Vulcan: Trust me bro, it exists

Naming the planet closest to the sun after the roman god of fire seems appropriate. The problem: it doesn’t exist.

When confronted with data of planetary movements that do not fit your calculations you have two options: your theory is wrong or there is some big object influencing the planetary motion that you did not take into account.

Since the latter turned out to be the case once before - and led to the discovery of Neptune - you might want to go that route again. At least that was what Urbain Le Verrier did.

To hear more about the search for the mysterious planet of Vulcan and what Einstein has to do with all this, listen to this week's episode of Good in Theory.