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Chargement... The Hunt for Vulcan: . . . And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe (2015)par Thomas Levenson
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Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. Short book about the quest for the object that was causing aberrations in the orbit of Mercury. Along the way, we learn about the founding of Neptune, purely through mat. very impressed with how these people, all before computers, were able to do such intricate measurements. the science was not too tough (thanks to the author for dumbing it down). https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3388538.html A nice little study of two very different parts of astronomical history: first, the mid-nineteenth century quest for the planet Vulcan, and then the story of Einstein's conceptualisation of General Relativity and the practical test during the eclipse of 1919, which confirmed it. I had touched on this issue during my MPhil research on Sir Robert Ball, so it was a nice return to a previous topic. Levenson gets very much into the context of the two different situation, particularly vivid on Le Verrier in Paris in the 1830s and Einstein's early career. I felt he didn't quite bridge the two - I'd have liked a bit more on the noted astronomer James Craig Watson who actually claimed to have seen Vulcan during the solar eclipse of 1878, and the book ends up being very firmly two different stories with a common topic of interest but which are otherwise not that closely related. But both stories are interesting. Everyone has heard of Einstein; his name is synonymous with genius and his Theory of Relativity not only gave us a completely new branch of physics, it also solved the mystery of the missing planet ‘Vulcan’ that scientists and astronomers had been searching for. The story though begins much earlier. In 1687 Isaac Newton published Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica or Principia which described how particles attract using the force of gravity. This seminal book defined classical mechanics that allowed scientists to understand and even predict the movement of the planets around the sun. Noticing that there were anomalies in the orbit of Saturn, Urbain Le Verrier using the mathematics in the equations that Newton developed, managed to predict that there was a planet outside of Saturn. This discovery by Verrier and visual verification of the planet Neptune by Johann Gottfried Galle was a remarkable demonstration of celestial mechanics, and made their reputations in scientific discovery. One thing that had puzzled astronomers for years was that there was an anomaly in the orbit of Mercury. Aiming to reproduce his success in the discovery of Neptune, Verrier worked through the calculations and claimed that there was a planet closer to the sun. People all over the world scoured the heavens looking for this planet, even claiming to see it at times. But there was just one minor problem; it didn’t exist. It took another fifty 50 years for the former assistant at the Swiss patent office to understand the errors in Newton’s work, and formulate his new simple theories that revolutionised our understanding of physics. Levenson has drawn together all these fascinating characters into a story that is not only interesting to read, but reveals the way that we have come to understand our Solar System. Occasionally he drifts of into fairly complex science, but this is a great example of bringing alive a science story that most have forgotten, as you’d expect from the head of MIT’s Science Writing. Well worth reading, even for those who haven’t thought about physics since they left school. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
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HTML:The captivating, all-but-forgotten story of Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and the search for a planet that never existed For more than fifty years, the world’s top scientists searched for the “missing” planet Vulcan, whose existence was mandated by Isaac Newton’s theories of gravity. Countless hours were spent on the hunt for the elusive orb, and some of the era’s most skilled astronomers even claimed to have found it. There was just one problem: It was never there. In The Hunt for Vulcan, Thomas Levenson follows the visionary scientists who inhabit the story of the phantom planet, starting with Isaac Newton, who in 1687 provided an explanation for all matter in motion throughout the universe, leading to Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier, who almost two centuries later built on Newton’s theories and discovered Neptune, becoming the most famous scientist in the world. Le Verrier attempted to surpass that triumph by predicting the existence of yet another planet in our solar system, Vulcan. It took Albert Einstein to discern that the mystery of the missing planet was a problem not of measurements or math but of Newton’s theory of gravity itself. Einstein’s general theory of relativity proved that Vulcan did not and could not exist, and that the search for it had merely been a quirk of operating under the wrong set of assumptions about the universe. Levenson tells the previously untold tale of how the “discovery” of Vulcan in the nineteenth century set the stage for Einstein’s monumental breakthrough, the greatest individual intellectual achievement of the twentieth century. A dramatic human story of an epic quest, The Hunt for Vulcan offers insight into how science really advances (as opposed to the way we’re taught about it in school) and how the best work of the greatest scientists reveals an artist’s sensibility. Opening a new window onto our world, Levenson illuminates some of our most iconic ideas as he recounts one of the strangest episodes in the history of science. Praise for The Hunt for Vulcan “Delightful . . . a charming tale about an all-but-forgotten episode in science history.”—The Wall Street Journal “Engaging . . . At heart, this is a story about how science advances, one insight at a time. But the immediacy, almost romance, of Levenson’s writing makes it almost novelistic.”—The Washington Post “A well-structured, fast-paced example of exemplary science writing.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review). Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)523.4Natural sciences and mathematics Astronomy Astronomical objects and astrophysics Planets, asteroids and trans-Neptunian objectsClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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The discrepancy was first pointed out by the French astronomer Anton Le Verrier. Le Verrier was famous for his earlier prediction that an as-then unknown planet was slightly disturbing the orbit of Uranus. He calculated its position, and then was triumphantly vindicated by the discovery of the planet just where he had predicted it to be. It was later named Neptune.
The discrepancy in Mercury’s orbit was tiny indeed. But Newton’s laws of orbital motion were by then so well established, and the mathematics so clear, that the discrepancy needed explanation. Based on his triumphant discovery of Neptune, it is hardly surprising that Le Verrier proposed another as-yet unseen planet, this time closer to the Sun. The hunt was on! Every solar eclipse was an opportunity for observation, trying to see this world so close to the Sun’s bright disc.
Was the missing planet, dubbed Vulcan, ever discovered? Alas for Star Trek fans, Vulcan does not exist. The true explanation for the discrepancies in Mercury’s orbit was uncovered only with the aid of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity in 1914 and its revelation of curved space-time.
I love this kind of scientific history. Thomas Levenson makes a fascinating story out of it, and does a great job of explaining the scientific issues involved. ( )