Tuesday I wrote about a book by Dava Sobel from 2016. The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars. Dava Sobel. Viking. 2016. I’ve been rereading it. Sobel is a remarkable writer, able to explain scientific concepts clearly. This can deceive the reader into thinking a topic [...]
Category: science and engineering
I’m on vacation but I read a fascinating book …
The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars. Dava Sobel. Viking. 2016. The ladies in question started working at Harvard Observatory in the late 1800’s and some of them continued their work until the 1930’s and 1940’s. These women were not students at Harvard; they were employees [...]
Catholic scientists, a list of women
I started working on lists of Catholic scientists twenty-five years ago. My father, a Catholic scientist himself, had commented for years on people who shared that faith. The worldly belief that you can't be both was strong, even sixty years ago. In 2016 a Society of Catholic Scientists was founded. I had heard of it [...]
I’m out of practice on titles… Book Reviews!
Last week I was away in a place that has problematic internet access. I also had to spend a lot of time at a bank and at a town hall, or waiting for a call back from the town hall, or trying to figure out how to not need a call back from the town [...]
Michel-Eugene Chevreul, French Catholic scientist
Michel-Eugene Chevreul was a French chemist who lived to be 103 (1786—1889). The Catholic Encyclopedia at New Advent* calls him a physicist, and philosopher, as well as chemist. His work on fats and fatty acids was so useful to the French soap and candle industries in the 19th century that he is one of the [...]
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