Dava Sobel Books

First published in 1996, Dava Sobel's story of an epic scientific quest - how to calculate longitude. The thorniest scientific problem of the day had occupied scientists and their patrons for the better part of two centuries until John Harrison dared to imagine a mechanical solution. The story encompasses astronomy, navigation and clockmaking.

The Barnes & Noble Review Deemed by Albert Einstein to be "the father of modern physics...of modern science altogether," the man who dropped cannonballs from the Tower or Pisa, improved the telescope to discover the moons of Jupiter, and defended Nicolaus Copernicus's theory of the Earth's orbit was, in his day, considered a heretic. Dava Sobel, the author of Longitude , the story of John Harrison's invention of the chronometer, returns with Galileo's Daughter , a fascinating biography that gives an intimate look at the life of Galileo through the 124 letters written by his eldest daughter, Virginia, published in translation for the first time from the Italian. Virginia was one of Galileo's three children born out of wedlock. Together with her depressive younger sister, she was placed in the Convent of San Matteo near Galileo's Florence home at the age of 13, where she took the name Suor Maria Celeste, in tribute to her father's work. Galileo recognized in Virginia an "exquisite mind," and she, in turn recognized the depth of her father's faith in Catholicism and proved to be an unwavering source of loyalty, support, comfort, and strength for him when he was brought to trial before the Holy Office of the Inquisition in 1633. Born in Pisa on February 15, 1564, to a mathematician and the daughter of cloth merchants, Galileo betrayed his father's wishes to become a doctor and instead studied mathematics and philosophy, for he believed that "philosophy is written in this grand book the universe...but the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and to read the alphabet in which it is composed...mathematics." He began his career teaching at the University of Pisa and the University of Padua until he eventually procured the patronage of the Medici Grand Dukes. Galileo's first commercial invention was the geometric and military compass in 1597, which functioned as an early pocket calculator. But the invention that would announce him to the world came ten years later, when he improved the Dutch spyglass, augmenting the power of the lens manifold times to focus the instrument on the moon and the stars. This reinvented telescope eventually enabled Galileo to discover four of Jupiter's moons, which he documented in his book, The Starry Messenger . His next book, Discourse on Bodies that Stay Atop Water or Move Within It , both challenged Aristotelian physics and announced the presence of sunspots, angering his colleagues and beginning his troubled future. Of course, the real problems for Galileo began when he sought to publish Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems , in which he began to establish proof of Copernicus's theory that the Earth revolves around the sun. While the bubonic plague was claiming lives throughout Europe and the Thirty Years' War was raging, Pope Urban VIII found Galileo's work most threatening. The pope believed that the motions of the heavenly bodies were the domain of the Holy Fathers of the Church and not of science or philosophy, and he found Galileo to be the greatest enemy of the Catholic Church since Martin Luther. The pope betrayed his former friend further when he forced a sickly Galileo to endure the grueling trials before the Inquisition, threatening him with torture and forcing him to live under house arrest for the remainder of his life. Throughout his life, and especially during the trials, Suor Maria Celeste served her infamous father, whom she addressed as Lord Father, as she would a patron saint. She cared for her him from the convent, whose grounds she never left, through her constant letters, which were sent along with baskets carrying shirts she cleaned and mended for him, confectioneries and health tonics she prepared, and legible, ornate transcriptions of his notes as she prepared his final manuscripts. As these letters reveal, though she was profoundly dedicated to her calling, her devotion to her father, and his love and appreciation for her, was steadfast. She never once doubted his faith or his controversial scientific discoveries. They worried for one another during their frequent illnesses, offered heartfelt condolences when colleagues or relatives passed away. His daughter remained Galileo's constant reader and companion until her death of dysentery at age 27. Though she kept all of his correspondence, his letters have disappeared, likely to have been destroyed by the Mother Abbess of the convent. By turns a moving portrait of the loving relationship between a father and daughter, a riveting chronicle of one of the most intensive battles between scientific truth and religious belief, and a fresh, revelatory biography of one of the most magnificent minds the world has ever known, Galileo's Daughter is a masterful weaving of the lives of the mind, the body, and the soul. —Kera Bolonik

After the huge national and international success of Longitude' and Gallileo's Daughter', Dava Sobel tells the human story of the nine planets of our solar system.

'A biographical orrery - intricate, complex and fascinating' The Observer 'A peerless intellectual biography. The Glass Universe shines and twinkles as brightly as the stars themselves' Economist Bestselling author Dava Sobel returns with a captivating, little-known true story of women in science Before they even had the right to vote, a group of remarkable women were employed by Harvard College Observatory as 'Human Computers' to interpret the observations made via telescope by their male counterparts each night. The author of Longitude, Galileo's Daughter and The Planets shines light on the hidden history of these extraordinary women who changed the burgeoning field of astronomy and our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe.

By 1514, the reclusive cleric Nicolaus Copernicus had developed an initial outline of his heliocentric theory-in which he defied common sense and received wisdom to place the sun, and not the earth, at the center of our universe, and set the earth spinning among the other planets. Over the next two decades, Copernicus expanded his theory and compiled in secret a book-length manuscript that tantalized mathematicians and scientists throughout Europe. For fear of ridicule, he refused to publish. In 1539, a young German mathematician, Georg Joachim Rheticus, drawn by rumors of a revolution to rival the religious upheaval of Martin Luther's Reformation, traveled to Poland to seek out Copernicus. Two years later, the Protestant youth took leave of his aging Catholic mentor and arranged to have Copernicus's manuscript published, in 1543, as De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres)-the book that forever changed humankind's place in the universe. In her elegant, compelling style, Dava Sobel chronicles, as nobody has, the conflicting personalities and extraordinary discoveries that shaped the Copernican Revolution. At the heart of the book is her play "And the Sun Stood Still," imagining Rheticus's struggle to convince Copernicus to let his manuscript see the light of day.

Focusing on the life and contributions of a groundbreaking female scientist, the book explores her significant impact on the field and highlights the lesser-known stories of the young women who trained in her laboratory. Through a blend of biography and historical context, it sheds light on their struggles and achievements, offering a fresh perspective on women's roles in science. The narrative emphasizes both the individual's legacy and the collective experiences of women in a male-dominated profession.

In einer Zeit, als Edison mit seiner elektrischen Glühbirne für Aufsehen sorgte, begannen Frauen an der amerikanischen Ostküste, die Gestirne zu erkunden. In den 1880er-Jahren engagierte ein Professor der Harvard University Frauen als „Computer“ am Observatorium. Dazu gehörten nicht nur Angehörige von Astronomen, sondern auch Absolventinnen neuer Frauen-Colleges und leidenschaftliche Sternbeobachterinnen. Diese Frauen leisteten Erstaunliches: Williamina Fleming, eine ledige Mutter und ehemalige Haushälterin, entdeckte rund 300 Sterne, während Antonia Maury eine eigene Klassifikation der Planeten entwickelte, die als Grundstein der modernen Astrophysik gilt. Dennoch fanden nur wenige von ihnen später die verdiente Anerkennung. Dava Sobel widmet sich in ihrem neuen Buch dem Wirken dieser ambitionierten Wissenschaftlerinnen und setzt ihnen ein Denkmal. Die Autorin hat intensiv recherchiert und präsentiert ihre Erkenntnisse auf spannende und persönliche Weise. Sobels Werk sensibilisiert die Leser für historische Geschlechterungleichheiten in der Wissenschaft und zeigt, dass unser Wissen über den Nachthimmel auf den Verdiensten beider Geschlechter beruht. Es ist ein lebendiges Porträt fast vergessener Wissenschaftlerinnen, die entscheidend zur Entwicklung der Astrophysik beitrugen.

W drugiej połowie XIX wieku Obserwatorium Harvarda zaczęło zatrudniać kobiety na stanowiskach obliczeniowców, tzw. ludzkich komputerów. Ich zadaniem było interpretowanie obserwacji teleskopowych wykonywanych co noc przez męskich pracowników instytucji. Początkowo grupa ta składała się z żon, sióstr i córek astronomów, ale wkrótce jej szeregi zasiliły absolwentki nowych college’ów dla kobiet – Vassar, Wellesley oraz Smith. Kiedy fotografia zmieniła sposób uprawiania astronomii, kobiety przeniosły uwagę z obliczeń na badanie gwiazd utrwalanych każdej nocy na szklanych płytach fotograficznych. „Szklany wszechświat”, składający się z pół miliona płyt przez dekady gromadzonych przez Uniwersytet Harvarda, umożliwił kobietom dokonanie niesamowitych odkryć, dzięki którym ich nazwiska zajęły honorowe miejsce w dziejach astronomii. Były to: Williamina Fleming, Antonia Maury, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Annie Jump Cannon oraz Cecilia Payne. Książka Szklany wszechświat, wzbogacona fragmentami listów, dzienników i pamiętników, to ukryta historia kobiet, których wkład w rozwój astronomii na zawsze zmienił sposób rozumienia gwiazd oraz naszego miejsca we Wszechświecie.

Schon um das Jahr 1514 verfasste Nikolaus Kopernikus eine erste Skizze seiner heliozentrischen Theorie. Nicht die Erde stand demnach im Mittelpunkt des Universums, sondern die Sonne, und die Planeten umkreisten sie. Diese Schrift war revolutionär, aber nur einem kleinen Kreis von Astronomen bekannt. Anhand zahlloser Sternenbeobachtungen entwickelte Kopernikus seine Theorie weiter, das betreffende Manuskript hielt er jedoch unter Verschluss. Die geheimnisumwitterte Existenz dieser Schrift trieb Wissenschaftler in ganz Europa um. Im Jahr 1539 begab sich schließlich der junge deutsche Mathematiker Georg Joachim Rheticus nach Frauenburg, um Kopernikus zu überreden, sein Werk zu veröffentlichen. Unter dem Titel De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (Über die Umschwünge der himmlischen Kreise) sollte das Buch unser Verständnis von unserem Platz im Universum für immer verändern. Elegant erzählt Dava Sobel die Geschichte der Kopernikanischen Revolution und bettet sie ein in die Geschichte der Astronomie von Aristoteles bis zum Mittelalter. Wie schon in ihren Bestsellern Längengrad und Galileos Tochter liefert sie so das unvergessliche Porträt einer wissenschaftlichen Großtat.