| ID | 152589 |
| Title Proper | How to maintain America’s edge |
| Other Title Information | increase funding for basic science |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Reif, L Rafael |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | In February 2016, scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the California Institute of Technology, or Caltech, joined with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to share some remarkable news: two black holes 1.3 billion light-years away had collided, and the resulting gravitational waves had been “heard” by the twin detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). This was the first time such waves—ripples in the space-time continuum caused by the violent acceleration of massive objects—had ever been directly observed. Albert Einstein had predicted such waves a century ago, but it was long doubted that instrumentation sensitive enough to confirm their existence could ever be created. It took more than four decades of work by a vast team of scientists to make the impossible possible. |
| `In' analytical Note | Foreign Affairs Vol. 96, No.3; May-June 2017: p.95-103 |
| Journal Source | Foreign Affairs Vol: 96 No 3 |
| Key Words | America ; Basic Science ; Funding ; National Science Foundation |