Cosmic Collision Leads to New Breakthroughs

Tuesday, October 17, 2017, By Sawyer Kamman
Peter Saulson, the Martin A. Pomerantz ’37 Professor of Physics  talks to NPR about the groundbreaking discovery of the collision of two neutron stars, revealing that these strange smash-ups are the source of heavy elements such as gold and platinum.
“It’s so beautiful. It’s so beautiful it makes me want to cry. It’s the fulfillment of dozens, hundreds, thousands of people’s efforts, but it’s also the fulfillment of an idea suddenly becoming real,” says Saulson, who has spent more than three decades working on the detection of gravitational waves.