Thomas Levenson
Teoksen Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist tekijä
Tietoja tekijästä
Thomas Levenson is an award-winning television producer and the author of one previous book, Ice Time. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Tekijän teokset
Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist (2009) 617 kappaletta
The Hunt for Vulcan: . . . And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the… (2015) 267 kappaletta
Money for Nothing: The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and… (2020) 95 kappaletta
NOVA: Origins: fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution [2004 TV series] (2004) — Ohjaaja — 12 kappaletta
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- Boston, Massachusetts, USA
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film producer - Organisaatiot
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
WGBH Television - Palkinnot ja kunnianosoitukset
- Peabody Award
Emmy - Agentti
- Theresa Park
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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.… (lisätietoja)