This fascinating portrait of an amateur astronomy movement tells
the story of how Charles Olivier recruited a hard-working cadre of
citizen scientists to rehabilitate the study of meteors. By 1936,
Olivier and members of his American Meteor Society had succeeded in
disproving an erroneous idea about meteor showers. Using careful
observations, they restored the public's trust in predictions about
periodic showers and renewed respect for meteor astronomy among
professional astronomers in the United States. Charles Olivier and
his society of observers who were passionate about watching for
meteors in the night sky left a major impact on the field. In
addition to describing Olivier's career and describing his
struggles with competitive colleagues in a hostile scientific
climate, the author provides biographies of some of the scores of
women and men of all ages who aided Olivier in making shower
observations, from the Leonids and Perseids and others. Half of
these amateur volunteers were from 13 to 25 years of age. Their
work allowed Olivier and the AMS to contradict the fallacious
belief in stationary and long-enduring meteor showers, bringing the
theory of their origin into alignment with celestial mechanics.
Thanks to Olivier and his collaborators, the study of meteors took
a great leap forward in the twentieth century to earn a place as a
worthy topic of study among professional astronomers.
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