Download or read book The Glass Universe written by Dava Sobel and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-12-06 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 of 2017 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.
Download or read book The Glass Universe written by Dava Sobel and published by Fourth Estate. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A biographical orrery - intricate, complex and fascinating' The Observer 'A peerless intellectual biography. The Glass Universe shines and twinkles as brightly as the stars themselves' Economist Bestselling author Dava Sobel returns with a captivating, little-known true story of women in science Before they even had the right to vote, a group of remarkable women were employed by Harvard College Observatory as 'Human Computers' to interpret the observations made via telescope by their male counterparts each night. The author of Longitude, Galileo's Daughter and The Planets shines light on the hidden history of these extraordinary women who changed the burgeoning field of astronomy and our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe.
Download or read book Looking Glass Universe written by John Briggs and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 1986 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Many Colored Glass written by Freeman J. Dyson and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2010-02-03 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freeman Dyson’s latest book does not attempt to bring together all of the celebrated physicist’s thoughts on science and technology into a unified theory. The emphasis is, instead, on the myriad ways in which the universe presents itself to us--and how, as observers and participants in its processes, we respond to it. "Life, like a dome of many-colored glass," wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley, "stains the white radiance of eternity." The author seeks here to explore the variety that gives life its beauty. Taken from Dyson’s recent public lectures--delivered to audiences with no specialized knowledge in hard sciences--the book begins with a consideration of the practical and political questions surrounding biotechnology. As he seeks how best to explain the place of life in the universe, Dyson then moves from the ethical to the purely scientific. The book concludes with an attempt to understand the implications of biology for philosophy and religion. The pieces in this collection touch on numerous disciplines, from astronomy and ecology to neurology and theology, speaking to the lay reader as well as to the scientist. As always, Dyson’s view of human nature and behavior is balanced, and his predictions of a world to come serve primarily as a means for thinking about the world as it is today.
Download or read book The Glass Universe written by Dava Sobel and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-10-31 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Miss Leavitt s Stars The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe Great Discoveries written by George Johnson and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2006-06-17 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A short, excellent account of [Leavitt’s] extraordinary life and achievements." —Simon Singh, New York Times Book Review George Johnson brings to life Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who found the key to the vastness of the universe—in the form of a “yardstick” suitable for measuring it. Unknown in our day, Leavitt was no more recognized in her own: despite her enormous achievement, she was employed by the Harvard Observatory as a mere number-cruncher, at a wage not dissimilar from that of workers in the nearby textile mills. Miss Leavitt’s Stars uncovers her neglected history.
Download or read book Galileo s Daughter written by Dava Sobel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-05-26 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inspired by a long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of Galileo's daughter, a cloistered nun, Dava Sobel has written a biography unlike any other of the man Albert Einstein called "the father of modern physics- indeed of modern science altogether." Galileo's Daughter also presents a stunning portrait of a person hitherto lost to history, described by her father as "a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me." Galileo's Daughter dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishment of a mythic figure whose seventeenth-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion. Moving between Galileo's grand public life and Maria Celeste's sequestered world, Sobel illuminates the Florence of the Medicis and the papal court in Rome during the pivotal era when humanity's perception of its place in the cosmos was about to be overturned. In that same time, while the bubonic plague wreaked its terrible devastation and the Thirty Years' War tipped fortunes across Europe, one man sought to reconcile the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic with the heavens he revealed through his telescope. With all the human drama and scientific adventure that distinguished Dava Sobel's previous book Longitude, Galileo's Daughter is an unforgettable story
Download or read book And the Sun Stood Still written by Dava Sobel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using her deep knowledge, her skills as a storyteller, and her imagination, Dava Sobel illuminates one of history's most significant and far-reaching meetings. In the spring of 1539, a young German mathematician--Georg Joachim Rheticus--journeyed hundreds of miles to northern Poland to meet the legendary, elderly cleric and reluctant astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Some two decades earlier, Copernicus had floated the mind-boggling theory that the Sun, not the Earth, was stationary at the center of the universe, and he was rumored to have crafted a book that could prove it. Though exactly what happened between them can never be known, Rheticus shepherded Copernicus's great work into production and De revolutionibus orbium coelestium ultimately changed the course of human understanding. Dava Sobel imagines their dramatic encounter, and with wit and erudition gives them personality. Through clever and dramatic dialogue, she brings alive the months Rheticus and Copernicus spent together--the one a heretical Lutheran, the other a free-thinking Catholic--and in the process illuminates the historic tension between science and religion. An introduction by Dava Sobel will set the stage, putting the scenes in historical context, and an afterword will describe what happened after Copernicus's book was published detailing the impact it had on science and on civilization.
Download or read book A More Perfect Heaven written by Dava Sobel and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author of Longitude and Galileo's Daughter tells the story of Nicolaus Copernicus and the revolution in astronomy that changed the world.
Download or read book Star Trek Mirror Universe Glass Empires written by David Mack and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-02-20 with total page 467 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are moments glimpsed only in shadow, where darkness rules and evil incarnate thrives. You hope against hope that in your lifetime, evil is relegated to the shadows. But what if it wasn't? What if you lived in a universe where your life was measured only by what you could do for the Empire? What would you do to survive? Would you sell your soul to free yourself? If you were offered the chance to rule, would you seize it? If you could free your universe from the darkness but only at the cost of your life, would you pay that price? Star Trek: Enterprise®—she seized power in a heartbeat, daring to place herself against all the overlords of the Empire. Empress Hoshi Sato knows the future that could be; now all she has to do is make sure it never happens. For her to rule, she must hold sway not only over the starship from the future but also over her warlords, the resistance, and her Andorian husband. As quickly and brutally as Hoshi seized power, imperial rule is taken from her. Her only chance to rule again is to ally herself with a lifelong foe, and an alien. Star Trek® One man can change the future, but does he dare? Spock, intrigued by the vision of another universe's Federation, does what no Vulcan, no emperor, has ever done: seize power in one blinding stroke of mass murder. And at the same instant he gains imperial power, Spock sows the seeds for the Empire's downfall. Is this a form of Vulcan madness, or is it the coolly logical plan of a man who knows the price his universe must pay for its freedom? Star Trek: The Next Generation®—Humanity is a pitiful collection of enslaved, indentured, and abused peoples. No one dares to question the order, except at peril of their lives. One man survives by blinding himself to the misery around him. However, Jean-Luc Picard resists, just once. And in that one instant he unlocks a horror beyond the tyranny of the Alliance. Can a man so beaten down by a lifetime of oppression stop the destruction?
Download or read book What Stars Are Made Of written by Donovan Moore and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New Scientist Book of the Year A Physics Today Book of the Year A Science News Book of the Year The history of science is replete with women getting little notice for their groundbreaking discoveries. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, a tireless innovator who correctly theorized the substance of stars, was one of them. It was not easy being a woman of ambition in early twentieth-century England, much less one who wished to be a scientist. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin overcame prodigious obstacles to become a woman of many firsts: the first to receive a PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College, the first promoted to full professor at Harvard, the first to head a department there. And, in what has been called “the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy,” she was the first to describe what stars are made of. Payne-Gaposchkin lived in a society that did not know what to make of a determined schoolgirl who wanted to know everything. She was derided in college and refused a degree. As a graduate student, she faced formidable skepticism. Revolutionary ideas rarely enjoy instantaneous acceptance, but the learned men of the astronomical community found hers especially hard to take seriously. Though welcomed at the Harvard College Observatory, she worked for years without recognition or status. Still, she accomplished what every scientist yearns for: discovery. She revealed the atomic composition of stars—only to be told that her conclusions were wrong by the very man who would later show her to be correct. In What Stars Are Made Of, Donovan Moore brings this remarkable woman to life through extensive archival research, family interviews, and photographs. Moore retraces Payne-Gaposchkin’s steps with visits to cramped observatories and nighttime bicycle rides through the streets of Cambridge, England. The result is a story of devotion and tenacity that speaks powerfully to our own time.
Download or read book Strange Universe written by Bob Berman and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Touches on a dizzying array of subjects, including UV rays, inert gases, fossils, meteorites, microwaves, rainbows . . . Like many a good teacher, Berman uses humor to entertain his audience and liven things up." —Los Angeles Times Bob Berman is motivated by a straightforward philosophy: everyone can understand science—and it's fun, too. In Strange Universe, he pokes into the bizarre and astonishingly true scientific facts that determine the world around us. Geared to the nonscientist, Berman's original essays are filled with the trademark wit and cleverness that has earned him acclaim over many years for his columns in Astronomy and Discover magazines. He emphasizes curiosities of the natural world to which everyone can relate, and dishes on the little-known secrets about space and some of science's biggest blunders (including a very embarrassing moment from Buzz Aldrin's trip to the moon). Fascinating to anyone interested in the wonders of our world and the cosmos beyond, Strange Universe will make you smile and think.
Download or read book Silent Sky written by Lauren Gunderson and published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE STORY: When Henrietta Leavitt begins work at the Harvard Observatory in the early 1900s, she isn’t allowed to touch a telescope or express an original idea. Instead, she joins a group of women “computers,” charting the stars for a renowned astronomer who calculates projects in “girl hours” and has no time for the women’s probing theories. As Henrietta, in her free time, attempts to measure the light and distance of stars, she must also take measure of her life on Earth, trying to balance her dedication to science with family obligations and the possibility of love. The true story of 19th-century astronomer Henrietta Leavitt explores a woman’s place in society during a time of immense scientific discoveries, when women’s ideas were dismissed until men claimed credit for them. Social progress, like scientific progress, can be hard to see when one is trapped among earthly complications; Henrietta Leavitt and her female peers believe in both, and their dedication changed the way we understand both the heavens and Earth.
Download or read book Look Up written by Robert Burleigh and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-02-19 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Henrietta Levitt was the first person to discover the scientific importance of a star’s brightness—so why has no one heard of her? Learn all about a female pioneer of astronomy in this picture book biography with audio. Henrietta Swan Leavitt was born on July 4, 1868, and she changed the course of astronomy when she was just twenty-five years old. Henrietta spent years measuring star positions and sizes from photographs taken by the telescope at the Harvard College Observatory, where she worked. After Henrietta observed that certain stars had a fixed pattern to their changes, her discovery made it possible for astronomers to measure greater and greater distances—leading to our present understanding of the vast size of the universe. An astronomer of her time called Henrietta Leavitt “one of the most important women ever to touch astronomy,” and another close associate said she had the “best mind at the Harvard Observatory.” Henrietta Leaveitt's story will inspire young women and aspiring scientists of all kinds and includes additional information about the solar system and astronomy. This eBook edition also includes audio accompaniment.
Download or read book Lawless Universe written by Joe Rosen and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2010-08 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thought-provoking and controversial, Lawless Universe is a complement to, even an antidote for, books that create the misimpression that science can explain everything.
Download or read book You re Welcome Universe written by Whitney Gardner and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vibrant, edgy, fresh new YA voice for fans of More Happy Than Not and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, packed with interior graffiti. Winner of the Schneider Family Book Award! When Julia finds a slur about her best friend scrawled across the back of the Kingston School for the Deaf, she covers it up with a beautiful (albeit illegal) graffiti mural. Her supposed best friend snitches, the principal expels her, and her two mothers set Julia up with a one-way ticket to a “mainstream” school in the suburbs, where she’s treated like an outcast as the only deaf student. The last thing she has left is her art, and not even Banksy himself could convince her to give that up. Out in the ’burbs, Julia paints anywhere she can, eager to claim some turf of her own. But Julia soon learns that she might not be the only vandal in town. Someone is adding to her tags, making them better, showing off—and showing Julia up in the process. She expected her art might get painted over by cops. But she never imagined getting dragged into a full-blown graffiti war. Told with wit and grit by debut author Whitney Gardner, who also provides gorgeous interior illustrations of Julia’s graffiti tags, You’re Welcome, Universe introduces audiences to a one-of-a-kind protagonist who is unabashedly herself no matter what life throws in her way. "[A] spectacular debut...a moving, beautifully written contemporary novel full of quirky art and complicated friendships...this book is a gift to be thankful for."—BookRiot
Download or read book Finding Our Place in the Universe written by Helene Courtois and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-05-28 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An astrophysicist recounts how her team of researchers surfed the cosmos to map our local universe—and discovered the Laniakea supercluster, home of the Milky Way. You are here: on Earth, which is part of the solar system, which is in the Milky Way galaxy, which itself is within the extragalactic supercluster Laniakea. And how can we pinpoint our location so precisely? For 20 years, astrophysicist Hélène Courtois surfed the cosmos with international teams of researchers, working to map our local universe. In this book, Courtois describes this quest and the discovery of our home supercluster. Courtois explains that Laniakea (which means “immense heaven” in Hawaiian) is the largest galaxy structure known to which we belong; it is huge, almost too large to comprehend—about 500 million light-years in diameter. It contains about 100,000 large galaxies like our own, and a million smaller ones. Writing accessibly for nonspecialists, Courtois describes the visualization and analysis that allowed her team to map such large structures of the universe. She highlights the work of individual researchers, including portraits of several exceptional women astrophysicists—presenting another side of astronomy. Key ideas are highlighted in text insets; illustrations accompany the main text. The French edition of this book was named the Best Astronomy Book of 2017 by the astronomy magazine Ciel et espace. For this MIT Press English-language edition, Courtois has added descriptions of discoveries made after Laniakea: the cosmic velocity web and the Dipole and Cold Spot repellers. An engaging account of one of the most important discoveries in astrophysics in recent years, her story is a tribute to teamwork and international collaboration.
