The Hunt for Vulcan: . . . And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe

Top notch popular science

This is popular science at its finest. This is a very engrossing story bookended by two of the greatest triumphs of the human intellect, Newtonian mechanics and general relativity. The book deals with attempts to square the former with observations (the precession on Mercury's perihelion) that appeared to contradict it. This led to the hypothesizing of an intra-Mercurial planet, Vulcan, to explain them. Despite claims of discovery it became clear that Vulcan did not exist and it was left to Einstein and general relativity to explain the observed precession. Along the way we are treated to the very human stories of the principals in this saga. Newton, Halley, Laplace, le Verrier, Einstein, and others become real people with real flaws along with enormous talents. I made a number of notes to follow up on a number of points raised which were tangential to the thread of the book. A few things appear to have changed since I last read of the events covered in this book. Adams seems to no longer be considered the co-discoverer of Neptune. Also, I was under the impression that the alternative names for Uranus (Herschel or Georgium Sidus) were proposals only but apparently they had proponents and persisted for some decades. The book has an extensive bibliography if the reader wants to pursue any point further. The only issue I had with the book proper was the overindulgence in Einstein's antiwar sentiments. I got the impression that author Levenson was using Einstein to express his own antiwar sentiments. The Kindle edition was first rate. Especially gratifying was that all the illustrations were high resolution. I am glad that publishers are beginning to recognize that they are not limited in this regard. There are only two equations in the book (the famous mass energy equivalence and the general relativity field equation) but equations in general continue to be an issue on Kindles. They weren't graphics and they weren't text and they continue to be hard to read. Other t...