Evaluate: How Henrietta Leavitt and the ‘Harvard Computers’ Launched Fashionable Cosmology

Evaluate: How a Group of Girls Launched Fashionable Cosmology

By Lucy Tu

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In Temporary

Consideration Is Discovery: The Life and Legacy of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt
by Anna Von Mertens.
MIT Press, 2024 ($34.95)

Followers of Hidden Figures and The Glass Universe will admire Anna Von Mertens’s fascinating portrait of Henrietta Leavitt and the Harvard Computer systems, who laid the inspiration for contemporary cosmology on the flip of the twentieth century. Mixing complicated science with human-interest tales, Von Mertens celebrates the constellation of girls scientists who found how one can calculate galactic distances and classify stars by chemical composition. The writing sometimes veers into textbook territory, however Von Mertens in­cludes vibrant illustrations and archival paperwork that assist to carry these astronomical legends to life on the web page. This deeply researched ebook is finally an homage to the method of remark and that means making in science.