisted even Newton, and was not finally solved until Einstein's theory of gravity supplanted Newton's early in the 20th century. The interwoven stories of astronomers and their diligent search for the elusive planet Vulcan are entertaining and provide a unique perspective on 19th century astronomy.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
The concepts behind the discovery of the solar system
By A Customer
As an occasional naked eye astronomer I was able to follow Sheehan and Baum's work without difficulty. They provide an accessible history of the development of the concepts that lie behind the discovery of the solar system from Ptolemy to Einstein. They describe observations by astronomers but also pay attention to contributions from mathematicians without presenting the readers with a single equation. There are brief biographical asides on some of the main players (Sheehan's day job is as a psychiatrist) but the main thrust of the book is scientific.
Particular interest is shown in the (serendipitous) discovery of Uranus followed by the (predicted) discovery of Neptune. The discovery of Neptune based on the known perturbations of the orbit of Uranus. This success focussed attention on the erratic orbit of Mercury, which advances seemingly inexplicably. We now know that this apparent motion is caused by the bending of space/time by the Sun's gravity, but the authors leave this for last. At the top of the conceptual staircase we learn that when Einstein explained the advance in Mercury's orbit using Relativity he couldn't sleep for 3 days with the excitement.
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