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The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars
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From #1 New York Times bestselling author Dava Sobel, the "inspiring" (People), little-known true story of women's landmark contributions to astronomyA New York Times Book Review Notable BookNamed one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Economist, Smithsonian, Nature, and NPR's Science FridayNominated for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award"A joy to read.” —The Wall Street Journal In the mid-nineteenth century, the Harvard College Observatory began employing women as calculators, or “human computers,” to interpret the observations their male counterparts made via telescope each night. At the outset this group included the wives, sisters, and daughters of the resident astronomers, but soon the female corps included graduates of the new women's colleges—Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith. As photography transformed the practice of astronomy, the ladies turned from computation to studying the stars captured nightly on glass photographic plates. The “glass universe” of half a million plates that Harvard amassed over the ensuing decades—through the generous support of Mrs. Anna Palmer Draper, the widow of a pioneer in stellar photography—enabled the women to make extraordinary discoveries that attracted worldwide acclaim. They helped discern what stars were made of, divided the stars into meaningful categories for further research, and found a way to measure distances across space by starlight. Their ranks included Williamina Fleming, a Scottish woman originally hired as a maid who went on to identify ten novae and more than three hundred variable stars; Annie Jump Cannon, who designed a stellar classification system that was adopted by astronomers the world over and is still in use; and Dr. Cecilia Helena Payne, who in 1956 became the first ever woman professor of astronomy at Harvard—and Harvard’s first female department chair. Elegantly written and enriched by excerpts from letters, diaries, and memoirs, The Glass Universe is the hidden history of the women whose contributions to the burgeoning field of astronomy forever changed our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe.
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Product details
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Viking; 1st edition (December 6, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780670016952
ISBN-13: 978-0670016952
ASIN: 0670016950
Product Dimensions:
6.3 x 1.1 x 9.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.5 out of 5 stars
96 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#164,455 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Glass Universe meticulously delineates the previously little-known story about the contributions of a group of women hired by the Harvard College Observatory as “human computers†beginning in the mid-1800’s. While Dava Sobel at times employs incredible scientific detail while relaying these women’s stories, overall The Glass Universe is a fascinating tale of the impact of a multitude of female astronomers on the field of astronomy. As the story develops, photography begins revolutionizing the field of astronomy creating a new field called spectrophotography. Accordingly, a number of these women begin studying the thousands of glass photographic plates created nightly at the observatory in Cambridge and at times from other areas including Peru and South Africa. The images created via photography magnified the views of the cosmos to degrees far beyond what the naked eye could see even with a telescope. As a result, the women (and some men too) discovered thousands of new stars, learned what stars are composed of, and characterized stars into groupings with similar traits. Sobel also pays tribute to the individuals who funded much of this research including Anna Draper whose husband was on the forefront of spectrophotography and sadly died young, Andrew Carnegie and Catherine Bruce, a wealthy New York socialite who came to love astronomy late in life.Because so many women participated in the development of a new understanding of the cosmos, there are a tremendous number of characters in The Glass Universe. Repeatedly while reading, I kept wishing that there was a character listing at the front of the book to help me keep track of them all. When I finished the book, I was happy to ascertain that Sovel had compiled a lengthy Catalogue of Harvard Astronomers, Assistants, and Associates at the end of the book. While it was helpful to peruse this after finishing The Glass Universe, I feel it would have been more useful at the front of the book instead of after I was finished reading. At the end of the book, Sobel also includes a timeline with the highlights of the Harvard College Observatory which places many of the developments and discoveries into a coherent, satisfying format.Sobel’s story is uplifting, and I loved reading about the recognition these women received at a time when women working was highly uncommon. Not only did their fellow workers at Harvard Observatory acknowledge the success and importance of these individuals, but astronomers worldwide respected and recognized the contributions made by them. I highly recommend The Glass Universe. Thanks to Viking Books and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Subtitled "How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars",Dava Sobel's new book widely covers the contributions and lives of the women of theobservatory during the directorships of Edward C. Pickering and Harlow Shapley, whilenot neglecting their male contemporaries. Between the 1880s and 1910s, Harvard CollegeObservatory under Pickering arguably contributed more to the advance of astronomy than anyother single institution. By 1920 the telescopes of HCO began to be dwarfed by new large instrumentsat other institutions, but under Shapley HCO remained at the forefront of astronomical researchand education in many areas. During these years, Henrietta Leavitt discovered the Cepheid period-luminosityrelation that would be vital to determining the distances to other galaxies, Annie Jump Cannon studied the spectraof hundreds of thousands of stars, and Cecilia Payne pioneered methods for determining the chemicalcomposition of the stars. These and other stories are followed in Sobel's fascinating work.Sobel also writes of the lives and motivations of the wealthy sponsors of the observatory'sresearch, including scientifically minded women such as Anna Palmer Draper and Catherine WolfeBruce. Considering the breadth of the book, I noticed remarkably few errors, and I stronglyrecommend its story of the people of HCO and their science.
I was hoping for more from this book considering it was a 2017 New York Times Notable book than what I got. The book does describe the contributions of the many women who worked at the Harvard Observatory from the late 1800s to the early 1950s. Those contributions were significant. (Even though they were grossly underpaid for what sure seems like scut work to me.) And it was nice to see women get an opportunity in a technical field during that era. So, yes, Sobel does a good job of describing their contributions. But her narrative is on the dry side. I'm a big astronomy fan so I liked this book. But I think if you are coming at this book from the "women in science" viewpoint rather than from the science viewpoint, you're going to find this history a little tedious. Recommended for science and astronomy buffs. Recommended with reservations (for the dry narrative) for others.
This well researched book came as a revelation to me about the many women to whom we owe our modern understanding of astronomy. Dava Sobel makes the individual women and men come alive on the page. She also writes so that the lay person gains a sense of the way discoveries were made and why they were important.
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