Book Rec of the Day 1/26/2007

WEIRD SCIENCE

Few women have contributed to advances in astronomy, and Henrietta Leavitt was one of them. Her discovery—that the size of the universe can be measured by calculating the luminosity of stars—is of towering importance, and yet she herself has been almost forgotten. Ace science reporter Johnson tells the brief, colorful tale of how Miss Leavitt, a human “computer” at Harvard University, made her wondrous mark on the universe.

MISS LEAVITT’S STARS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE WOMAN WHO DISCOVERED HOW TO MEASURE THE UNIVERSE, by George Johnson (W.W. Norton & Company, 2005)