Cosmic breakthrough: Physicists detect gravitational waves from violent black-hole merger


The Washington Post has the article Cosmic breakthrough: Physicists detect gravitational waves from violent black-hole merger.

“It had a very rough beginning,” Weiss said. “The [National Science Foundation] had a tough time explaining to other people why they would back such a crazy thing.”

This is a great scientific event. It is of significant interest to anybody who enjoys knowing about and reading about physics.

Now, let me go on to its political significance. This is scientific socialism at its best. There was no money in it for private enterprise and the capitalist free market to sponsor it. It could only be done be an extremely wealthy philanthropist who liked science enough to spend $1 billion over ten years, or it could be done by “government”. However, the government did not own the means of production, so there were plenty of contracts given out to the capitalists to build the experimental equipment.

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