From New York Times-bestselling author Dava Sobel comes the critically acclaimed 2016 favorite, The Glass Universe. During the mid-19th century, Harvard College Observatory hired women "computers" to calculate work for their male colleagues. Comprised of the female family members of the astronomers as well as students from the recently founded women's colleges, these women quickly put down their pencils and picked up the telescopes to study the stars themselves. Created with over half a million glass photographic plates, the "glass universe" helped these intelligent ladies discern everything from a star's composition to how to measure distance in space. Furthermore, the "glass universe" allowed these women to break the "glass ceiling" for female scientists and astronomers everywhere.
