View source for Vulcan (planet)

== Implications for modern-day astronomy ==
Dr. [[John Hartnett]] reviewed the Vulcan controversy in his latest book, ''Starlight, Time, and the New Physics''. He places the supposition about Vulcan (or an inner asteroid belt) in the same category as [[Ptolemy]]'s eccentric, epicycles, and equants, concepts that Ptolemy invented to explain the motions of planets from Mercury outward that did not conform to a [[geocentrism|geocentric]] view of the universe. More to the point, he asserts that modern astronomers, and particularly [[Big Bang]] cosmologists, routinely invoke [[dark matter]] and [[dark energy]] to explain observations that their cosmology does not predict, and says that these astronomers, like those who once invoked Vulcan, are guilty of violating [[Occam's Razor]].