Miss Leavitt's Stars: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe

by George Johnson

Overview

"A short, excellent account of [Leavitt’s] extraordinary life and achievements." —Simon Singh, New York Times Book Review

George Johnson brings to life Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who found the key to the vastness of the universe—in the form of a “yardstick” suitable for measuring it. Unknown in our day, Leavitt was no more recognized in her own: despite her enormous achievement, she was employed by the Harvard Observatory as a mere number-cruncher, at a wage not dissimilar from that of workers in the nearby textile mills. Miss Leavitt’s Stars uncovers her neglected history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393328561
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	06/17/2006
Series:	Great Discoveries
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	624,880
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

George Johnson, an award-winning science journalist, is the author of several books, most recently The Cancer Chronicles and Strange Beauty. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Editorial Reviews

"Johnson paints a luminous portrait of Leavitt and shows how her patient work sparked an explosion of astronomical creativity."

Discover Magazine - Laurence Marschall

"Illuminating."

New York Times - Richard Panek

"An elegant and absorbing account of a signal event in humanity’s discovery of the deeper cosmos."

Timothy Ferris

"The well-known science writer George Johnson fashions a fascinating picture of Miss Leavitt’s life…His grace in bringing her to life is matched by his lucidity in explaining difficult scientific concepts."

Scientific American

In the early 20th century, scientists battled over the cosmos. One camp, led by astronomer Harlow Shapley, insisted that the entire universe is contained in the Milky Way galaxy. Other, more radical theorists posited that the universe is so vast that the Milky Way is just one galaxy among billions, a view eventually (and famously) validated by the research Edwin Hubble. Previous histories of the great galaxy controversy have ignored the central role of Henrietta Swan Leavitt, the Radcliffe-educated astronomer who discovered how to calculate the distance to galaxies. New York Times science reporter George Johnson rectifies that omission with this touching human portrait of a forgotten heroine.

Johnson, who is the author of a number of books and contributes science articles to The New York Times, was obviously drawn to Leavitt and her work many years ago, and he has written about it with penetrating intelligence. His book appears in a year when a debate about biases and barriers against women in science has generated enormous public interest, and the argument has spread far beyond the United States. Johnson's book is eloquent evidence in this discussion. He makes clear what Leavitt and her associates accomplished, given a meager opportunity. That says it all. No polemics needed.
— The New York Times

Simon Singh

In the early 1900s the "computers" at the Harvard University Observatory were women, paid 25 cents an hour to pore over photographic plates taken with the university's telescope and to catalogue changes in the sizes and locations of stars. Henrietta Leavitt was an unmarried clergyman's daughter who began working at the observatory soon after graduating from Radcliffe. The director quickly recognized her skill and made generous allowances for the long absences occasioned by her apparently delicate health and family problems. New York Times science writer Johnson (Strange Beauty) relates that Leavitt's singular contribution to astronomy came when she recognized that cyclical changes in the size of Cepheids, giant variable stars, could be correlated with their luminosity. Once luminosity was known, a star's distance from Earth could be calculated. Leavitt wasn't interested in pushing her discovery to its logical conclusion, but other astronomers quickly grasped the ramifications for calculating the size of the Milky Way and the universe. In recent years, Leavitt has joined Rosalind Franklin in receiving long overdue recognition. Scant documentation exists for Leavitt's life aside from correspondence with the observatory, so readers shouldn't be surprised to discover that this excellent book is more about the search to measure the universe than about Leavitt's life. Nevertheless, it's a fine tribute to a remarkable woman of science. 10 illus. not seen by PW. Agent, Esther Newberg. (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

It's about time! Finally, the life and work of Henrietta Swan Leavitt is given more than the usual paragraph or two provided in a few encyclopedias and textbooks. It is unfortunate that circumstances were such that we have only the barest artifacts of her personal life, but luckily what has remained is her work, which this book does an outstanding job of describing in terminology and metaphor understandable to a wide audience. New York Times science reporter Johnson (Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution of Twentieth-Century Physics) brings us into the world of the Harvard College Observatory from the 1870s to the 1930s, in which Leavitt, though deaf, joined other women "computers" hired to measure, categorize, and analyze stellar images on thousands of astronomical photographic plates. It was her work and insight on a specific kind of star that led to the method by which the universe could be measured. Johnson's elegantly written tribute to a pioneering astronomer is highly recommended for school, public, and general academic collections.-Margaret F. Dominy, Drexel Univ. Lib., Philadelphia Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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