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In Search of Planet Vulcan - The Ghost in Newton's Clockwork Universe (Paperback, Softcover Reprint Of The Original 1st Ed. 1997)
Loot Price: R1,514
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In Search of Planet Vulcan - The Ghost in Newton's Clockwork Universe (Paperback, Softcover Reprint Of The Original 1st Ed. 1997)
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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.
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