Science writer Dava Sobel to speak at Cornell on ‘Quest for Longitude’

MOUNT VERNON — Dava Sobel, an award-winning writer and former New York Times science reporter, will speak on “The Quest for Longitude” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 13, at Cornell College.

Her talk, for Cornell’s Anderson Science Lecture, is in Kimmel Theatre of Youngker Hall. Admission is free.

Sobel has authored “Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time,” “Galileo’s Daughter” and its sequel, “Letters to Father,” and “The Planets.” She has written for magazines including Audubon, Discover, Life and The New Yorker, has been a contributing editor to Harvard Magazine and Omni and has co-authored five books, including “Is Anyone Out There?” with astronomer Frank Drake.

She is now working on a stage play about 16th-century astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.

“Longitude” was translated into two dozen languages and became a national and international best seller after its 1995 original publication. The book won the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and “Book of the Year” in England.

“Galileo’s Daughter,” based on 124 surviving letters to Galileo from his eldest child, won the 1999 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for science and technology and was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in biography.

The PBS science program “Nova” produced television documentaries based on Sobel’s books, “Lost At Sea — The Search for Longitude” and “Galileo’s Battle for the Heavens,” with the latter winning an Emmy in the category of historical programming. Granada Films of England created “Longitude,” a drama starring Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon, which aired on A&E as a four-hour made-for-TV movie. A “Nova” adaptation of “The Planets” is in production.

Sobel received the 2001 Individual Public Service Award from the National Science Board “for fostering awareness of science and technology among broad segments of the general public.” The Boston Museum of Science gave her its prestigious Bradford Washburn Award in 2001 for “outstanding contribution toward public understanding of science, appreciation of its fascination, and the vital role it plays in all our lives.” In October 2004, in London, she received the Harrison Medal from the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, in recognition of her contribution to increasing awareness of the science of horology by the general public, through her writing and lecturing.

Sobel is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science and the State University of New York at Binghamton.

The Anderson Science Lecture was established by the late Richmond Anderson and Cleo Holland Anderson, both Cornell graduates, in honor of their families. Richmond earned a medical degree at Northwestern University and had a nearly 30-year career in public health. Previous Anderson Lectures have been given by Dudley Herschbach of Harvard, Roald Hoffmann of Cornell University and William Lipscomb of Harvard, all Nobel laureates in chemistry; Jerald Schnoor of the University of Iowa’s department of civil and environmental engineering; and Victor Weisskopf of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology department of physics.