Here’s the banner headline in my local paper in Japan this morning (of course, it’s still yesterday over there):
For those few of you who can’t read Japanese, it says: GRAVITATIONAL WAVES DISCOVERED—A WORLD’S FIRST
Subheads: American University Team; Closing in Origins of Universe; Einstein Prediction
The story comes complete with illustrations and photos of the LIGO sites.
It outranks the story below, about North Korea, about which there is generally even more hysteria than in the US (good subject for another diary).
It outranks the story about the rising value of the Yen.
Okayama is a medium-sized city in western Japan.
Top story on Des Moines Register website: Ankeny schools biting down on Valentine’s Day treats.
This newspaper is quite conservative, as are most establishment media. Nevertheless, it has chosen (for this date, anyway) aspiration over fear, the cosmos over the economy.
Conservative or not, it is clearly not anti-science.
The relevance for DKOS readers? Which party in the US is anti-science?
Of course, kudos to the Caltech/MIT scientists and to all the physicists and engineers (over the world) who have contributed to this project. For a seventy-four year old curmudgeon like me, with thinning hair, a thyroid condition and a mean jump shot (but not running for President), this is the kind of discovery that makes me want to live another thirty years just to see what the future brings, and a great antidote to the daily despair that overwhelms me when I look at the state of a) the environment, b) politics, c) big money, d) TPP, TTIP, etc.