Sobel, Dava

Dava Sobel (born June 15, 1947) is the author of "Longitude, Galileo's Daughter, The Planets, " and most recently "A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos". A former staff science reporter for "The New York Times, " she has also written for numerous magazines, including "Discover, " "Harvard Magazine, Smithsonian, " and "The New Yorker".

Her most unforgettable assignment at the "Times" required her to live 25 days as a research subject in the chronophysiology lab at Montefiore Hospital, where the boarded-up windows and specially trained technicians kept her from knowi...