Dava Sobel

Dava Sobel (born June 15, 1947) is an American writer of popular expositions of scientific topics. Her books include Longitude, about English clockmaker John Harrison; Galileo's Daughter, about Galileo's daughter Maria Celeste; and The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars about the Harvard Computers.

Biography

Sobel was born in The Bronx, New York City. She graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and Binghamton University. She wrote Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time in 1995. The story was made into a television movie of the same name by Charles Sturridge and Granada Film in 1999, and was shown in the United States by A&E.

Her book Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.^[2] In 2005, Sobel published The Planets, her most ambitious topic to date.  In this New York Times extended best seller, Sobel explores the origins and oddities of the planets through the lenses of both science and popular culture, from astrology, mythology, and science fiction to art, music, poetry, biography, and history.

She holds honorary doctor of letters degrees from the University of Bath and Middlebury College, Vermont, both awarded in 2002.^[3]

Sobel made her first foray into teaching at the University of Chicago as the Vare Writer-in-Residence in the winter of 2006. She taught a one-quarter seminar on science writing.

She served as a judge for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award in 2012.^[4]

Sobel is the niece of journalist Ruth Gruber^[5] and the cousin of epidemiologist David Michaels.

Legacy

Asteroid 30935 Davasobel, discovered by Carolyn S. Shoemaker and David H. Levy, was named after her for her literary work in physics.^[6]

Sobel states that she is a chaser of solar eclipses and that "it's the closest thing to witnessing a miracle". As of August 2012 she had seen eight, and planned to see the November 2012 total solar eclipse in Australia.^[6]

Publications

• Arthritis: What Works; Revolutionary Healing Approaches From An Unprecedented Nationwide Survey Of People With Arthritis. St. Martin's Press. 1992. ISBN 978-0-312-92719-6.
• Arthritis: What Exercises Work: Breakthrough Relief for the Rest of Your Life, Even After Drugs and Surgery Have Failed. St. Martin's Press. 2015. ISBN 978-1250068682.
• Backache: What Exercises Work. St. Martin's Press. 1996.
• Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (1995) ISBN 1-85702-571-7. OCLC 909490210 – the genius in question was John Harrison, who spent decades trying to convince the British Admiralty of the accuracy of his naval timepieces and their use in determining longitude when at sea in order to win the longitude prize. The book itself won the 1997 British Book of the Year award.
• Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love (2000) ISBN 0-14-028055-3
• The Best American Science Writing 2004 (editor) ISBN 9780060726409, OCLC 916515131
• The Planets: A discourse on the discovery, science, history and mythology, of the planets in our solar system, with one chapter devoted to each of the celestial spheres. (2005) ISBN 1-85702-850-3, OCLC 77646686^[7]
• A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos. Bloomsbury Publishing. 4 October 2011. ISBN 978-0-8027-7893-2. OCLC 819387028^[8]
• The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars (2016) ISBN 9780143111344, OCLC 972263666^[9]
• The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science (2024) ISBN 978-0802163820, OCLC 1437997660^[10][11][12]

Recognition

In 2008, Sobel was awarded the Klumpke-Roberts Award by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.^[13]

She was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2022 "for outstanding writings covering many centuries of key developments in physics and astronomy and the people central to those developments".^[14]

References

1. ^ Sobel, Dava. "Self-Portrait". Retrieved December 26, 2013.
2. ^ "The Pulitzer Prizes: Biography or Autobiography". Retrieved 2017-04-20.
3. ^ "Dava Sobel Biography". Archived from the original on December 6, 2011.
4. ^ "Announcing the 2012 PEN Literary Award Recipients". PEN American Center. October 15, 2012. Archived from the original on April 8, 2016. Retrieved February 6, 2013.
5. ^ Brawarsky, Sandee (November 22, 2016). "100 Years of Asking Questions". The Jewish Week. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
6. ^ "Transcript". Jennifer Byrne Presents: Dava Sobel. Retrieved August 29, 2012.
7. ^ Moore, Patrick (2 September 2005). "Review: The Planets by Dava Sobel". The Guardian
8. ^ Brown, Helen (11 October 2011). "Review: A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionised the Cosmos by Dava Sobel". The Telegraph
9. ^ "The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel". PenguinRandomhouse.com
10. ^ "The Elements of Marie Curie". groveantlantic.com
11. ^ Zernike, Kate (2024-10-10). "Book Review: 'The Elements of Marie Curie,' by Dava Sobel". The New York Times. Retrieved 2024-11-13.
12. ^ Spinney, Laura (2024-11-11). "The Elements of Marie Curie by Dava Sobel review – the great scientist who created her own school". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-11-13.
13. ^ "Klumpke-Roberts Award : Awards : WHO WE ARE : Astronomical Society of the Pacific". astrosociety.org. Retrieved 2026-05-26.
14. ^ "Fellows nominated in 2022". APS Fellows archive. American Physical Society. Retrieved 2022-10-19.

External links

• Dava Sobel at IMDb
• Podcast of Dava Sobel discussing The Origins of Longitude at the Shanghai International Literary Festival