The lost honour of Henrietta Leavitt

Del Puerto, C.
Bibliographical reference

Highlights of Spanish Astrophysics VI, Proceedings of the IX Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Society (SEA), held in Madrid, September 13 - 17, 2010, Eds.: M. R. Zapatero Osorio, J. Gorgas, J. Maíz Apellániz, J. R. Pardo, and A. Gil de Paz., p. 860-860

Advertised on:
11
2011
Number of authors
1
IAC number of authors
1
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
The first scene opens with the music of Shirley Bassey. The astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt is writing a diary when visited by the famous CBS reporter Edward Roscoe Murrow. Henrietta is surprised that this American television channel should want to pay such a tribute to her, but she agrees to be interviewed. Annie Jump Cannon, her friend and colleague from Harvard College Observatory, accompanies her during most of the sessions. Everything goes so well that the journalist tries to touch on certain issues that Henrietta seems to want to keep secret, such as her relationship with Edward Charles Pickering, Director of the Observatory, and the reason why she failed to get the recognition for her work that she deserved.This is the argument of the play The Lost Honor of Henrietta Leavitt, a project of the Museo de la Ciencia y el Cosmos (Museum of Science and the Cosmos), run by the Organismo Autonomo de Museos y Centros of Cabildo de Tenerife (Autonomous Organism of Museums and Centres of the island government, Cabildo of Tenerife), with funding from the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) and designed for the International Year of Astronomy 2009. The play, written and directed by the author, Carmen del Puerto, has been staged eight times in Tenerife and Pamplona. The poster values this experience as a resource for scientific popularization.