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Quoted By: >>23955516 >>23956104
So now, watch what happens. William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus by accident. This is after Newton’s laws of gravity are published. So now we’re tracking the orbit of Uranus. This is not following Newton’s laws exactly. It’s got some deviation. So maybe we found the distance limit over which Newton’s laws would apply. That would be interesting. But other people said Newton was so badass it must work, even there. So instead of suggesting that his law was failing, clever people said maybe his law applies, but there’s yet another planet out there that we have yet to discover, whose gravity is tugging on it, and we did not include that in our calculations. So let’s do the math. And those calculations were done, and they were published. An observatory in Germany got hold of those calculations, and they looked in the exact spot in the sky that the calculations said Neptune was waiting to be discovered. Right there it was. A triumph of Newton’s laws.
