[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 26 (Friday, February 12, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S885-S886]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MORNING BUSINESS

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           RECOGNIZING MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, more than 100 years ago, Albert Einstein 
proposed the theory of relativity. He predicted that violent events in 
the early universe shocked the cosmos, sending gravity waves rippling 
through the fabric of space time. By the time these waves reached 
Earth, they would be ``vanishingly small,'' and, with the technology 
available in Einstein's day, impossible to detect. But after 100 more 
years of science and innovation, scientists announced yesterday that, 
with their new cosmic hearing aid, they have heard the first ripples 
from space.
  I congratulate the men and women of the LIGO Scientific 
Collaboration, an international project of over 900 scientists led by 
MIT and Caltech, for their hard work and dedication. Using cutting-edge 
facilities in Louisiana and Washington State, scientists detected a 
vibration in the space-time continuum, opening our ears, not just our 
eyes, to space.
  A billion years ago in a distant galaxy, two black holes spiraled 
inward on each other. Their eventual collapse released the energy of a 
billion trillion suns in a fraction of a second and sent gravity waves 
rippling through space and time. Gravity waves compress space in one 
direction and stretch it in the other. Since this push and pull weakens 
with distance, scientists have long thought gravity waves would be too 
faint to measure on Earth. But yesterday scientists proved such 
skepticism wrong. With their latest detector at the ready, scientists 
were waiting and listening for any faint sign of these waves. And on 
September 14, 2015, scientists heard a short chirp on their instruments 
that turned out to be the billion-year echo of a faraway past.
  For the first time, we can hear the Musica Universalis because of our 
investment in basic science research. Throughout the 40-year, $1.1 
billion project, the National Science Foundation withstood harsh 
criticism about their funding to support the detection of gravitational 
waves that were thought to be undetectable on Earth. But it was NSF's 
commitment to basic science research and the dedication of Dr. Rainer 
Weiss of MIT, Dr. Kip Thorne of Caltech, Dr. Ronald Drever of the 
University of Glasgow, and an international team of scientists that has 
made yesterday's announcement possible.
  This discovery is a triumph for science and a testament to the payoff 
of long-term public investment in basic science research. It further 
illuminates our understanding of the universe and opens the door for a 
whole new way of peering into the cosmos. I congratulate all those 
involved in turning on the sound to the stars.

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