There was a time when astronomers suspected that there might be another planet hidden near to the sun. What would cause a mathematician to think they missed something so close to us? Solid math.
In 1850, French Astronomer Jean Joseph Le Verrier applied Newtonian Dynamics to the orbits of our planets. He noticed a discrepancy with the planet Mercury and had been convinced there was a planet affecting the orbit. So the search began for what was named planet Vulcan (after the Roman God of Fire). The search never succeeded. But Why? After all, this is the same man who predicted Neptune based on the Discrepancies in Uranus’s orbit – even before anyone had ever seen Neptune. And he became right when he sent his predictions to Johann Gottfried Gotte at the Berlin Observatory, who found the planet on his first night searching in 1846. So as the blind discoverer of a planet, Jean Joseph had to be on to something. Planet Vulcan was puzzling scientists as an invisible planet.
It was Albert Einstein who would finally solve the case in November 1915 with his Theory of Relativity. Jean Joseph had not done his calculations wrong, he just couldn’t account for everything. He needed Albert’s Theory and unfortunatly spent a great deal of time unknowingly trying to solve a problem which demanded it.
Sources:
Josh Wilson At NC university
National Geographic (recently on digg)
