Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Booktalk
I recently finished reading The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel. It recounts the working evolution and impact of the women “computers” at the Harvard Observatory at the turn of the 20th century. The author does justice to both their pioneering efforts as women and to their pioneering efforts as scientists; weaving those two landmark stories together without diminishing either.
The integrity of their work at Harvard - observing, analyzing, and recording the positions, spectra, and luminosity of stars from ground-breaking photometric glass-plate technology was purely in the service of providing accurate baseline data. That they worked years at this labor-intensive task to appraise and record hundreds of thousands of stars is amazing enough. But these remarkable people were not blind to the relationships of the data they were processing. They emerged as scientists in their own right; establishing and modifying classification systems, identifying relationships between luminosity and variable stars that led to the ability to establish distances, chemical content, and the scope of the known universe, and earning advanced degrees and the respect of the scientific community.
Led by a visionary director Edward Pickering; open-minded, tolerant, and goal-oriented, and supported by philanthropist Mary Palmer Draper, the Harvard Observatory became famous not only for its world class Henry Draper Catalogue of stars, but for the contributions of the women scientists who emerged from that environment trust, opportunity, and discovery: Henrietta Leavitt, Williamina Fleming, Antonia Maury, Annie Jump Cannon, Cecelia Payne, et al.
It is a remarkable story; well-told and inspiring.
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