Bill Foster

Mr. FOSTER

Mr. FOSTER. Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FOSTER. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. FOSTER. Madam Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Representative Altmire.

Mr. FOSTER

Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Speaker, earlier this month the United States lost a colossus within the science community, a visionary who advanced our understanding of the universe while inspiring generations of younger scientists. John Archibald Wheeler is perhaps best known to the public for coining the term ``black hole,'' but throughout his career he also worked alongside the likes of Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr on theoretical physics' most puzzling questions, helped develop the hydrogen bomb, and, upon his death on April 13, was appropriately called: The last Titan, the only physics superhero still standing. For 22 years, I was a particle physicist at Fermi National Laboratory, working with my colleagues on giant experiments to move beyond the horizons of current scientific understanding. As a graduate student at Harvard and as an undergraduate before that, I could not escape the mention of John Wheeler's name engraved on the promontories or floating on the delicate backwaters of what is now called modern physics. As a member of the tribe of experimental physicists, that is, people like me who did real experiments in the real world, we were always surrounded by a wondrous shimmering cloud of theoretical physicists. These are men and women who spend their days bobbing and weaving through the world of what might be mathematically possible, of what might show up in experiments that have yet to be invented, or what might have shown up if we had just done the last experiment just a little more carefully. John Wheeler was one of the most luminous droplets in that shimmering cloud. As young scientists, we studied the legacy of those great minds, physicists like Einstein, Bohr, Enrico Fermi, and John Archibald Wheeler. To a fellow physicist, the breadth of John Wheeler's achievements are staggering. Born in Jacksonville, Florida on July 9, 1911, he graduated from high school at 15, and earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University at the age of 21. He sailed to Copenhagen a year later to begin work with the eminent physicist Niels Bohr, and in 1939 the pair produced the first description of how nuclear fission works. During the Second World War, Dr. Wheeler joined with scientists working on the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. He continued to work with the U.S. government well after the war, and was awarded the Enrico Fermi Award by President Johnson in 1968. By the time he returned to academic life, Dr. Wheeler had become fascinated with Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Studying gravitational collapse, he introduced not only the term black hole, but also the concept of the wormhole, a hypothetical tunnel in space-time. Dr. Wheeler was willing to passionately consider seemingly incomprehensible phenomena. In 1999, he wrote that the black hole ``teaches us that space can be crumpled like a piece of paper into an infinitesimal dot, that time can be extinguished like a blown-out flame, and that the laws of physics that we regard as sacred, as immutable, are anything but.'' His work in the 1960s revived and transformed this field. In the last years of his career, Dr. Wheeler considered the mysterious and sometimes bizarre world of quantum mechanics, seeking connections between science and philosophy to explain fundamental questions of existence. Despite these high achievements, Dr. Wheeler remained committed to the nurturing of the next generation of scientists. He continued to teach introductory classes to undergraduates throughout his career, and he mentored some of the century's most noted theoretical physicists. Any physicist with the amount and color of the hair that I possess will also have indelible memories of ``MTW,'' the big black book called Gravitation authored by Misner, Thorne, and John Archibald Wheeler that describes in intuitive terms what is really going on in Einstein's general theory of relativity. So at a time when the primacy of our Nation's science programs are in peril, John Wheeler's example should remind us of our own commitment to the next generation of American scientists and innovators. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to introduce this resolution, and I urge my colleagues to join me in honoring the life and achievements of John Wheeler. The power of his intellectual accomplishments and the memorable color of his phrases will grace physics textbooks forever.

Mr. FOSTER

Mr. FOSTER. Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is an honor to stand here in the well of this body as the Representative of the Illinois 14th District. My predecessor in this role is a friend to many here and led this House and represented the people of my district honorably for over 20 years. I know that my colleagues will join me in once again thanking Speaker Dennis Hastert for his service. Madam Speaker, fellow Members of Congress, I am a scientist, not a politician. When it comes to the issues that we face in this Nation, I plan on approaching them as a scientist, and that means examining the facts, listening to both sides, and doing what is right for the people of Illinois and America. During my campaign, many people told me that Congress should be acting differently. At a time of crisis around the world and economic trouble at home, Americans want us to end the divisions between us and work together to solve the problems we face. I believe that there are huge opportunities to change this country for the better if we can make the right decisions, and real risks if we keep squabbling and making the wrong ones. And now, as you can probably already tell, we scientists aren't known for our fiery rhetoric. But as I stand before you today, it is my solemn hope that with less bickering and word twisting in Washington, that there will be more problem solving. We need to work together for energy independence, for tax cuts for middle-class families, to expand health care for more children, for a return to fiscal discipline, and, as importantly as anything, for a new direction in Iraq. Together we can fulfill our pledge to the next generation to leave Washington and this Nation better on the day that we leave it than it was on the day that we came into it. I look forward to meeting my new colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, and to getting right to work on behalf of the families we represent. Thank you to my colleagues in the Illinois delegation, and thank you, Madam Speaker. This is truly an honor.