100 books like Making Stars Physical

The proverbial scientist at work conjures the image of a solitary investigator bent over a workbench cluttered with arcane instruments nestled among reams of scribbled notes just waiting to be transformed into creative answers to pressing questions about the natural world. The image's simplicity belies the complexity of the process it purports to represent. Adding descriptions of the what, how, and why of scientific inquiry, observation, and analysis still misses a crucial element that makes the improvement, dissemination, and acceptance of new knowledge possible, namely the active behind-the-scenes collaboration between scientists and the illustrators, photographers, printers, and other artisans who use visual representation to shape and successfully communicate that knowledge. 

Mapping the Spectrum is not just an exhaustive and illuminating history of spectrum analysis.  In it, author Klaus Hentschel brilliantly exposes the essential role of visual culture in bringing this all-important tool of modern science to useful life.  He has… show more.

Young people today casually speak of "galaxies far, far away".  They seem to have an intuitive, even if fanciful, understanding that, like science fiction aliens, they and their fellow humans also reside in a galaxy of their own. A mere century ago, such a belief was a matter of highly debatable conjecture. How did earthbound observers learn that the Sun is just one of the hundreds of billions of stars bound gravitationally in a vast spiral-shaped galaxy? 

As Minding the Heavens ably demonstrates, the answer to that question is a long and fascinating story, one that author Leila Belkora vividly recounts using chapter-length biographies of seven astronomers from the 18th to the 20th centuries.  With help from their assistants and family as well as communication with contemporaries, these curiosity-driven individuals endeavored to determine the form and structure of the celestial realm and learn the true nature of the mysterious hazy… show more.

Astronomers have explored space for centuries without leaving the ground. Some of the most important astronomical discoveries of the twentieth century were made by women who overcame discrimination and whose work is just now being recognized.

Sobel’s book not only tells the story of a group of women who revolutionized our view of the universe, but it also helps us understand how astronomers go about their work of discovery.

Thanks to spectrum analysis, the development of improved photographic capabilities, and the construction of powerful new mountaintop telescopes, early 20th century astronomers were able to ask and seek answers to an entirely new range of intriguing questions about the nature and structure of the celestial realm. But the inability to resolve all nebulae into stars left them with a nagging mystery to untangle:  are these luminous clouds relatively nearby embryonic solar systems, or extremely distant aggregates of countless stars? 

In The Expanding Universe, author Robert Smith ably transforms archival material into a lively narrative of the dramatic twists and turns -- the disappointing failures, dead-ends, careless errors, contentious controversies, welcome surprises, and successes -- of the decades-long international effort to find answers to this perplexing quandary.

Thinking about this book, I’m reminded of the quote “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” a phrase originally coined by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, and which is often interpreted to mean that women ought to rebel in order to be remembered – although Ulrich’s original intent was actually to encourage us to appreciate the quiet impact that billions of ordinary women have made upon history.

In The Stargazer’s Sister, Caroline Herschel, the often-ignored sister of famous astronomer William Herschel, is a shy and soft-spoken soul, who starts out assisting with her brother’s work and ends up becoming an accomplished astronomer in her own right.

A beautiful and atmospheric read, this book is a great reminder that women’s contributions to science throughout history often consisted of unglamorous, behind-the-scenes work – but that doesn’t mean that they should be credited any less for their skill and ingenuity! 

Author Emily Levesque seeks out powerful telescopes and the people who run them, looking at the evolution of astronomy from a science based on hands-on observing to one more centered on remote-controlled instruments. In the book, she questions what astronomy may have lost in its shift toward more distanced and abstracted technology—and what sorts of creativity and adventure it could retain if the study of the stars were a little more like it was in centuries past. I enjoyed the hard, but narrative and engaging, look at what professional astronomers gain and lose from the way they look at the stars (and everything else in the sky).

This book does a great job of capturing the wonder of the stars. In lyrical language and with absolutely stunning illustrations, What Miss Mitchell Saw will capture the reader’s interest right from the cover. This picture book biography delves into the early days of one of our most brilliant astronomers, Maria Mitchell. Budding scientists and astronomers alike, or anyone who just likes to wonder about the mysteries of space, will love this book.

I found this beautiful book to be simultaneously uplifting and heartbreaking.

Often, science is taught as if it descended from heaven on stone tablets, devoid of the human drama involved in its discovery and explication. Sobel captures the agony and ecstasy of the drama in the life of Galileo, the father of experimental physics and the first astronomer to use the telescope.

Summoned late in life to face the Inquisition because of his unabashed promotion of heliocentric cosmology, considered heretical by the Church, Galileo survived but died broken and blind, no longer able to see the heavenly wonders he had revealed to humanity.

Sobel unfurls Galileo’s ordeal through an exchange of tender letters with his cloistered daughter, Sister Maria Celeste, whose name was chosen to honor her star-gazing father. There’s a twist at the end that brought me to tears.

I liked this book because it has a sense of humor and yet approaches interesting questions about how we might meet another species of intelligent life in the universe.

Sawyer is not a scientist, but an enthusiastic amateur astronomer, with training in anthropology and a fascination with the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, interests that inform many of his novels.

I also enjoyed this novel as a detective mystery with an astronomical puzzle that is part of its solution. 

After each tale in Atkins’ sumptuous book of historical fiction, I wanted to rush out and discover new things. These three real girl scientists pushed past obstacles in their young years to successfully build themselves into naturalists, lifting my heart and reminding me of the importance of the few family and friends who championed their journeys.

As a poet myself, I savored how the tales–about a discoverer of butterflies, fossils, and stars–are written in verse, creating a lush blend of words, history, and science. If there’s one good thing about centuries of inequality for women in science, it’s that when women scientists succeeded against all odds, their stories are so gorgeously inspiring.