Miss Leavitt's Stars by George Johnson

The universe has grown a lot in the last century, at least in the estimation of astronomers. A series of observations, discoveries, and estimations have led from a view that the entirety of the universe is a smallish Milky Way galaxy to the present view in which many galaxies, and large clusters of galaxies, occupy a space that is billions of miles across.

One of the early, and still much used, discoveries that made measuring the universe possible was the period-luminosity relationship of a set of variable stars called Cepheids. Variable stars change in brightness over times. Cepheids change in brightness with a regular pattern. The length of that pattern, or period, is related to the average brightness of the star. Brightness and distance are hard to measure; the star appears brighter or dimmer based on how near or far away it is. Measuring the period of a Cepheid lets us know its brightness, and comparing that to its apparent brightness lets us know how far away it is (using a relationship called the inverse square law).

The Cepheid period-luminosity relationship was discovered by Henrietta Swan Leavitt. She was not recognized as a professional astronomer by the  academic leaders of Harvard University, where she worked, even though she had academic credentials and publications that put her on par with many who had doctorates in the field.

She was a woman and she was a computer. Before the invention of modern electronic computers, computers were people who managed data and performed calculations. Little is known about how Leavitt felt about the sexual discrimination that was common at the time, and she seemed to be contented with her life. Even so, if she had been a man, her accomplishments would very likely have earned her a plum appointment.

George Johnson’s book about this accomplished woman, Miss Leavitt’s Stars, is not a book about discrimination. It is a brief biography of a little-known astronomer who laid the groundwork for our understanding of the size of the universe.

Leavitt, who died relatively young, left a legacy in the science built on her work. Some of that appears in the work of famous Missourian Edwin Hubble, namesake of the Hubble Space Telescope, used Leavitt’s period-luminosity law to estimate the distance to Andromeda, and determine that it must be separate galaxy and not a cloud in the Milky Way. Astronomy has advanced a lot in the last 90 years, but astronomers continue to use Leavitt’s work to estimate distances in space when they can find Cepheids.

Johnson’s book is short. This is partly because Levitt didn’t leave much of a paper trail outside of her professional writing. It is about equal parts popular science and biography. I enjoyed it, yet I can imagine it being within the grasp of a high school student. It may be a good book for a budding astronomer or physicists. Unfortunately, there may not much more that we can learn about Leavitt, but her story is an introduction to Hubble, Einstein, and others who did important work relevant to astronomy.

Johnson, George. Miss Leavitt’s Stars: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe.  New York: Atlas, 2005.

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Copernicus’ Secret by Jack Repcheck

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On a Grander Scale by Lisa Jardine

Christopher Wren (1632-1723) is famous as an architect. In particular, he is known for the mark he made on the architectural landscape of London after the Great Fire of 1666. St. Paul’s cathedral, where he is buried, may be the crowning example of his work, but he designed and built many churches and public buildings in what may have been an early model for a modern architectural and construction firm.

As any biographer of Wren must, Lisa Jardine covers his career as an architect in On a Grander Scale. She also emphasizes other aspects of his life, specifically the effect political upheaval may have had on his personal outlook and career, and his involvement in scientific pursuits leading to the establishment of the Royal Society.

Wren has a privileged lifestyle as a child. His father (also Christopher) and uncle had posts as Anglican clergy that brought the close to Charles I. Wren spent some important years of his childhood in a house in the walls of Whitehall. His family remained royalists during the Commonwealth and Protectorate periods, leaving them little access to the favored clerical and political positions they had enjoyed. The young Wren effectively operated as a secretary and assistant to academically minded, ousted royalists who turned to science and invention to establish their fortunes. His mathematical sharpness, mechanical handiness, and facility for drawing gained him favor in this group of Renaissance physicians, physicists, chemists and astronomers. While still a young man, he joined them as a peer and gained an appointment as an astronomy professor.

Wren remained active in these scientific circles, even when he was much in demand as an architect and royal construction manager (Surveyor-General of the King’s Works). With his good friend Robert Hooke (curator of experiments for the Royal Society as well as a designer in Wren’s office), he looked for opportunities to incorporate scientific study into buildings. The work of the precursor of the Royal Society was very collaborative, and Jardine shows how Wren took that into his later scientific and architectural practices. His willingness to collaborate with people he trusted was probably a contributing factor to his success as an administrator of so many building, scientific, business, public and political projects.

When the monarchy was restored, Charles II attempted to reward those who had been loyal to his father, or their sons. Wren never became greatly wealthy or powerful through preferment, but he did rise to some prominence and had a successful career in public service. Charles I made him Surveyor-General, and he was reappointed by James II, co-monarchs William and Mary, Queen Anne, and George I. He was charming, astute, cautious and conscientious, which served him well on his long career. He was perhaps too cautious (or upright), because he never gained the wealth many of his mentors and peers achieved.

Jardine shows how Wren was among a group of men who pinned their hopes on a restored monarchy that was never as glorious as they hoped it would be. Even so, Wren was resourceful, as were his family and sponsors, and he rose to a career that his talent for science and hard work made possible. She sets him in the context of his time and particularly of his relationships. These relationships were with other men whose fathers fell from favor with the monarchy, mentors and peers in the scientific community (especially his close friend Hooke), and trusted assistants in his architectural practice. Wren is regarded as genius, and Jardine would agree, but he is also very much a part of a community of similar people who, to varying degrees, shared his fate and aided his success.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Descarte’s Secret Notebook by Amir D. Aczel

The Feud that Sparked the Renaissance by Paul Robert Walker

The Science of Leonardo by Fritjof Capra

Jardine, Lisa. On a Grander Scale: The Outstanding Life of Christopher Wren. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.

How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson

The prevailing myth of invention is that it is the product of a solitary genius. Steven Johnson takes on this myth in How We Got to Now.

Johnson’s book is a history of invention with a focus on six particular innovations. He demonstrates that simultaneous invention is common, suggesting that societal knowledge, norms and expectations play a part in invention—at least in providing an environment in which certain types of inventions can be created and flourish.

Thomas Edison and the light bulb is the classic myth challenged by simultaneous invention. Humphrey Davy demonstrated an incandescent electric light in 1802 and Frederick de Moleyns received the first patent for a light bulb in 1841. By the time Edison got involve, people had been working on light bulbs for 30 years, and the potential for electric light had been now for 70 years. Edison and his team of collaborators deserve a lot of credit for creating a commercially successful electric lighting system, inventing solutions to many problems along the way, but is a story of systematic hard work.

Edison’s electric lighting system depended on a lot of prior technology, which relates to another of Johnson’s points: clusters of inventions. An invention can illuminate a previously unnoticed problem (or create a new one). For instance, the availability of affordable books that follow Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press revealed that many people were farsighted. This sparked a demand for reading glasses. The tinkering with lenses led to the invention of telescopes and microscopes. Galileo took up the telescope and made discoveries in astronomy that reshaped how people saw the world. Robert Hooke used the microscope to explore a seemingly alien world of the very tiny thing all around us, though the revolution he inspired took longer to bloom.

Johnson explores other aspects of invention and society. I think it is fair to say that his view of how invention works is a lot messier than the myth. Inventors are at the right place at the right time, with open minds that are prepared (likely by accident) to make a connection and a willingness to do the work of thinking, testing and making something new. They probe the boundaries of their fields, tinker and throw themselves into hobbies that bring them, often with companions, to crossroads that challenge their notions of where they can go and how they can get there.

On the whole, Johnson presents a vision of hope in our history. We are not dependent on genius or serendipity; human creativity is both a social and an individual process in which the collision of ideas leads to new ideas. We live in an era where the collision of ideas may be more possible than ever.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Ada's Algorithm by James Essinger

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

The Big Necessity by Rose George

The Big Roads by Earl Swift

The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman

Bottled Lightning by Seth Fletcher

Circles by James Burke

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes

The Great Stink by Clare Clark

Hedy's Folly by Richard Rhodes

Make a Joyful Sound by Helen Elmira Waite

The Pinball Effect by James Burke

The Powerhouse by Steve Levine

Rust by Jonathan Waldman

Steven Johnson also wrote

The Ghost Map

The Invention of Air

Johnson, Steven. How We Got To Now: Six Innovations that Make the Modern World. New York: Riverhead, 2014.

Copernicus’ Secret by Jack Repcheck

Repcheck, Jack. Copernicus’ Secret. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007.

Copernicus is famous for kicking off the scientific revolution by proclaiming his heliocentric (sun-centered) theory of the universe. Someone who reads much about the scientific revolution that came about in the 15th and 16th centuries will come across his name. Even so, there are many misconceptions regarding the astronomer.


The main misconception is that Copernicus was prosecuted for his heliocentric theory. Though his book on the subject was eventually banned by the Roman Catholic Church for about two centuries, he was an official of the church who had taken first orders and he was mostly well received in both the scientific and religious communities of his day. His primary book on the subject wasn’t even published until the very end of his life.

Copernicus had his share of troubles. One he brought on himself by keeping a mistress. His ordination included a vow of celibacy. The other came from being an official of Catholic government in a territory surrounded by recently converted Lutheran countries.

Oddly enough, it was Lutheran mathematics professor who helped the Catholic astronomer prepare is book for publication. Joachim Rheticus was educated at Wittenberg where he taught astronomy and astrology (astrology was widely accepted at the time and practiced by almost all astronomers). He was given a leave of absence, which he stretched out for three years before returning to his duties, and took it upon himself to find Copernicus and become his student.

This was a dangerous situation for Rheticus, Lutherans were banned from Copernicus’ home territory of Warmia, and doubly so for Copernicus because of his role as a church and civil official. That he housed a Lutheran seemed to have been tolerated better than his long affair with a woman.

Copernicus’ Secret is an interesting look at the astronomer’s professional life and its development. It touches on his personal life, especially his long-term relationship with the mistress who lived with him until he was forced to break off the relationship, but this part is much weaker. This may be because Copernicus was a private person. Even so, Repcheck show’s that trouble Copernicus faced had more to do with his personal life and the political tensions of the day than with his proposal of a heliocentric universe.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Descarte’s Secret Notebook by Amir D. Aczel
The Invention of Air by Steven Johnson
The Science of Leonardo by Fritjof Capra

The Essential Engineer by Henry Petroski

Petroski, Henry. The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems. New York: Vintage, 2010.

Policy makers seem to love science. I can see why. Science provides a sense of specificity, certainty and consensus. It contrasts with the vagueness, variability and competition that policy makers usually have to deal with. That is more like the world engineering.

This interrelation of policy-making, science and engineering, especially the latter two, is the subject of Henry Petroski’s book, The Essential Engineer. In particular, Petroski emphasizes the important, and often overlooked, role of engineering is solving pressing problems.



I doesn’t help that people conflate science and engineering, especially by thinking of engineering as branch or application of science. Petroski is clear about the differences. Science is about increasing knowledge. Engineering is about invention. Sometimes scientists do engineering, especially when they create a devise or process to help them in their work of discovery. Sometimes engineers do science, especially when their engage in research and experimentation to gain a better understanding or problems that are not well understood.

The movement of knowledge from science to engineering practice is well understood. Petroski describes how this became ingrained in American research and development policy. Engineering often precedes science and engineers often must invent solutions in areas that are not well understood by science. Galileo’s improvements to the telescope made possible his advancements in astronomy. The science of thermodynamics grew almost entirely out of the desire to understand steam engines, which engineers had been building and improving in the absence of scientific understanding.

This misunderstanding exacerbated by our culture and education. Policy elites and scientist generally have no education in engineering. As an undergraduate studying engineering, I took science classes with students majoring in the sciences. I took classes in political science, economics and other social science and business-oriented classes with students majoring in those fields. I would have been greatly surprised to find in one of my engineering classes a student who wasn’t majoring in engineering.*

Petroski does not try to bring down science. He’s a civil engineering professor at a sizeable university, so he has probably spent quite a bit of time doing science. He does distinguish how science is helpful, mainly as a warning. Science can help us identify and define problems and assess the risks involve. When we begin to devise solutions to those problems, especially when there is no definitive solution and judgment is needed to way the pros and cons of multiple possible answers, we are moving into engineering.

The Essential Engineer is not a technical book. It for anyone who may have an interest in the role of technology in addressing our problems, especially larger societal problems. Petroski draws illustrations from current events and history (he is a professor of history as well as engineering). The book is enlivened with a storytelling feel.

* There were exceptions. I took a course in food processing that was dual-listed in agricultural engineering and food science. It was a required course for both disciplines. Electrical engineering students almost automatically minored in math, and some clever and ambitious students double-majored in those subjects. With a little better planning, I could have swung a minor in agricultural economics, and I almost wish I had. When I got into wastewater engineering, I wished I had taken more microbiology. My pursuit of additional education lead to a graduate degree in public administration. Government agencies have been employers or clients most of my career. It is common for engineers to get a masters degree in business, especially as they become managers.

Henry Petroski also wrote Paperboy.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague de Camp
The Big Necessity by Rose George
Newton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson

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A Professor, a President, and a Meteor by Cathryn J. Prince

A Professor, a President, and a Meteor, a book by Cathryn J. Prince, is a biography of Benjamin Silliman. Silliman helped to establish the United States as a scientific leader.

Silliman was part of the post-Revolutionary generation. His father, Gold Selleck Silliman, was a general in the Continental Army. Benjamin Silliman had hoped to make a name for himself in the law, but was persuaded by a family friend to pursue science, though it was not a career likely to lead to prominence in America.

American science was not well regarded in those days, especially in Europe. A falling star, and Silliman’s diligent and careful study, changed that.

In 1807, a large meteor fell over Weston, Connecticut. Silliman, a very young, new professor of chemistry at Yale, and his colleague James Kingsley, went as quickly as they could to the remote community. The carefully interviewed witnesses, surveyed the location of meteorites, and collected samples. Silliman took samples back to New Haven to analyze them in his lab.

Silliman helped to establish that meteors originated in outer space. Popular theories at the time were that they came for lunar or terrestrial volcanoes or somehow formed in the atmosphere. The notion that something from outer space could fall to Earth was radical.

Silliman other contributions to American science were his work as a popularizer and mentor. He was an able teacher and able to communicate science to a broad audience. His public lectures on science around the country were very popular. He also helped to train a generation of American scientists. At the beginning of his career, he had to go to Europe to study chemistry and geology, at the end of his career and budding scientist could be educated in the U.S.

Silliman’s ability to reach the people of his day was his devotion to his Christian faith. He saw no serious conflict between his religion and his science. He was able to stay out of debates with clergymen that would have brought opposition to his scientific views.

In spite of the title, I found little reason to drag the president into it. Thomas Jefferson was in office at the time of the Weston Fall. Silliman, like other New England Federalists, had little liking for his policies, nor did Jefferson much care for his adversaries in the region. In addition, the president did not highly esteem geology or astronomy, instead preferring biological sciences that he considered to have more practical application. Prince brings up these difference in the book, but they never seem to add up to a serious conflict between Silliman and Jefferson.

Prince, Cathryn J.  A Professor, a President, and a Meteor: The Birth of American Science. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2011.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

A Little History of Science by William Bynum

Copernicus’ Secret by Jack Repcheck

Defining Noah Webster by K. Alan Snyder

The Essential Engineer by Henry Petroski

His Excellency by Joseph J. Ellis

The Invention of Air by Steven Johnson

Miss Leavitt's Stars by George Johnson

Newton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson

Triumvirate by Bruce Chadwick

Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose