weddywoo's review against another edition
3.0
So much important interesting information about the women that contributed to astronomical science...delivered in an extremely dry volume. I wish it were better written. I wanted to like it more. If I were studying the topic, this would be a great resource of data.
jassyrobes83's review against another edition
Wasn’t vibing with the audiobook…just not the right format for me. Might try the actual book though
tcamera's review against another edition
4.0
This year's Oscars put the attention on the women computers who helped NASA get to the Moon in the 1960s but even before NASA there was another group of female computers who were responsible for many of the systems we use today to classify stars.
Sobel does an excellent job of telling these ladies stories in The Glass Universe. This book is very science heavy but the author writes in such a way that a non-science person can understand.
It is also very people heavy and sometimes the story can get lost in all these women's threads but you still come away with an understanding of who these women were and how the work they were doing for Harvard was pretty revolutionary for the time.
A must read for fans of astronomy, science, women's history or history in general.
Sobel does an excellent job of telling these ladies stories in The Glass Universe. This book is very science heavy but the author writes in such a way that a non-science person can understand.
It is also very people heavy and sometimes the story can get lost in all these women's threads but you still come away with an understanding of who these women were and how the work they were doing for Harvard was pretty revolutionary for the time.
A must read for fans of astronomy, science, women's history or history in general.
cook_memorial_public_library's review against another edition
4.0
A 2016 staff favorite recommended by Joe.
Check our catalog: https://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Sglass%20universe%20sobel__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=gold
Check our catalog: https://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Sglass%20universe%20sobel__Orightresult__U?lang=eng&suite=gold
david_r_grigg's review against another edition
4.0
Very informative and interesting historical study of the remarkable, talented women who worked at the Harvard Observatory in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Initially employed in low-paid roles, many of them rose from humble beginnings to make very substantial contributions to astronomy.
Take Willamina Fleming, for example. Born in Scotland in 1857, she was abandoned by her husband, leaving her with a child to support. Working initially as a maid at the home of Edward Pickering, the director of the Observatory, she was employed by him to examine and catalog photographic plates of stellar spectra. Eventually she devised a classification system of stars which became the basis of the alphabetical system still used today. It’s because of this Scottish maid that we refer to our Sun as a G-type star, for example.
There were many other women employed by the Observatory who went on to make major scientific contributions. Annie Jump Cannon, who improved on the classification system; Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who discovered the luminosity-period relationship of Cepheid variable stars; the list goes on.
Sobel makes all of this a fascinating story. My only complaint (perhaps due to my faltering memory these days) is that there are SO many names mentioned that it sometimes became difficult to remember who was being talked about at a particular time.
Take Willamina Fleming, for example. Born in Scotland in 1857, she was abandoned by her husband, leaving her with a child to support. Working initially as a maid at the home of Edward Pickering, the director of the Observatory, she was employed by him to examine and catalog photographic plates of stellar spectra. Eventually she devised a classification system of stars which became the basis of the alphabetical system still used today. It’s because of this Scottish maid that we refer to our Sun as a G-type star, for example.
There were many other women employed by the Observatory who went on to make major scientific contributions. Annie Jump Cannon, who improved on the classification system; Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who discovered the luminosity-period relationship of Cepheid variable stars; the list goes on.
Sobel makes all of this a fascinating story. My only complaint (perhaps due to my faltering memory these days) is that there are SO many names mentioned that it sometimes became difficult to remember who was being talked about at a particular time.