Professor Duncan Brown on Clash of Neutron Stars

Duncan Brown, the Charles Brightman professor of physics, talks to The Wall Street Journal about the creation of heavy metals such as gold and platinum forged in the collision between two neutron stars which .

“Gold is forged in the nuclear furnace of neutron star collisions,” said Brown, an astrophysicist, who studies gravitational waves at Syracuse University and who was involved in the effort. “In the strictest sense of turning matter into gold, this is where alchemy happens.”