The Glass Universe

By Dava Sobel,

Book cover of The Glass Universe: The Hidden History of the Women Who Took the Measure of the Stars

Book description

AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR

`A peerless intellectual biography. The Glass Universe shines and twinkles as brightly as the stars themselves' The Economist

#1 New York Times bestselling author Dava Sobel returns with a captivating, little-known true story of women in science

In the mid-nineteenth century, the Harvard College…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Glass Universe as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Dava Sobel is one of my favorite science writers; this book does not disappoint. The book tells the story of the discoveries of those who stared at the stars but brings to the fore the work of the army of women who carried out the hard slog of analyzing thousands of glass plate-based photographs–only for the lead scientists to take credit.

One of the characters is Harlow Shapley, who, when not doing his day job, studied ants as a way to measure the air temperature. How cool is that! I love the wide-ranging nature of the interests of scientists such…

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