Agilish

A friend recently shared a fascinating article about a mistake made by some of the greatest scientific minds of the 19th century. For decades, the best mathematicians and astronomers in the world were convinced there was an undiscovered planet — named Vulcan — orbiting between Mercury and the Sun, hidden from view. The math seemed to demand it. The calculations were elegant. The theory was accepted as fact. There was no planet. A Star-Crossed 'Scientific Fact': The Story of Vulcan, Planet That Never Was Two lines from the article stuck with me. The first: "It's easy to forget that there are people behind the data and equations. And when people are involved, there is always room for human error." The second hit even harder: "In science, you don't dwell on the blind alleys... but the blind alleys are most of what science actually does. You have to go down the blind alley, you bang your head against that blank wall at the end of it, come b...