The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel

The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Dava Sobel, the "inspiring" (People), little-known true story of women's landmark contributions to astronomy

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book

Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Economist, Smithsonian, Nature, and NPR's Science Friday

Nominated 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.

Longitude, Galileo's Daughter, The Planets, and A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Universe are all written by Dava Sobel (born June 15, 1947). She has written for a variety of publications, including Discover, Harvard Magazine, Smithsonian, and The New Yorker. Her most memorable work at the Times required her to spend 25 days as a research subject in the chronophysiology lab at Montefiore Hospital, where she was kept safe by boarded-up windows and specially trained personnel. She also earned the 2004 Harrison Medal from the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in England and the 2008 Klumpke-Roberts Prize from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for improving public understanding and appreciation of astronomy. She graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1964 and has taught various science writing workshops at the university level, as well as a two-year residency at the University of California, Berkeley.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780143111344
ISBN 10	0143111345
Title	The Glass Universe
Author	Dava Sobel
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Putnam Inc
Year published	2017-10-31
Number of pages	352
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.