Miss Leavitt's Stars: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe

by George Johnson

How big is the universe? In the early twentieth century, scientists took sides. One held that the entire universe was contained in the Milky Way galaxy. Their champion was the strong-willed astronomer Harlow Shapley. Another camp believed that the universe was so vast that the Milky Way was just one galaxy among billions—the view that would prevail, proven by the equally headstrong Edwin Hubble.



Almost forgotten is the Harvard Observatory "computer"—a human number cruncher hired to calculate the positions and luminosities of stars in astronomical photographs—who found the key to the mystery. Radcliffe-educated Henrietta Swan Leavitt, fighting ill health and progressive deafness, stumbled upon a new law that allowed astronomers to use variable stars—those whose brightness rhythmically changes—as a cosmic yardstick. Miss Leavitt's Stars is both a masterly account of how we measure the universe and the moving story of a neglected genius

Genres: Science, Biography, History, Nonfiction, Astronomy, Physics, History Of Science

176 pages, Hardcover

First published June 17, 2005

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

George Johnson (born January 20, 1952) is an American journalist and science writer. He is the author of a number of books, including The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments (2008) and Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in 20th-Century Physics (1999), and writes for a number of publications, including The New York Times.

He is one of the co-hosts (with science writer John Horgan) of "Science Saturday", a weekly discussion on the website Bloggingheads.tv, related to topics in science. Several prominent scientists, philosophers, and bloggers have been interviewed for the site.

Reviews

[Lata · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up, thinking I'd get to find out all about Henrietta Swan Leavitt. But, the author of the biography said there were hardly any personal papers left behind by the woman, who worked as a human computer at Harvard many years ago. Henrietta Leavitt analyzed countless photographic plates of images taken by telescopes, and carefully analyzed the differences in brightness of many stars. Though plagued by illness for much of her professional life, by all accounts she was meticulous and thorough, and her painstaking work led her to define a measurement method using Cepheid variable stars. These are massive stars that pulsate predictably, and whose luminosity can be used to measure the distance to other objects (this brief article explains it better). Henrietta published her findings in 1912, and this work was then used by other astronomers, such as Edwin Hubble.
As there is so little documented about Henrietta Levitt, much of this book is actually devoted to a short history of a small part of astronomy. I felt a little disappointed that there was not more information about the woman who's cited in the title of this book.

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief, but her personal record was brief, so we nest her among her peers, speculate about where she might have gone if she wasn’t sickly or relegated to just an employee.

[Karin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing is probably the best word to choose for how I felt when reading this book. I am all for women in science, and even more for overlooked women to be recognized and learned about it; I was finding material for my daughters to learn about women like Henrietta Leavitt before this became so popular. But the writing wasn't anything spectacular--for a while I thought this might be three stars, but I just didn't like this much, so that would be dishonest.

That said, as Johnson admits, there is virtually nothing known about Leavitt--who she really was, what she thought, etc. There is no trove of letters, no diary or journal she left behind, very few photos. This book did have something do do with Leavitt and her discovery along with her other work, but much of it really isn't about her. Rather it is primarily about the changes and developments in astronomy in the first few decades of the twentieth century. At times felt like I read more about some of the men involved and all of their arguments than about Leavitt. True, the topic is interesting, but it's not what I was hoping for with this book.

I would have rather had an interestingly written book discussing women in astronomy where Leavitt and her important contributions comprised a solid chapter or two than to have her story stretched out well beyond what is known about her.

[Kadri · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's quite amazing how the author has managed to put together a book about Henrietta Swan Leavitt, with so little known about her. However it appears to focus more (and in some sense rightly so) on the Cepheid variables and how they came to be used as standard candles for measuring distances to galaxies. It's certainly an easy read.

[Lis Carey · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the early years of the 20th century, a "computer" was a person, an actual flesh and blood human being, who was good at math. These computers were often women, because women were so much cheaper to hire. You could perfectly legally and openly offer much lower wages to women than to men, for the same work.

One of these women was Henrietta Swan Leavitt, employed by the Harvard Observatory to calculate the positions and luminosities of stars in astronomical photographs.

There were two competing theories about the size of the universe at the time. One held that the Milky Way, our galaxy, was the entire universe, and the nebulae seen outside it were just wispy gas clouds. The other held that those nebulae were, in fact, other "island universes"--other galaxies like our own. It was Henrietta Leavitt who did the calculations that made it possible to answer the question.

Leavitt was widely known and respected in the astronomical community of the day, valued for her contributions. However, she had no advanced degree, wasn't and couldn't be a member of the scientific societies that would have welcomed a man of her accomplishments, and lived a very private life. When George Johnson was researching this period in the astronomical sciences for a book, he became very interested in her, envisioned a biography of her--and then discovered how little is known about her. This important contributor to astronomy and our knowledge of the physical universe left almost no letters that weren't entirely professional, no diary, no journal that wasn't purely about her work. Almost nothing is known about her outside her work.

The result is this short book, blending what little is known of her, her work and accomplishments, and the scientific discoveries that flowed from that, changing our understanding of the universe we live in. In many ways, this book is most revealing about the place of women in science lies in what we don't know about Henrietta Leavitt, given her importance in astronomical research in the early 20th century, which was such a crucial period.

It's interesting, enjoyable, and informative about the period and about Leavitt's work, but still a disappointment in some respects, for reasons largely beyond the author's control.

I bought this audiobook.

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I decided to pick up this book for two reasons—to learn more about my distant cousin, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, and to learn more about what the deal is with her work in astronomy. I was satisfied on both counts.

There is not a lot of historical data about Miss Leavitt. What little there is was all brought together in this book and very well presented. While one could wish there was more, it is what it is. I’m glad the author did not romanticize or mythologize her, but rather stated the facts about what little we do know. I loved reading her obituary written by colleague Solon Bailey. Even that little paragraph is significant and tells a lot about what kind of person she was.

I first learned about Miss Leavitt and her work with Cepheid variables when I watched a lecture series from The Great Courses by Professor Alex Filippenko a few years ago. So I knew that she discovered something about them that lead Edwin Hubble and others to be able to measure greater distances. This book does a very good job at explaining what Cepheid variables are, what “standard candles” are, and how they are used to measure the universe. All the different assumptions in this process are discussed as well as the reasons why measuring the universe continues to be an ongoing development.
4.5 stars.

[Gloria · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a thriftstore find, sucker that I am…

It was more about the discovery that Leavitt made, and how it played out, rather than about the woman herself, as she left very little in terms of notes and writings, as well as have been undervalued (or at least not recognized) for a variety of societal reasons. I did greatly appreciate being able to learn about and place into historical context some of the names that have haunted my childhood, which involved living near Cambridge, MA.

I will also admit that I started to glaze over with some of Johnson's explanations about the actual ways of measuring. This is not because he didn't do a good job making astronomy accessible; I think it has to do more with the condition in which I was reading the book (at bed, at a MagicTheGathering Tournament), when I was not inclined to re-read the passages as needed to really retain things. And I did skip the chapter "K"; I'll admit that Einstein and relativity will just have to wait for another day.

In other words, this is a worthwhile book, but most definitely not a "light" read, or one for before bedtime. Similar to The Metaphysics Club, one of the other books on my "currently reading" shelf, it is one that does want me to take out a pencil and jot things down (if for nothing else but to retain facts and guideposts for later).

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does not have great ratings. It gave me pause before I began reading. Some of the criticisms are not unfounded. However, the most common complaint – lack of information about Henrietta Leavitt. This being a semi-biography, people were not happy. But, I must confess, I became confused when I started reading this book, because the author, within the first paragraph, states that Henrietta deserves a proper biography. The very first line impresses upon me that the following will not be a detailed account of her life – making…[drum-roll]…complaints of this nature, useless.
While it is scant on personal details of Henrietta’s life, there is enough to make an approximation of a personality and the interesting background of her work [which there is much more information on]. The author does a good job on creating an engaging and fascinating snapshot of, arguably, the most important time in astronomy and physics. If anything, this book does a great service to unsung heroes, like that of Henrietta, who most, tragically, know nothing about, who may finally discover.

[Paula Koneazny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, Henrietta Swan Leavitt's story remains untold, for reasons the author himself notes: there are few sources to consult. Thus, Johnson has written not a book about Henrietta Levitt, the discoverer of the astronomical period-luminosity relationship but, indeed, one about "her" stars. Not biographical except in the sense of describing the context of her life, this slim volume cannot accomplish what I take to have been Johnson's goal, to lift this woman of science out of the footnotes of the History of Science and onto the page.

[Nelda Zamir · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book specifically for preparation to see a theater presentation of "Silent Sky," a play about Henrietta Leavitt. I had never heard of her, so I thought learning a bit would be helpful. It was. I read several reviews complaining that the book has few details about her life. This is true. It warns that in the preface. There is very little known about her life really. The book, however, does tell what is known and explains why her work was so significant that it was considered for a Nobel prize. My own understanding of astronomy and physics is limited, but this helped me understand the significance of her contributions and the injustice in the lack of recognition she received in her lifetime. I appreciate the author's restraint in fabricating details just to make the story more interesting. I have read several books recently that are "historical fiction" -- mainly all fiction -- about different women in history. Unfortunately, the authors feel free to make the subjects "magical" and full of superpowers. If I never hear the word "synesthesia" again, I will be happy. Romances are created to make the characters more readable. There is none of this nonsense in this book. I enjoyed reading this book, and I feel that it enlightened me in several ways about Henrietta Leavitt and the history of astronomy in general.

[Colette · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Henrietta Leavitt reached a profound conclusion that addressed the distance problem. She had become obsessed with stars that vary in brightness over periods of days or weeks. The variation is generally subtle and hard for the eye to discern, but it was now possible to spot variable stars by comparing photographs taken several nights apart. Leavitt would eventually discover more than 2,400 variable stars, about half of all those known in her lifetime. A Princeton astronomer, Charles Young, paid her friendly tribute when he called her "a variable-star fiend.""

[Minna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jag brukar inte läsa biografier om kvinnor i för att de gör mig så arg och förtvivlad. All orättvisa och förminskning som fortfarande pågår inom mansdominerade yrken och fånerier som fortfarande inte riktigt löstagbar upp. Detta innebär inte attan inte är imponerad över de jobb och den envishet och styrka som dessa kvinnor hade, bara besviken att de oftast blev bortglömda i historieskrivningen. Till och med författaren säger att han från början bara tänkte skriva om själva historien bakom mätningen av universum men att Leavitt hemsökte honom. Boken i sig var en aning för torr för min smak, det diskuteras mycket om Henrietta Leavitt, men den största möjliga fokus ligger på hennes upptäckt. Man känner inte till så mycket om Leavitt, hon var mycket noggrann i sitt arbete och hade en känsla för detaljer men verkar också ha varit väldigt plikttrogen gentemot sin familj och stannar hos dem när de är sjuka och missar mycket jobb. Den här boken är en aning för akademisk för mig, mycket tas upp, men lite förklaras för folk som jag som inte direkt kan kalla sig astronomer i vare sig professionell eller amatörmässig mening. Hälften av tiden är jag inte säker på att jag riktigt hänger med i det jag läser. Det verkar som om författarens testläsare uteslutande kommer ifrån den akademiska världen,

De sista 25 sidorna består av noter för vidareläsning. Jag vet inte om jag blev direkt sugen på att göra det efter att alla gubbar utnyttjade Leavitts arbete och när en svensk forskare, utan att veta att hon dött, skrev och frågade om han kunde nominera henne till Nobelpriset, tog hennes chef och började prata om sina egna förtjänster och upptäckter tack vare hennes enträgna arbete med att kartlägga stjärnor. Som om nomineringen liksom hennes personliga brev automatiskt skulle hamna hos honom.

Så rekommenderar jag boken? För intresserade av kvinnohistoria och astronomi. Boken är lite märkligt skriven med kapitel i kapitlen och Leavitt själv försvinner ut historien innan sidan 100. Läs på men var beredda på att behövs slå upp saker var och varannan sida för att förstå vad det egentligen är som avses och diskuteras. Håll Wikipedia redo innan ni hälsar på en noggrann kvinna som en gång skapade grundbultarna till åtskilliga mäns (bl. a. Hubble, mannen vars namn pryder ett rymdteleskop) fina karriärer.

[Olivia Waite · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this as research for a work in progress involving astronomy. I wanted to like this book more, but it felt more sketched-in than I'd hoped. Some of that is naturally due to the lack of historical data we have on Henrietta Leavitt, but it made for a less than perfectly satisfying read.

Of course, my standards have been jacked up by The 4-Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality.

[James F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not exactly a biography, because very little is known about her, but a good nontechnical account of the discovery of Cepheid variables and their use as "standard candles" to measure the size of the Universe. Interesting as history, although the science is already very outdated after fourteen years. I will be reading a new book on the same subject in November.

[Jörg Schumacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Johnson tells the story, how we learned to measure the distances in space.
Josef Gaßner, the host of a very ambitious german science channel proposed to rename the James Webb Space Telescope into Henrietta Leavitt Telescope, to honour a scientist over an administrator. And rightly so, because without the work of Miss Leavitt there wouldn't have been a Hubble Telescope, for without her discovery of the Cepheid standard candles to measure cosmic distances, Hubbles work wouldn't have been possible.
Unfortunatly we don't know much about Henrietta Leavitt's live and she died at the age of only 52 years after a live of severe health problems. So there won't be a great biography of her and also in this book we only find traces of her live and work, not to blame George Johnson, but as there are no more clues to be found.
But what we know is, that Henrietta Leavitt opened the way for a new view of the universe. Since there was no academic career to be had for women at the end of the 19th century, Miss Leavitt, after a college education that would have earned her a bachelor of arts, had she been a man, entered the Harvard College Observatory as a human computer. You may know that term for the women who calculated the space flights in NASA's Mercury and Gemini programms. But the way to employ women to the groundwork of science was usual since the 19th century. The job of the computer women was to count and classify the stars found on photographic plates taken by the telescopes. In this job Henrietta Leavitt excelled. She was able to long tems of concentrated work with the plates and to see minuscle differences in the photographs.
Up to the 1920th scientist didn't know if there was something outside our own Milky Way in the universe. One of the main reasons, why no one could answer that question was, that there was no way to measure distances in space. The geometrical triangulation that allowed distance measurements since the antique, fails beyond the nearest stars. When Miss Leavitt worked on photographs of the magellanic clouds she discovered that there is a class of stars with periodic changes in brightness. She found in these Cepheids, that the frequence of that change correlates with the total brightness in these stars. This opened distance measurement beyond our galactic neighbourhood. Since the observed brightness of a star drops with the distance of the star, you can calculate the distance if you know the total brightness of that star. And by comparison of the brightness of Cepheids that could be triangulated the astronomers had a new yardstick for the heavens.
George Johnson tells how all later discoveries of cosmic measurement founded on these Cepheid standard candles. Because as the Cepheids where calibrated by triangulation, all the following candles may they be Supernovae Typ Ia, Galactic Rotation or Red Shift are calibrated by Miss Leavitt's stars.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A relatively clear book explaining Henrietta Swan Leavitt's important discovery. I was particularly intrigued by the careful, step by step, explanation of how we know how far away stars are. It really is a perfect story of how science is a group activity and each discovery adds one more brick to our tower of knowledge!

Very little is known about Leavitt herself. I thought the author did a great job of digging up what little is known and also highlighting her contribution to science. Those who complain that this book doesn't have more information about Leavitt are perhaps making an important point about history and its treatment of certain people without meaning to.

I did find some explanations to be not entirely clear. For example, I was very confused about why spinning galaxies had to be nearby in order to observe them spinning. This is something that is referred to several times in the book and I was confused each time. I finally realized that I was picturing a spinning object viewed from above the plane of rotation (like looking at a window fan). What the book means (I think) is that you can't see a faraway object rotate if you are looking along the plane of rotation from the side unless that object is rotating very fast indeed. The geometry of this makes a lot more sense to me. But it then raised a question that I had which was why are all the galaxies spinning along the same axis of rotation? I would have also liked a better explanation of how we can all be at the center of the universe and yet nobody is (this is a consequence of General Relativity I believe but I don't intuitively understand it and this book doesn't do anything to help me with that). Finally, I would have liked the book to close the loop and explain why the frequency of Cepheid pulsing is directly proportional to the intrinsic brightness of the star. This is a fact that Leavitt observed but I bet that we now understand why it is based on nuclear physics and our better knowledge of the makeup of stars. I would have appreciated this loop being closed but the book doesn't do that.

Overall a very interesting book that highlights an important contribution and does everything possible to describe the person making that contribution.

[Karla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished “Miss Leavitt’s Stars.” I would say it was 20% biographical and 80% astronomy text book. I liked it because it gave you a look at they types of scientific contributions Henrietta made. However, on balance I was hoping for more of who she was and less what she studied. I guess I was thinking it would be more like “Hidden Figures,” and because I had that expectation it was a little disappointing.

My favorite quote from the book that sums it up:

Henrietta Leavitt didn’t get to pursue [her own theories.] Edward Pickering, director of the Harvard Observatory, kept her tied down with other projects. He wasn’t one to encourage theorizing, believing, as his colleague Solon Bailey put it, “that the best service he could render to astronomy was the accumulation of facts.”

There is so much more she could have done to push the field of astronomy, but was limited (as many women were in the early 1900s) to “accumulate facts.” Her breakthrough idea about how to measure distance by light and set a standard formula of measurement forever changed how humans study the universe.

Reading this book only makes me more excited to see the play “Silent Sky” and I also plan to read “Glass Universe” a book that looks at the overall contribution of the 80+ women at Harvard Observatory.

[Chunyang Ding · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice, readable introduction to the cosmological distance ladder, especially on the early discoveries of Henrietta Leavitt and how it changed the way we thought about our universe. Johnson is a skilled science writer, able to emphasize key concepts (parallax, the Great Debate about the existence of other universes) while being able to lightly breeze through others (redshift velocity determination) without leaving the reader confused.

I personally appreciated the way that Johnson admitted at the very start that there is not enough information about Leavitt to really create a biography. As per her time, she did not leave the vast troves of diaries, correspondence, and other written material that men of that age would have been able to. The only fault I would say that this book has is in the title, since Leavitt only truly weaves in and out of the story. But, I do admit, a book called "Standard Cepheid Variables and the Measuring of Stellar Distances" belongs more in an academic library and would probably not draw much attention.

I wish I had read this book back in high school, as I wrote my extended essay on standard candles. Johnson's explanatory style would have saved me many weeks of headaches in piecing together the scientific literature.

[Hamlen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henrietta Swann Leavitt, a computer from an earlier age, is almost the subject of this biography. It turns out there is scant evidence remaining to create a robust description of her life and work.

Yet, she did exist and she did become an astronomer with a position at the Harvard Observatory.

This short biography weaves her life and contribution into the bigger story of how the size and age of the universe is calculated. Her observation relating luminosity of certain stars to their distance from earth became the foundation for these contemporary estimates of the size of the universe. This book is able to track the life of that scientific effort with greater detail as the written record exists.

It's a dense tale. There are many characters in this close to 100 year old astronomical story premises on her observation.

For these with an interest in the history of ideas this is a fine companion piece to Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel.

[Kellyn Hawley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book in order to do some research on Miss Leavitt for dramaturg work for the play Silent Sky (which is fantastic and if you love space, theatre, or both please go read).

It starts off very with a chapter-long parable about assumptions which set the tone for the book. It is written very conversationally which is enjoyable, but feels like it was likely written for an astronomer audience. Many terms were glossed over and it would go into tangents about the math that I would have to reread a few times to understand.

For the title having Henrietta Leavitt's name in it, there isn't much about her overall. This is most likely because there isn't much information about her recorded, but you spend a good chunk of the book reading about other discoveries that happened because of Henrietta's discovery, not about the woman herself.

[Pablo · Rating 3 out of 5]

El libro es una interesante exposición histórica de una parte del estudio astronómico, el relativo al cálculo de distancias estelares y del tamaño del Universo.
Sin embargo, centrarse en Miss Leavitt es ilógico. Con toda seguridad merece la pena estudiar a las "calculistas" del observatorio de Harvard y de otros observatorios, y la hipótesis de Leavitt de que se podían usar las cefeidas como referencia de medida de distancias es una observación brillante y de mérito, pero simplemente no hay información sobre Henrietta como para hacer de ella el centro del libro, y muere mucho antes de que se desarrollen la mayoría de los descubrimientos en el campo. Ni siquiera llega a terminar su propio trabajo.
Por lo demás, está bien escrito, es atrayente y a mí me ha dado a conocer cómo era el estudio de esos primeros astrónomos. Se lee con facilidad y deja buen sabor de boca.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This slim volume is a nice exended essay on the work of Henrietta Leavitt's work on measuring the universe and how this measure has been used from her time onwards. It is not quite a biography of Henrietta Leavitt since there is precious little to go on but what there is, is presented in this volume. The storyline is quite interesting including the little that is known about Ms. Leavitt and her work, how her work and ideas were used by the various astronomers she worked under, and the developing idead around the size of the Milky Way and other astronomical phenomena.

Johnson's descriptions and stories about many of the male figures involved is quite entertaining. Interestingly, he never develops any of the women mentioned in this volume, even ones, unlike Ms. Leavit, about whom more is known.

Really worth reading.

[Autumn Pearce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been inspired by Henrietta Leavitt for many years now, but found that it was nearly impossible to find good sources of information about her life. This book helped me to understand that we actually don’t know that much about her. Yet, this book did a great job putting together all of the information that we *do* know.

For me, this was a really good read because it gave me the historical and interpersonal context of the discoveries made in astronomy in the early 1900s. As a student of astrophysics who recently spent time at the Mt Wilson and Palomar observatories, it was particularly interesting to find out more about what was being done with those telescopes.

I would recommend this book to anybody who wants a better sense of how scientific progress occurs. It has definitely informed the way that I will do future research. I don’t want to mistake asters for trees ;)

[Lalit Singh Tomar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got the reference of Miss Leavitt in TV series COSMOS and in Simon Singh's Book Big Bang . The story touched to my heart and i was quite curious to know more about her . So i searched on amazon and found this Book.

This book is written in a very simple style. Its takes you to 19th century America. It also gives you a glimpses of lesser importance given to women in the field or science and astronomy . Miss Leavitt suffered a poor heath though out her life . She died young and unmarried. She was fully committed to her family. Professionally her approach was quite simple, but she was very particular for details.

In addition this book explains the journey of development of astronomical measurement . The author has explained this journey in a very logical manner.

CTM
There are difference types of Cepheid Variable for population 1 and population 2 stars.

[Juliette · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn’t tell if Johnson was writing for people who didn’t care to know about astronomy or people who already know everything about astronomy. I’m not stupid, but, for the longest time, I didn’t understand why he kept talking about the Andromeda nebula. Perhaps a chapter on astronomy in the 1920s versus when the book was written would have been helpful.

Even so, there is precious little about Leavitt herself. I didn’t care much about her biography, but I would have liked to know more about her work as a computer, the importance of the tedious task of charting the stars’ magnitudes, and the eventual importance of the Cepheids. Not only as they related to Hubble, but on their own, as Johnson says they ought to be remembered.

[David Spanagel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book teases us with an investigation into the gendered work world of early twentieth century astronomy, and then delivers a fairly cogent summary of the ensuing cosmological debates about the size, shape, and dynamics of the universe. It is probably too far a stretch to attribute every consequence that Johnson does, to the accomplishments of this one woman whose name is featured in the title, but the literary conceit of structuring this narrative around that simplistic claim certainly invites the lay reader effectively into an otherwise apparently abstruse but fundamentally important set of considerations.

[Kira Christensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sitting in science class as a kid and hearing about the far off distance of stars, I remember wondering how we knew. How did we know the distance? What kind of measuring stick can determine that distance? Turns out Henrietta Leavitt’s measuring stick has been one of the standards in measurement for over 100 years.

The book does not spend all of its time on Leavitt, but instead on how we we developed the means to measure our huge universe. (And we’re still refining it!) The author does a nice job of going through the concepts, and he works hard at telling Leavitt’s story even though there isn’t much for historical documents to tell it.

[Robert Nolin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would never have purchased a Kindle book this short for ten bucks, but there's little available about Henrietta Leavitt. This book reminded me of those short bio books we read as kids ("Paul Revere, American Patriot"), about 60 pages long, no real depth. I grant there isn't much of a record to go with, but the title should have been "The Quest to Measure the Universe," with Henrietta getting a nice chapter all her own. This was just misleading, so that the publisher could add a title to their series. The information provided is interesting and clear, helping this layman to understand math (no easy feat!) Still, it was dreadfully short.

[Gregory Strong · Rating 3 out of 5]

A relatively short but fascinating, even poignant, account of Henrietta Swan Leavitt's astronomical work as a "computer" at the Harvard Observatory in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Her diligent and accurate work on the brightness of stars, especially Cepheid variables, led to her brilliant insight into the relationship between period and luminosity. This in turn gave astronomers the first reliable and accurate means to begin to measure distances to stars, the size of our galaxy (the Milky Way), and eventually the proof and distance of galaxies beyond our own.

[Mike Phelan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Johnson does a decent job of telling the story of how we came to learn the size of the universe. This was fine but ultimately unsatisfying, as Leavitt is barely a major character in her own scientific biography. Johnson notes in the preface that very little is known about her life, which begs the question - why choose her for this series? I've very much enjoyed a number of others in this collection, but why not write about Curie or Lovelace or Franklin or someone else where you can really flesh out the biography aspect?