The Glass Universe

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Author Dava Sobel returns with the little known true story of a group of women whose contributions to the burgeoning field of astronomy forever changed our understanding of the stars and our place in the universeIn the mid nineteenth century, the Harvard College Observatory began employing women as calculators, or human computers, to interpret the observations made via telescope by their male counterparts each night At the outset this group included the wives, sisters, and daughters of the resident astronomers, but by the 1880s 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 to studying the stars captured nightly on glass photographic plates The glass universe of half a million plates that Harvard amassed in this period thanks in part to the early financial support of another woman, Mrs Anna Draper, whose late husband pioneered the technique of 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 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 Gaposchkin, who in 1956 became the first ever woman professor of astronomy at Harvard and Harvard s first female department chair. New Download The Glass Universe Author Dava Sobel For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr The Hidden History of the Women Who Took the Measure of the Stars You d be forgiven if this book looked like a social history book of the struggles of female astronomers in the late 19th and early 20th Century It s not a social history at all, even though it flouts itself on a social issue It s a scientific history, and a fairly dry one at that which, I d guess, would leave most of it s marketed audience high and dry.Dava Sobel recounts the history of the Harvard College University which happ The Hidden History of the Women Who Took the Measure of the Stars You d be forgiven if this book looked like a social history book of the struggles of female astronomers in the late 19th and early 20th Century It s not a social history at all, even though it flouts itself on a social issue It s a scientific history, and a fairly dry one at that which, I d guess, would leave most of it s marketed audience high and dry...I wanted to love this book It has all the hallmarks of things I love strong woman, intelligent women, women in science, astronomy, a little known factoid of history, etc This book is successful in the sense that Sobel has obviously done a lot of research into the facts and it able to relay them clearly, while also plainly explaining the science However, I found this book nothan a recitation of those facts None of the characters seemed to have a personality, and only a few had physical I wanted to love this book It has all the hallmarks of things I love strong woman, intelligent women, women in science, astronomy, a little known factoid of history, etc This book is successful in the sense that Sobel has obviously done a lot of re...This book covers not only the seminal work of the ladies of the Harvard Observatory, from Annie Jump Cannon and Cecelia Payne on down, but also its directors, Edward Pickering director 1877 1919 and Harlow Shapley 1922 1951 Most time is given from the 1880s through the 1930s Some of the ladies of Harvard made great discoveries, from astronomy s first true candle of relative distance, the Cepheid variables, to the stellar classification scheme that is still in use, to name only two of the This book covers not only the se...God only knows why this book is an incredibly dry read, but it really, really was In comparison to another book about female mathematicians and scientists, Hidden Figures, this book both dragged and didn t drag enough It throws people and lives at you in fast motion, leaving you unable to settle or focus on anyone except Pickering and arguably Draper to some extent I can pick out some other names, such as Maury, Cannon and so on, but ask me about anecdotes about them specifically or their dai God only knows why this book is an incredibly dry read, but it really, really was In comparison to another book about female mathematicians and scientists, Hidden Figures, this book both dragged and didn t drag enough It throws people and lives...Another relatively new book uncovering the hidden histories and contributions of women in science If I were to compare it to the most popular of those titles I d say that the only things that The Glass Universe has in common with Hidden Figures, other than the women in science theme, are that both could be subtitled When Computers Were Human and both books offer women the respect of not calling them Girls to wit Rise of the Rocket Girls, Girls of Atomic City, Radium Girls, Lab Girl, Rocke Another relatively new book uncovering the hidden histories and contributions of women in science If I were to compare it to the most popular of those titles I d say that the only things that The Glass Universe has in common with Hidden Figures, other than the women in science theme, are that both could be subtitled When Computers Were Human and both books offer women the respect of not calling them Girls to wit Rise of the Rocket Girls, Girls of Atomic City, Radium Girls, Lab Girl, Rocket Girl, and the forthcoming Code Girls.But Margot Shetterly s book and the film focused and relied heavil...My mind kept wandering as I listened to this I did not get any sense of the women profiled in what I did listen to I also got no sense of the larger socio cultural political environment that surrounded these women.A far, far better book is Hidden Figures The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly Hidden Figures was fascinating and engaging and interesting an...I have read much better tellings of Henrietta Swan Levitt and Cecilia Payne This history was surprisingly dry However, in the very first part of the book that I thought was reflective of how the rest of the book would go , Sobel retold the history of the remarkable Mary Ann Palmer Draper and her husband Henry, two passionate astronomers and patrons of science Mary Anna Palmer Draper was a rare spouse one of only 2 known in the nation who collaborated with her husband Henry Draper, whose pa I have read much better tellings of Henrietta Swan Levitt and Cecilia Payne This history was surprisingly dry However, in the very first part of the book that I thought was reflective of how the rest of the book would go , Sobel retold the history of the remarkable Mary Ann Palmer Draper and her husband Henry, two passionate astronomers and patrons of science Mary Anna Palmer Draper was a rare spouse one of ...Preface If you re only going to read one book by Dava Sobel, my advice is don t start here Read her beloved classic, Longitude Having said that, this book is worth it, as long as you re aware of what it is.This is an incredibly informative book with, among other things, extremely helpful supplementary materials, such as a glossary, cast of characters, and timeline , about a fascinating topic the stars, and how we came to begin to understand them , centered around a research project of enor Preface If you re only going to read one book by Dava ...This is not a quick weekend read but it is fairly engrossing It traces the many women, most of whom were first employed as computers who brought the science of astronomy into the 20th century at the Harvard Observatory Some amazing discoveries were made by these women and this is their story There were some male directors who saw what these women could accomplish when given time and opportunity.You don t pick...History of astronomy and the women of Harvard s astronomy program which formed the basic knowledge of astrophysics and stars All the data that our theories of star life cycles, types of stars and distances of galaxies make possible our current cosmological picture of the universe We stand on the shoulder of giants In this case, numerous women who collected data on glass plate emulsions of photographed stars The data these women collected and insights they provided...

The Glass Universe
  • English
  • 21 March 2018
  • Hardcover
  • 336 pages
  • 0670016950
  • Dava Sobel
  • The Glass Universe