The Cosmologist

A little while ago I read a book. This one to be precise.

If I may put on my reviewers hat once again - and I can cos I make the rules here - it was a good read. Beatrice definitely had an interesting life; profound, inspirational, and sad. And naturally she is/was under-appreciated here, in the country of her childhood, the country she called home. As worthy a subject for a biography as any, I finished it without really having any comprehension of her scientific work. Admittedly, the book wasn't written by or for astronomers but I would have liked a bit more discussion along those lines - especially as she changed the way we see the universe (apparently). Small quibble.

Here's a better review.

For years I have been working on ideas to combine both my scientific background and my photographic interests. I'm still not sure where I'm going with it. But I wrote to Christine Cole Catley in 2003 asking if she knew of any memorials for Beatrice Hill Tinsley in NZ. Here's some of her reply. "After my biography comes out next year, there jolly well should be some monuments!
There's a Beatrice Tinsley Avenue in Albany, Auckland, and an asteroid was named for her in the 1980s."

So when I was in Auckland recently I made a trip to Albany. I took some photos. Of the street not the asteroid.

It's pretty self-explanatory what that is. The one below is from the same corner looking along William Pickering Drive. We really know how to celebrate our intellectuals in this country - give them a street in an industrial park surrounded by streets named after other unknowns. (Check out the map ; let me know if you know who any of the others are.)