http://www.scienticity.net/sw/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Johnson%3A_Miss_Leavitt%27s_Stars_%282%29 2026-05-06T07:26:46Z Revision history for this page on the wiki MediaWiki 1.15.1 http://www.scienticity.net/sw/index.php?title=Johnson:_Miss_Leavitt%27s_Stars_(2)&diff=2533&oldid=prev 2009-06-16T01:52:04Z

<p>New page: {{BNR-table|scienticity=3|readability=2|hermeneutics=3|charisma=2|recommendation=2}} George Johnson, &#39;&#39;Miss Leavitt’s Stars : The Untold Story of the Woman who Discovered How to Measure ...</p> <p><b>New page</b></p><div>{{BNR-table|scienticity=3|readability=2|hermeneutics=3|charisma=2|recommendation=2}}<br /> George Johnson, ''Miss Leavitt’s Stars : The Untold Story of the Woman who Discovered How to Measure the Universe''. New York : W.W. Norton, 2005. xiv + 162 pages; illustrated, with bibliographic references and index.<br /> <br /> I wanted to like this book, I really did. The author does give us fair warning at the beginning that there’s not a lot about Henrietta Leavitt herself in this book, because, though he tried, there isn’t much known about her outside of her work. Still, I wanted a scientific biography and, despite the heads up, was disappointed.<br /> <br /> Miss Leavitt was a “computer” — computers were women (mostly) whose job it was to count and categorize stars from photographic plates, a task generally considered menial. Miss Leavitt, however, excelled at this task, counting hundreds of them. And in the process she developed a yardstick that could be used to determine how far away from earth stars were, which fed the controversy at the time of just how big the universe actually is.<br /> <br /> I’m not much interested in astronomy/cosmology and my interest waxed and waned throughout the short book (so much so that I had to renew the book at the library in order to finish it) and, sorry to say, much of the science went over my head as a consequence. Still, I was interested in this tiny glimpse into the contribution this mostly unknown woman made.<br /> <br /> {{Notesby|DC}}<br /> <br /> [[Category: Book Notes]]<br /> [[Category: DC]]</div>

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