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Starlight Detectives: How Astronomers, Inventors, and Eccentrics Discovered the Modern Universe - Paperback | Diverse Reads

Starlight Detectives: How Astronomers, Inventors, and Eccentrics Discovered the Modern Universe

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Julia Ward Howe Award Finalist
NBC News “Top Science and Tech Books of the Year” selection
Scientific American/FSG “Favorite Science Books of the Year” selection
Nature.com “Top Reads of the Year” selection
Kirkus Reviews “Best Books of the Year” selection
Discover magazine “Top 5 Summer Read”

“A masterful balance of science, history and rich narrative.” —Discover magazine

“Hirshfeld tells this climactic discovery of the expanding universe with great verve and sweep, as befits a story whose scope, characters and import leave most fiction far behind.” —Wall Street Journal

“Starlight Detectives is just the sort of richly veined book I love to read—full of scientific history and discoveries, peopled by real heroes and rogues, and told with absolute authority. Alan Hirshfeld’s wide, deep knowledge of astronomy arises not only from the most careful scholarship, but also from the years he’s spent at the telescope, posing his own questions to the stars.” —DAVA SOBEL, author of A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos and Longitude

In 1929, Edwin Hubble announced the greatest discovery in the history of astronomy since Galileo first turned a telescope to the heavens. The galaxies, previously believed to float serenely in the void, are in fact hurtling apart at an incredible speed: the universe is expanding. This stunning discovery was the culmination of a decades-long arc of scientific and technical advancement. In its shadow lies an untold, yet equally fascinating, backstory whose cast of characters illuminates the gritty, hard-won nature of scientific progress.

The path to a broader mode of cosmic observation was blazed by a cadre of nineteenth-century amateur astronomers and inventors, galvanized by the advent of photography, spectral analysis, and innovative technology to create the entirely new field of astrophysics. From William Bond, who turned his home into a functional observatory, to John and Henry Draper, a father and son team who were trailblazers of astrophotography and spectroscopy, to geniuses of invention such as Léon Foucault, and George Hale, who founded the Mount Wilson Observatory, Hirshfeld reveals the incredible stories—and the ambitious dreamers—behind the birth of modern astronomy.

Alan Hirshfeld, Professor of Physics at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and an Associate of the Harvard College Observatory, is the author of Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos, The Electric Life of Michael Faraday, and Eureka Man: The Life and Legacy of Archimedes.

ISBN-13: 9781934137789

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press

Publication Date: 07-08-2014

Pages: 400

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

Alan Hirshfeld, Professor of Physics at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and an Associate of the Harvard College Observatory, received his undergraduate degree in astrophysics from Princeton and his Ph.D. in astronomy from Yale. He is the author of Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos, The Electric Life of Michael Faraday, and Eureka Man: The Life and Legacy of Archimedes. He is a regular book reviewer for the Wall Street Journal and has contributed to Sky & Telescope, the American Journal of Physics, BBC History Magazine, and American Scientist. He has made radio and television appearances on NPR, PBS, and C-SPAN and lectures nationwide about science history and discovery.

Table of Contents

Introduction 13

Part I Picturing the Heavens 19

1 True Eye and Faithful Hand 21

2 The Ingenious Mechanic of Dorchester 29

3 Writing with Light 40

4 Summits of Silver 54

5 The Man with the Oil-Can 65

6 The Evangelists 76

7 The Aristocrat and the Artisan 86

8 Passion Is Good, Obsession Is Better 96

9 From Closet to Cosmos 112

10 Leaves of Glass 120

11 The Grandest Failure 132

12 An Uncivil War 144

Part II Seeing the Light 153

13 The Odd Couple 155

14 What's My Line? 163

15 Laboratories of Light 173

16 Deconstructing the Sun 186

17 A Strange Cryptography 194

18 Trumpets and Telescopes 208

19 Burn This Note 217

20 A Spectacle of Suns 230

21 The Cloud That Wasn't There 237

22 The Union of Two Astronomies 247

Part III Money, Mirrors, and Madness 257

23 Mr. Hale of Chicago 259

24 The Universe in the Mirror 274

25 Threads to a Web 285

26 Size Matters 299

27 A Night to Remember 311

28 Oculis Subjecta Fidelibus 320

Epilogue 331

References 335

Appendices 346

Time Line 346

Glossary of Names 349

Bibliography 353

Acknowledgments 380

Illustration Sources and Permissions 381

Index 383