![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() "The work," Sobel writes in her eye-opening chronicle, "demanded both scrupulous attention to detail and a large capacity for tedium."īut, as Sobel points out, these "willing slaves to routine" were fortunate to have the work when opportunities in science were rare for women. They were assistants, or human "computers" - math whizzes, devoted stargazers, and later physics and astronomy majors (and PhD's) who studied, compared, classified and catalogued data about stars that had been photographed by men on thousands of glass plates. The ladies who worked at the Harvard College Observatory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were not initially called astronomers it took decades for their "important leaps in celestial knowledge" to earn them that designation. Even more than her 1999 book Galileo's Daughter, this new work highlights women's often under-appreciated role in the history of science. By translating complex information into manageable bites sweetened with human interest stories, Sobel makes hard science palatable for the general audience. How?ĭava Sobel is as adept at spotting promising subject matter as the extraordinary women astronomers she writes about in The Glass Universe were at spotting variable stars. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Glass Universe Subtitle How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars Author Dava Sobel ![]()
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