MISS LEAVITT'S STARS: The Untold Story of the Forgotten Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe
George Johnson, . . Norton/Atlas, $22.95 (176pp) ISBN 978-0-393-05128-5
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.
Reviewed on: 04/25/2005
Genre: Nonfiction
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