The Glass Universe - Dava Sobel

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The Glass Universe - Dava Sobel

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Post by AstroBee »


I'm about halfway through reading this book (Actually listening to it on Libby.) and I must say it's a very good "listen".
The full title is: The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars
It's utterly amazing the way these "computers" as they were called measure with such accuracy the stars on these large glass plates in the early days of astrophotography.
It's a very captivating story.
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Re: The Glass Universe - Dava Sobel

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Post by mikemarotta »


AstroBee wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 8:04 pm It's utterly amazing the way these "computers" as they were called measure with such accuracy the stars on these large glass plates in the early days of astrophotography.
They were measuring the lines in spectroscopic images. Some classification had begun. Fr. Angelo Secchi at the Vatican, for example, put them into a few large classes. However, Williamina Fleming and those following established a far more complete and detailed differentiation.

I am glad that you are enjoying the book. I have it, also, but did not get through it. It is not Dava Sobel's best work and I know the story already. However, I did rely on this book to track the details of the careers of several of the astronomers who were not as famous as Annie Cannon, Antoinette Maury, and Ceclia Payne-Gasposchkin. (See attached PDF.)

I first found about the Women Computers of Harvard following up on an "Image of the Month" winner in my club newsletter. It was an image of the Horsehead Nebula and I wanted to know more about it. Williamina Fleming was the first to identify it. Though she was hired early on, she was not the first woman employed by the Harvard Observatory, however. (See attached PDF.)

As I note in "Peculiar Spectra" the soubriquet (or slur) "Pickering's Harem" was a later invention, not used in their own time.

On the problem of "women's work" in science, see for example, The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science by Julie Des Jardins (Feminist Press, 2001). While I believe that Des Jardin falls down the postmodernist rabbit hole, much of her perspective is important. Prejudicial generalizations hold that women are better at fine crafts like needlepoint, while men are best at discovering new worlds and big ideas. As a result, the careful work of identification and classification is denigrated as "women's work" and just not paid for well while men get all the honors for stumbling around in the dark. The robbery of Jocelyn Bell (Burnel)'s Nobel Prize is a classic case in point.

A final note: The word computer always meant a human being until the advent of the electronic machines we now know so well. The father of a childhood friend served in World War II and his designation was "computer" in a flash-and-report group. They measured the direction of an artillery flash and noted the time of "report" (blast sound) and from two or more positions, calculated the location (direction and distance) of the enemy weapon.

A final final note: In the science fiction novel, When Worlds Collide (1933), Eve Hendron is the one who carries out the calculations for her father, industrial physicist Dr. Cole Hendron, to show that the Bronson Bodies are going to obliterate the Earth. The maths were not carried out by the astronomers in South Africa who discovered the pair in photographic plates. Men just are not capable of such exacting work. You gotta wonder what women keep us around for.
Attachments
The Horsehead Nebula and the Women of Harvard copy.pdf
(395.37 KiB) Downloaded 120 times
Cannon et al Peculiar Spectra ST202103.pdf
(126.12 KiB) Downloaded 115 times
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Michael E. Marotta
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