The Hunt for Vulcan

Home > Other > The Hunt for Vulcan > Page 19
The Hunt for Vulcan Page 19

by Thomas Levenson


  Both Baum and Sheehan and I drew heavily on the work of the historian Robert Fontenrose, whose paper on the claims of Vulcan sightings is the comprehensive guide to the professional and popular accounts of the pursuit of the hypothetical planet in the second half of the nineteenth century. Finally, N. T. Roseveare’s Mercury’s Perihelion is a meticulous technical account of the different explanations proposed for Mercury’s orbit from the discovery of the excess perihelion advance to Einstein’s ultimate solution—and beyond, to proposed and (so far) unsuccessful attempts to construct alternatives to general relativity with which nature agrees.

  On Albert Einstein and the path to general relativity, I owe many debts—please see the acknowledgments for those who shared their time with me over many years’ obsession with this extraordinary figure. In preparing this account, three books were especially helpful. The first is what remains, after more than three decades, the best one-volume technically literate biography of Einstein, Abraham Pais’s Subtle Is the Lord. Subsequent research by scholars working through the Einstein papers has turned up a significant amount of new information on the precise development of Einstein’s thinking on a number of topics, but Pais’s work remains the essential starting point for any comprehensive consideration of his friend’s full range of scientific inquiry and achievement. Albrecht Fölsing’s Albert Einstein is an exemplary account of the life, and it offers a version of the scientific journey that is much more accessible than Pais’s. Similar in scope, Walter Isaacson’s Einstein is both the most up to date and the most fun to read of the major popular biographies; if you’re not looking for a mathematical introduction (go to Pais for that), this is where you start an Einstein journey.

  Finally, there are two more books that I relied on very heavily, both mine. The research that enabled me to write Newton and the Counterfeiter and Einstein in Berlin came into play here, and as noted earlier, passages in Chapter One, Part Three, and the Postscript first appeared in different forms in those works.

  Airy, George Biddell. “Account of Some Circumstances Historically Connected with the Discovery of the Planet Exterior to Uranus.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 7 (November 8, 1846).

  Anonymous (leader). “Miscellaneous Intelligence: A Supposed New Interior Planet.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 20, 3 (January 13, 1860): 98–100.

  Baedeker, Karl (firm). Paris and Environs with routes from London to Paris and from Paris to the Rhine and Switzerland: Handbook for travellers. 7th ed. Remodeled and augm. Leipsig: K. Baedeker, 1881.

  Baum, Richard L., and William Sheehan. In Search of Planet Vulcan. New York: Plenum Press, 1997.

  Bell, Trudy E. “Gould, Benjamin Apthorp.” Entry in the Biographical Dictionary of Astronomers. New York: Springer, 2014, 833–36.

  Benson, Michael. Cosmigraphics. New York: Abrams, 2014.

  Bertrand, M. J. “Éloge historique de Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier.” Annales de l’Observatoire de Paris 15 (1880): 3–22, http://​www.​academie-​sciences.​fr/​activite/​archive/​dossiers/​eloges/​leverrier_​vol3255.​pdf: 81–114. Pagination in endnotes from the web edition.

  Bouvard, Eugène. “Nouvelle Table d’Uranus.” CRAS 21 (1845): 524–25.

  Brewster, David. “Romance of the New Planet.” North British Review, Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark 33 (August–November 1860): 1–21.

  British Association. Report of the Thirty First Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; Held at Manchester in September 1861. London: John Murray, 1862.

  Browne, Janet. Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (vol. II of a biography). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.

  Carrington, R. C. In the 10th number of Professor Wolf’s Mittheilungen über die Sonnenflecken, several cases are quoted of the observation of planetary bodies in transit over the sun, “some of which are evidently of another character, but the following deserving of attention.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 20, 3 (January 13, 1860): 100–101.

  ———. “On some previous Observations of supposed Planetary Bodies in Transit over the Sun.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 20, 5 (March 9, 1860): 192–94.

  Clarke, John Joseph. “Reminiscences of Wyoming in the Seventies and Eighties.” Annals of Wyoming 1 and 2 (1929): 225–36.

  Cohen, I. Bernard, and George E. Smith, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

  Cohen, I. Bernard, and Richard S. Westfall. Newton: Texts, Backgrounds and Commentaries. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995.

  Cook, Alan H. Edmond Halley: Charting the Heavens and the Seas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

  Corry, Leo, Jürgen Renn, and John Stachel. “Belated Decisions in the Hilbert-Einstein Priority Dispute.” Science 278 (November 14, 1997): 1270–73.

  Coumbary, Aristide. “Lettre de M. Aristide Coumbary.” CRAS T60 (1865): 1114–15.

  Denning, William. “The Supposed New Planet Vulcan.” The Astronomical Register VII (1869): 89.

  ———. “The Supposed Planet Vulcan.” The Astronomical Register VIII (1870): 77–78, 108–9.

  ———. “The Supposed Planet Vulcan.” The Astronomical Register IX (1871): 64.

  Dobbs, B.J.T. The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton’s Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

  Edison, Thomas. “Autobiographical Notes.” Accessed at the Carbon County Museum, Rawlins, Wyoming, on January 23, 2015.

  Einstein, Albert. The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, online at http://​einsteinpapers.​press.​princeton.​edu/.

  ———. Relativity: The Special and General Theory. New York: Dover, 15th edition, 1952 (the first edition was published in 1916).

  ———. Ideas and Opinions. New York: Crown Publishers, 1954.

  Eksteins, Modris. Rites of Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin/Mariner, 2000.

  Fawcett, Henry. “Transactions of the Sections.” Report of Thirty First Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. London: John Murray, 1862.

  Faye, Hervé. “Remarques de M. Fay à l’occasion de la lettre de M. Le Verrier.” CRAS, T49 (1859): 383–85.

  Feynman, Richard. The Characteristic of Physical Law. London: BBC, 1965.

  ———. The Meaning of It All. New York: Perseus Books, 1998.

  ———. Six Not-So-Easy Pieces. New York: Basic Books, 1997.

  ———. QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.

  Fölsing, Albrecht. Albert Einstein. New York: Viking Penguin, 1997.

  Fontenrose, Robert. “In Search of Vulcan.” The Journal for the History of Astronomy 4 (1973): 145–58.

  Fox, Robert. The Savant and the State: Science and Cultural Politics in Nineteenth-Century France. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.

  Frank, Philipp. Einstein: His Life and Times. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1947, rev. 1953.

  Galignani A. and W. Galignani’s New Paris Guide. Paris: A. and W. Galignani, 1852.

  Galison, Peter. Einstein’s Clocks and Poincaré’s Maps. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2003.

  Gilbert, Martin. The First World War. New York: Henry Holt, 1994.

  Gillispie, Charles Coulston, with the collaboration of Robert Fox and Ivor Grattan-Guinness. Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749–1827: A Life in Exact Science. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.

  Glatzer, Dieter, and Ruth Glatzer. Berliner Leben, 2 vols. Berlin: Rütten & Verlag, 1988.

  Goodstein, David L., and Judith R. Goodstein. Feynman’s Lost Lecture. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996.

  Gould, Benjamin. “Sur l’éclipse solaire du 7 août dernier.” CRAS 69 (1869): 813–14.

  Grosser, Morton. The Discovery of Neptune. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1962.

  Hacking, Ian. The Emergence of Probability: A Philosophical Study of the Early Ideas About Probability, Induction and S
tatistical Inference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

  Hahn, Roger. Pierre Simon Laplace, 1749–1827: A Determined Scientist. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2005.

  Highfield, Roger, and Paul Carter. The Private Lives of Albert Einstein. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1994.

  Holton, Gerald. “Einstein’s Third Paradise.” Daedalus (Fall 2003): 26–34.

  ———. The Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988.

  Institut de France. Centennaire de U. J. J. Le Verrier. Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1911.

  Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007.

  Janiak, Andrew. “Newton’s Philosophy.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.​stanford.​edu/​archives/​sum2014/​entries/​newton-​philosophy/.

  Janssen, Michel. “The Einstein-Besso Manuscript: Looking Over Einstein’s Shoulder,” http://zope.​mpiwg-​berlin.​mpg.de/living_​einstein/​teaching/​1905_S03/​pdf-​files/​EBms.​pdf.

  ———. “The twins and the bucket: How Einstein made gravity rather than motion relative in general relativity.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 43 (2012): 159–75.

  Kronk, Gary. “From Superstition to Science.” Astronomy 41, 11 (November 2013): 30–35.

  Kühn, Sebastian, and Bill Rebiger. “Hidden Secrets or the Mysteries of Daily Life. Hebrew Entries in the Journal Books of the Early Modern Astronomer Gottfried Kirch.” European Journal of Jewish Studies 6, 1 (2012): 149–50.

  Laplace, Pierre-Simon. Essai philosophique sur les probabilités. Translated by Frederick Wilson Truscott and Frederick Lincoln Emory. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1940.

  ———. Mechanism of the Heavens. Translated by Mary Somerville. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1831 and 2009.

  Ledger, E. “Observations or supposed observations of the transits of intra-Mercurial planets or other bodies across the sun’s disk.” The Observatory 3, 29 (1879): 135–38.

  Lequeux, James. Le Verrier—Magnificent and Detestable Astronomer. New York: Springer, 2013.

  Levenson, Thomas. Einstein in Berlin. New York: Bantam, 2003.

  ———. Newton and the Counterfeiter. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009.

  Leverington, David. Babylon to Voyager and Beyond: A History of Planetary Discovery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

  Le Verrier, Urbain-Jean-Joseph. “Examen des observations qu’on a présentées à diverses époques comme appartenant aux passage d’une planète intra-mercurielle (suite). Discussion et conclusions.” Comptes Rendus 83 (1876): 621–23.

  ———. “Consdérations sur l’ensemble du système des petites planètes situées entre Mars et Jupiter.” CRAS T37 (1853): 793–98.

  ———. “Détermination nouvellé dé l’orbite de Mercure et de ses perturbations.” CRAS 16 (1843): 1054–65.

  ———. “Les planètes intra-mercurielles (suite).” CRAS 83 (1876): 647–50.

  ———. “Lettre de M. Le Verrier á M. Faye sur la théorie de Mercure et sur le movement du périhélie de cette planète.” CRAS 49 (1859): 379–83.

  ———. “Lettre de M. Le Verrier adressée à M. le Maréchal Vaillant” and “Lettre de M. Aristide Combary.” CRAS 60 (1865): 1113–15.

  ———. “Nouvelles recherches sur les mouvements des planètes.” CRAS 29 (1849): 1–5.

  ———. “Première Mémoire sur la théorie d’Uranus.” CRAS 21 (1845): 1050–55.

  ———. “Recherches sur les mouvements d’Uranus.” CRAS 22 (1846): 907–18.

  ———. “Remarques” [on M. Lescarbault’s observation of a planet inside the orbit of Mercury]. CRAS 50 (1860): 45–46.

  ———. “Sur la planète qui produit les anomalies observées dans le mouvement d’Uranus.—Détermination de sa masse, de son orbite et de sa position actuelle.” CRAS 23 (1846): 428–38.

  ———. “Sur les variations séculaires des orbites des planètes.” CRAS 9 (1839): 370–74.

  ———. “Sur l’influence des inclinaisons des orbites dans le perturbations des planètes. Détermination d’une grande inégalité du moyen mouvement de Pallas.” CRAS 13 (1841): 344–48.

  ———. “Théorie et Table du mouvement de Mercure.” Annales de l’Observatoire Impérial de Paris 5 (1859): Chapter XV, 1–196.

  Loomis, Elias. The Recent Progress of Astronomy; especially in the United States. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1850. (Google ebook: https://​play.​google.​com/​store/​books/​details?​id=​o0IDAA​AAQAAJ&​rdid=​book-​o0IDAAA​AQAAJ&​rdot=​1).

  McMullin, Ernan. “The Impact of Newton’s Principia on the Philosophy of Science.” Philosophy of Science 68, 3 (September 2001): 279–310.

  Meeus, J. “The maximum possible duration of a total solar eclipse.” Journal of the British Astronomical Association 113, 6 (December 2003): 343–48.

  Miller, Arthur. Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time and the Beauty That Causes Havoc. New York: Basic Books, 2002.

  New York Times. “Vulcan.” May 27, 1873, p. 4.

  New York Times. “Vulcan.” September 26, 1876, p. 4.

  Newton, Isaac. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Translated by I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

  The Newton Papers Project, online at http://​www.​newtonproject.​sussex.ac​.uk/​prism.​php?id=​1.

  Nichol, John Pringle. The Planet Neptune: An Exposition and History. Edinburgh: John Johnstone, 1848. (Google ebook: http://​books.​google.​com/​books?id=​BxUEAAAAQAAJ&​pg=PP1&​lpg=PP1&dq=​the+planet+​neptune+​pringle+​nichol&​source=​bl&​ots=​S3VK9uuICa&​sig=0R8tgZVN​b14X6-​PI5ibQ4​oaCGsQ&​hl=​en&​sa=​X&​ei=y6h0VLeeBqq_​sQS3zoKwAw&​ved=​0CE4Q6AEwBQ#v=​onepage&q=​the%​20planet%​20neptune%​20pringle%​20nichol&f=​false).

  Osserman, Robert. The Poetry of the Universe. New York: Anchor, 1995.

  Pais, Abraham. Subtle Is the Lord. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. (The one essential biography of Einstein, written by a wonderful man who is mentioned in the acknowledgments.)

  Peters, C.F.H. (Quoted in) [Unsigned] “The Intra-Mercurial Planet Question.” Nature. 20, 521(1879): 597–99.

  Poincaré, Henri. Science and Hypothesis. New York: Dover Publications, 1952.

  ———. Science and Method. New York: Dover Publications, 1952.

  ———. The Value of Science. New York: Dover Publications, 1958.

  Proctor, R. A. “New Planets Near the Sun.” London: Strahan and Company, The Contemporary Review XXXIV (March 1879): 660–77.

  Radau (misprinted Radan), J.C.R. “Future Observations of the supposed New Planet.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 20, 5 (March 9, 1860): 195–97.

  Roberts, Philip. “Edison, The Electric Light and the Eclipse.” Annals of Wyoming 53, 1 (1981): 54–62.

  Roseveare, N. T. Mercury’s Perihelion: From Le Verrier to Einstein. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.

  Royal Astronomical Society (unsigned). “A supposed new interior planet.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 20, 5 (1860): 98–100.

  ———. “Lescarbault’s Planet.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 20, 8 (1860): 344.

  Ruffner, J. A. “Isaac Newton’s Historia Cometarum and the Quest for Elliptical Orbits.” Journal for the History of Astronomy 41, 145, part 4 (November 2010): 425–51.

  Schaffer, Simon. “Newtonian Angels,” in Joad Raymond, ed. Conversations with Angels: Essays Towards a History of Spiritual Communication, 1100–1700. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

  Schilpp, Paul Arthur, ed. Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1949. Third Edition, 1982.

  Schlör, Joachim. Nights in the Big City: Paris, Berlin, London 1840–1930. London: Reaktion Books, 1998
.

  Seelig, Carl. Albert Einstein: A Documentary Biography. London: Staples Press, 1956.

  Stanley, Matthew. “An Expedition to Heal the Wounds of War: The 1919 Eclipse and Eddington as Quaker Adventurer.” Isis 94, 1 (March 2003): 57–89.

  Thorne, Kip. Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy. New York: Norton, 1995.

  United States Naval Observatory. Washington Observations, 1876 and 1880. Unsigned. “A Descriptive Account of the Planets.” The Astronomical Register, IV, 41 (1866): 129–32.

  Unsigned, “A supposed new interior planet.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 20, 5 (1860): 98–101.

  Unsigned. “The Intra-Mercurial Planet Question.” Nature 20, 521 (1879): 597–99.

  Unsigned. “Lescarbault’s Planet.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 20, 8 (June 8, 1860): 344.

  Unsigned. “The Planet Vulcan.” Littell’s Living Age 131, 1690 (1876): 318–20.

  Unsigned “The New Planet Vulcan.” Manufacturer and Builder.” 8, 11 (November 1876): 255

  Various, including Simon Newcomb, W. T. Sampson, and James C. Watson. “Reports on the total solar eclipses on July 29, 1878 and January 11, 1880.” Washington Observations 1876, Appendix III, Washington: United States Naval Observatory, 1880.

  Walker, Sears C. “Researches Relative to the Planet Neptune.” In Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Vol. II, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1851.

  Watson, James C. “Schreiben des Herrn Prof. Watson an den Herausgeber.” Astronmische Nachtrichten 95(1879): 101–6.

 

‹ Prev