Five Women at the Crossroads of Astronomy在天文学的十字路口的五个女人.ppt

Overview Caroline Herschel and women in history Pickering’s Computers Vera Rubin PhD candidates at UW US data Observations and strategies Caroline Herschel (1750 – 1848) Did you know that Hildegard proposed a heliocentric universe 300 years before Copernicus? that she wrote of universal gravitation 500 years before Newton? But who would listen to her? She was just a nun, a woman. What is our age, if that age was dark? As for my name, it will also be forgotten, but I am not accused of being a sorceress, like Aganice, and the Christians do not threaten to drag me to church, to murder me, like they did Hyptia of Alexandria, the eloquent, young woman who devised the instruments used to accurately measure the position and motion of heavenly bodies. However long we live, life is short, so I work. And however important man becomes, he is nothing compared to the stars. There are secrets, dear sister, and it is for us to reveal them. Your name, like mine, is a song. Write soon, Caroline a poem by Siv Cedering (1986) Every leisure moment was eagerly snatched at for resuming some work which was in progress, without taking time or changing dress, and many a lace ruffle ... was torn or bespattered by molten pitch. ... I was even obliged to feed [my brother] by putting the vitals by bits into his mouth; - this was once the case when, at the finishing of a 7 foot mirror, he had not left his hands from it for 16 hours ... – Caroline Herschel NGC 891 Some important questionsfor astronomy in 1900 What types of stars are there? How far away are stars and nebulae? What are stars made of? Annie Jump Cannon (1863 – 1941) Pickering’s Computers (1912) At the Observatory, I am classifying, classifying and now getting ready to start on a large piece for Yale Observatory. It will be a job! And will keep several assistants busy doing minor details. Of course I love to do it. – Annie Jump Cannon Annie Jump Cannon’s classification of stars led to understanding their fundamental