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Summary
Summary
How big is the universe? In the early twentieth century, scientists took sides. One held that the entire universe was contained in the Milky Way galaxy. Their champion was the strong-willed astronomer Harlow Shapley. Another camp believed that the universe was so vast that the Milky Way was just one galaxy among billions--the view that would prevail, proven by the equally headstrong Edwin Hubble.
Almost forgotten is the Harvard Observatory "computer"--a human number cruncher hired to calculate the positions and luminosities of stars in astronomical photographs--who found the key to the mystery. Radcliffe-educated Henrietta Swan Leavitt, fighting ill health and progressive deafness, stumbled upon a new law that allowed astronomers to use variable stars--those whose brightness rhythmically changes--as a cosmic yardstick. Miss Leavitt's Stars is both a masterly account of how we measure the universe and the moving story of a neglected genius
Author Notes
George Johnson was born in 1952, in Fayetteville, Ark. He has worked for newspapers in Albuquerque, N.Mex. and Minneapolis, Minn., and is a science writer for the New York Times.
His first book, Architects of Fear: Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American Politics (1984), won a special achievement award in nonfiction from the Los Angeles chapter of International PEN.
Many of Johnson's other books evidence thoughtful, spiritual examinations of the relation between man and science. Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith and the Search for Order (1995) is about the diversity of ideas in New Mexico. Johnson draws parallels between Los Alamos and the worshipful view of scientific discovery and the high desert, a sacred place for the Tewa Indians and Hermanos Penitentes.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
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) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
New York Times science reporter Johnson observes that Henrietta Swan Leavitt deserves a proper biography. She will probably never get one, so faint is the trail she left behind. But at least we have Johnson's illuminating profile of this gifted human computer. Hoping to learn astronomy, she arrived at the Harvard Observatory around 1893 and was put to work recording the magnitude of stars and looking for variables, stars that wax and wane in brightness. Leavitt worked until 1896, after which travel, health troubles, and family obligations kept her away until 1902. In 1908 she published an account of her work on the variables in the Magellanic Clouds that included her theory that one could estimate the distance of stars by using their brightness and the rhythm of their beats, one of the most significant findings in stellar astronomy. Leavitt died in 1921, leaving behind her magnum opus: the measurements for her North Polar Sequence, ninety-six stars whose magnitude she had determined with such authority and care they could be used as a standard for the rest of the sky. Given Leavitt's neglect, this tale is as frustrating as it is spellbinding. --Rebecca Maksel Copyright 2005 Booklist
Library Journal Review
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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
