The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars

The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars - Paperback

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The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars
  • The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars
The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars - Paperback

The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars - Paperback

by Dava Sobel
$20.00
$20.00

Book Overview

by Dava Sobel (Author)

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.

Author Biography

DAVA SOBEL is the author of five books, including the New York Times bestsellers Longitude, Galileo's Daughter, The Planets, and The Glass Universe. A former New York Times science reporter and longtime contributor to The New Yorker, Audubon, Discover, and Harvard Magazine, she is the recipient of the National Science Board's Individual Public Service Award and the Boston Museum of Science's Bradford Washburn Award, among others.

Number of Pages: 352
Dimensions: 0.7 x 8.4 x 5.5 IN
Publication Date: October 31, 2017
ISBN9780143111344
Author Dava Sobel
PublisherPenguin Books
GenreHistory and Education
FormatPaperback
PublishedOctober 2017
LanguageENG- English
Pages352
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

History Nonfiction Science

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About Dava Sobel

Dava Sobel is the author of the international bestseller Longitude, the bestselling Pulitzer Prize finalist Galileo's Daughter, The Planets, A More Perfect Heaven, And the Sun Stood Still, and The Glass Universe, and co-author of The Illustrated Longitude. She is the recipient of the Individual Public Service Award from the National Science Board, the Bradford Washburn Award, the Kumpke-Roberts Award from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors. A former New York Times science reporter, and currently editor of the "Meter" poetry column in Scientific American, she lives on Long Island.

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