Astronomers Inventing Planets Based on Circumstantial Evi...

It happened three times in the past that theoretical astronomers invented a new planet on the basis of indirect and circumstantial evidence. The first time was in 1845 when Adams and Leverrier independently deduced the existence of the planet Neptune from the perturbations which it had produced in the motion of Uranus. One year later, Neptune was duly discovered in the predicted region of the sky. The successful prediction of the presence of an unseen planet was one {31} of the great events...

 Things Discovered by Many at the Same Time

It is notorious that the same discovery is frequently made simultaneously and quite independently, by different persons. Thus, to speak of only a few cases in late years, the discoveries of photography, of electric telegraphy, and of the planet Neptune through theoretical calculations, have all their rival claimants. It would seem, that discoveries are usually made when the time is ripe for them—that is to say, when the ideas from which they naturally flow are fermenting in the minds of man...