Science Astrophysics & Space Science
Her Space, Her Time
How Trailblazing Women Scientists Decoded the Hidden Universe
- Publisher
- MIT Press
- Initial publish date
- Oct 2023
- Category
- Astrophysics & Space Science, Science & Technology, Women's Studies
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780262048316
- Publish Date
- Oct 2023
- List Price
- $29.95 USD
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781039002401
- Publish Date
- Oct 2023
- List Price
- $35.00
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780262552998
- Publish Date
- Mar 2025
- List Price
- $22.95 USD
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Description
An exciting new title in the vein of Hidden Figures, which tells the inspiring stories of long-overlooked women physicists and astronomers who discovered the fundamental rules of the universe and reshaped the rules of society.
Women physicists and astronomers from around the world have transformed science and society, but the critical roles they played in their fields are not always well-sung. Her Space, Her Time, authored by award-winning quantum physicist Shohini Ghose, brings together the stories of these remarkable women to celebrate their indelible scientific contributions.
In each chapter of the book, Ghose explores a scientific topic and explains how the women featured in that chapter revolutionized that area of physics and astronomy. In doing so, she also addresses particular aspects of women’s experiences in physics and astronomy: in the chapter on time, for instance, we learn of Henrietta Leavitt and Margaret Burbidge, who helped discover the big bang and the cosmic calendar; in the chapter on space exploration, we learn of Anigaduwagi (Cherokee) aerospace scientist Mary Golda Ross, who helped make the Moon landings possible; and in the chapter on subatomic particles, we learn of Marietta Blau, Hertha Wambacher, and Bibha Chowdhuri, who contributed to the discovery of the building blocks of the universe, and, in doing so, played a crucial role in determining who gets to do physics today.
Engaging, accessible, and timely, Her Space, Her Time is a collective story of scientific innovation, inspirational leadership, and overcoming invisibility that will leave a lasting impression on any reader curious about the rule-breakers and trendsetters who illuminated our understanding of the universe.
Some of the featured women scientists in the book
- Williamina Fleming
- Annie Jump Cannon
- Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
- Antonia Maury
- Henrietta Leavitt
- Margaret Burbidge
- Mary Golda Ross
- Dilhan Eryurt
- Claudia Alexander
- Joyce Neighbors
- Navajo women of Shiprock
- Harriet Brooks
- Marie Curie
- Lise Meitner
- Marietta Blau
- Hertha Wambacher
- Bibha Chowdhuri
- Wu Chien-Shiung
- Women of the Manhattan Project
- Vera Rubin
About the author
Contributor Notes
Shohini Ghose is Professor of Physics and Computer Science at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. She is Director of the Laurier Centre for Women in Science (WinS) and the NSERC Chair for Women in Science and Engineering. She is the recipient of several awards, including a TED Senior Fellowship and selection to the College of the Royal Society of Canada, and in 2019, was among 25 women scientists worldwide featured in a UNESCO exhibit in Paris. She is the author of Clues to the Cosmos.
Excerpt: Her Space, Her Time: How Trailblazing Women Scientists Decoded the Hidden Universe (by (author) Shohini Ghose)
Have you ever tried counting stars on a warm summer night? From the balcony of my downtown apartment, in the glare of the streetlamps, sometimes I can count them on the fingers of two hands. But if you find yourself far from city lights, say, in the Gobi Desert or on Mount Everest, your tally could be a few thousand. For every star you see, many trillions remain invisible to your naked eyes. But they are there, shining steadily, and even though they are invisible to us, we know a lot about them.
We know that all those multitudes of stars are made of mostly hydrogen and helium. We know they can be classified according to their temperature. We know how to measure the distances to those tiny points in the sky, and we know how they live and die, synthesizing the elements of life deep in their cores. We know how long ago the universe came into existence, when the first stars were born, and we even have some inkling of how the universe will end.
All of this knowledge, and many other fundamental insights that transformed physics and astronomy, came from discoveries made by women. From the earliest days of scientific exploration, they were there, shining a new light on the universe, even when they were eclipsed by the brighter halos of the men they worked with. These women looked inside stars and inside atoms, discovered new elements and new particles, and fought for science and for justice and for future generations. This book is about these unsung explorers of the cosmos, invisible stars here on Earth who made the unseen universe visible.
Of the countless stars out there, a vast number are not solitary like our Sun. Instead, they are paired in a binary system, each stellar couple locked together in a gravitational embrace. It’s rather comforting to think of them holding on to each other in the vast emptiness of space, twirling around each other in a beautiful cosmic waltz. One special binary couple is in the constellation called Niska (the Goose) by the Cree people of North America; the Greeks called it Cygnus, the Swan. One of the pair is a blue supergiant star. The other is a black hole, an invisible object so massive and dense that even light cannot escape its gravitational pull. So how do we know that it is there? The answer lies in watching its partner.
Imagine a couple waltzing in a ballroom, the man visible, but the woman invisible. You see him holding her invisible hand and you see how he moves when she pulls him close. You know she is there. The blue supergiant reveals its unseen partner in the same way, its orbital dance revealing the tug of a hidden companion. Cygnus X-1 was the first black hole to be discovered in this way, back in 1971. Seeing an object that should be impossible to see caused quite a splash. Many believed that such an object could not even exist. Even Stephen Hawking bet that the discovery was a mistake. He was happy to be proved wrong.
As a physicist, I have always been fascinated by black holes, which remain one of the ultimate mysteries in physics and astronomy. But their discovery also held a deeper meaning for me—the universe was showing us that nothing is truly invisible.
Editorial Reviews
Included in Publishers Weekly's Fall 2023 Adult Announcements Science list
Selected as one of The Next Big Idea Club’s October 2023 Must-Read Books
“Shohini Ghose’s book Her Space, Her Time: How Trailblazing Women Scientists Decoded the Hidden Universe certainly fulfills its subtitle. The seven chapters are highly informative, each one having dramatic moments and discoveries. Ghose skillfully weaves together accessible descriptions of astrophysical concepts with the personal lives of the women scientists. I recommend this book as required reading for anyone teaching astronomy and astrophysics, as well as those with an amateur interest . . . By writing this book, Ghose is doing the work of rectifying some of these past wrongs.”
—American Scientist
“A disdain for misogyny past and present shines through in Shohini Ghose's rich history of women's underappreciated contributions to astronomy and physics . . . Her Space, Her Time [has] made an important contribution to this chain of histories, one that will no doubt lead to a clearer view of the science that lit up our universe.”
—New Scientist
“This book is truly for everyone, and I can’t overstate how much I enjoyed it.”
—BBC Sky at Night Magazine
“[An] engaging new book . . . Ghose explains complex concepts with clarity, understandable for the non-scientist, and the book is a passionate look at the women who’ve pushed our understanding forward in space exploration, radioactivity, the splitting of the atom, and subatomic imaging, revealing the crucial role women have played, bringing their achievements to light, and in doing, making a strong case for women’s place in science now.”
—The Boston Globe
“Her Space, Her Time will likely draw comparisons to other biographies of women scientists and mathematicians like Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly and The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel. But Ghose’s book, with its unique structure and writing style, earns its own space (pun intended) in the genre . . . Her Space, Her Time provides a digestible, informative starting point for making these scientists visible.”
—Symmetry
“A fascinating book about relatively neglected pioneering women physicists and
astronomers who have made transformative contributions despite the overbearing
influence of masculine science and institutions.”
—Paradigm Explorer
