The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars

Spectrography is a way of studying stars by taking pictures that separate astral light into different wavelengths. The practice was pioneered by Dr. Henry Draper of the Harvard Observatory in the late 1800s, but the long and detailed work of interpreting the images and classifying the stars was done by a group of women. In this long overdue tribute to Harvard's 'human computers,' Sobel, author of the classic Longitude, brilliantly intertwines science, history, and biography, charting not only the advances in astrophysics from the 1870s to the 1940s, but also following the progress women made in establishing themselves in a notoriously male-dominated field.

As much as I love learning, the last few nonfiction books I picked up disappointed me. Not so with The Glass Universe! I'm fascinated by the dedication and motivation of the women in this book. Their work was amazing and gave us so much insight into our vast universe. Dava Sobel has done a superb job of recreating the lives and work of the women in these pages. I'm definitely recommending this to everyone I know!