The Glass Universe by Dana Sobel

The Glass Universe

by

Dava Sobel

At the end of summer my local library reading group asked for book suggestions when they were making their reading list for this years meetings, and on my list of possible ideas was "anything by Dava Sobel".  I had read Galileos' Daughter by her earlier this year and really admired her writing style.  When the selection list came out,  the book for November was The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel.  I was glad to have the opportunity to read another book by this author.  I decided to listen to the book on audio.  When I first started listening to it I was a bit concerned because I thought the science was going to be over my head.  My science back ground is more of the biological sciences than physical sciences and there is quite a bit of detail about the stars and planets in this book.  But I soldiered on and I feel that, while some of it might have went over my head, I gleaned a great deal from this book.   I especially liked Annie Jump Cannon.  She designed an award for women astronomers that involved them being presented a brooch instead of a medal.  I thought that was very neat.  I tried to look online for a picture of one of the brooches but was unable to find such an image.  I did find some very cool images at THIS SITE.  And I especially liked the following image below which is taken from there.

This book is a non fiction book.  It is about women who worked as computers at the Harvard Observatory.  It covers them from the mid 1800's to the mid 1900's.  Dava Sobel describes these women who were true pioneers explaining both their work and their personal lives.   Another one of the women that I found especially interesting was Williamina Paton Stevens Fleming.   She was a Scottish immigrant who arrived to work at first as a maid for the director of the observatory.  She was pregnant and her husband had disappeared.  It was the late 1800s.  For this woman to have impressed the director enough with her abilities to end up as one of the most valued computers is an amazing story.   In fact,  many of the women in the book had very interesting lives.   I highly recommend this book.  There are links to click on at the title of the book and author's name above and through out this post that will lead the reader to more information.  This book is a very well written non fiction book.  Please enjoy the short video that follows featuring the author.  I really admire this woman's writing and encourage everyone to read her books.