"Ovenden hardly originated the missing planet 5 idea; it goes back to Kepler's16th-century statement, "Between Mars and Jupiter, I put a planet," an idea which was taken up in Bode's Law nearly two centuries later."
It certainly shows up in SF of the pulp era: an exploded 5th planet is part of the backstory of Jack Williamson's "Seetee" stories, in which the culprit is a rogue anti-matter planet (would probably do the job - and sterilize the Earth into the bargain, to be sure).
"There are also writers who use theories that they know to be disproven long before they wrote. My favorite example of this is the late Howard Waldrop's lovely story "...As We Know't," in which an intrepid scientist of the 19th Century sets out to isolate phlogiston and succeeds all too well..."
Then there's Richard Garfinkle's "Celestial Matters", in which ancient Greek "science" is 100% correct. (Of course, so is Chinese Taoist "science"...)
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"Ovenden hardly originated the missing planet 5 idea; it goes back to Kepler's16th-century statement, "Between Mars and Jupiter, I put a planet," an idea which was taken up in Bode's Law nearly two centuries later."
It certainly shows up in SF of the pulp era: an exploded 5th planet is part of the backstory of Jack Williamson's "Seetee" stories, in which the culprit is a rogue anti-matter planet (would probably do the job - and sterilize the Earth into the bargain, to be sure).
"There are also writers who use theories that they know to be disproven long before they wrote. My favorite example of this is the late Howard Waldrop's lovely story "...As We Know't," in which an intrepid scientist of the 19th Century sets out to isolate phlogiston and succeeds all too well..."
Then there's Richard Garfinkle's "Celestial Matters", in which ancient Greek "science" is 100% correct. (Of course, so is Chinese Taoist "science"...)