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Perimeter Institute (PI) was founded just ten years ago. At the time, to outsiders, its success seemed unimaginable. Why in Canada? Why choose such an ambitious scientific focus? What could an upstart young institute contribute to such a well-established field as theoretical physics? Where is Waterloo, anyway?

The best opportunities are often only obvious after the fact. With hindsight, it is clear that Canada has everything needed to create a world leading centre for theoretical physics. It has excellent universities and a strong physics community. There is consensus in government around the need for investment in basic research and highly qualified personnel. Canada is exceptionally welcoming to people from overseas and has a deep tradition of internationalism. And, of course, Canada is an underappreciated, vast and beautiful country.

Why invest in theoretical physics? Taking the big picture view, the argument is simple. Theoretical physics is a high impact, low cost field. The breakthroughs made by Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Bohr, and their descendants nourished all the other sciences and spawned innumerable technologies, many of which form the basis for modern society. The field continues to drive the search for new quantum technologies, and a better understanding of the universe. All the researchers need is food, coffee, blackboards, computers and other researchers to talk to. Their work motivates and drives big science experiments like LHC and LIGO, and helps analyse and interpret the massive data sets generated. Theoretical physics is the most cost-effective field in all of science, for the simple reason that the human mind is simultaneously the most powerful piece of apparatus we know of and the cheapest to operate!

But is there much one can do to improve the odds of progress in such a fundamental field? The great discoveries are almost always completely unplanned, resulting from a combination of daring, luck and new technical or technological opportunities or unexpected observations. Perhaps we can do no better than wait, for another Einstein or Bohr to make the next big breakthrough. PI’s founders thought we could do better. Mike Lazaridis and PI’s first Board members and supporters, and Howard Burton, the Institute’s first Director, saw a giant opportunity for Waterloo, for Canada, and for the world, precisely because no-one else had the audacity to try. Drawing on the wisdom of the world’s top theorists, they built the institution on foundations of excellence and the highest ambitions.

From the start PI took as its scientific focus a better understanding, and reconciliation, of the two pillars of twentieth century physics: quantum theory and spacetime. The institute took the unusual step of deliberately promoting competing approaches within, because it is precisely through the clash of different approaches that one learns most quickly about the strengths and weaknesses of each. Thus PI has strong groups both in string theory and in quantum gravity, and the lively interaction between the two has earned the institute a reputation as an open-minded and stimulating place to visit and to work.

Next, while we cannot anticipate exactly where the next breakthroughs might occur, we can certainly try to focus our efforts on the most promising areas. Here, PI’s flexibility is a huge asset. Areas which don’t fit within the traditional boundaries of a university department or centre can be easily accommodated within PI’s highly interdisciplinary community. As an example, PI’s first focus on foundational quantum theory proved remarkably far-sighted, making the institute a natural hub for the new field of quantum information and allowing us to help foster our experimental partner institute, the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo. Today, PI and IQC together form a powerful magnet attracting the best researchers in this exciting field.

Looking forward, I believe there are several natural research foci in which PI can become world-leading. One is what one might call “high-powered” quantum field theory, namely the attempt to develop more powerful approaches to our fundamental understanding of quantum fields. The latter describe all of nuclear and particle theory, condensed matter, and early universe cosmology. Therefore, foundational progress in quantum field theory will have an impact across all of physics. We have growing strength at PI in this area, and are well on our way to making this a world-leading effort.

A second strongly emerging theme is the connection between theoretical work at PI and large experimental efforts like LHC and LIGO. Even a small number of theorists, working in a focused way, can have an enormous impact on these massive international experiments, by pointing out new signals to look for, better ways to analyse and interpret the data, and key physics targets to guide the design of new experiments.

A third emerging theme is the study of black holes and gravitational waves—the next great frontier in astronomy and cosmology. Ten years from now, we hope to be routinely detecting bursts of gravitational waves emitted by colliding black holes, and planning even more ambitious experiments, using gravitational waves to look all the way back to the beginning of the Universe. Which, of course, is another focus of our work at PI.

The fundamental unity and coherence of theoretical physics is a source of research strength, as PI expands to draw on complementary insights from across the whole spectrum of physics. We have nascent efforts in particle physics and cosmology. We are also looking to grow in condensed matter, especially in the realm of strongly quantum-correlated systems, an area which connects well to our existing strengths as well as to emerging technological frontiers.

Science has become an increasingly collaborative venture. Within this context, PI seeks to be a resource for physics in Canada, and internationally. We are looking to grow our links with the strong community of physicists in Canada, with world-class theory centers like the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, and world-class experimental projects such as those at TRIUMF and SNOLAB. PI’s Affiliate Member program, which draws in physics faculty from across Canada to visit and participate in the institute’s research activities, now counts 96 members. By working together, I believe we can create a “win-win” situation which allows Canada to obtain maximum benefit from its support of basic physics.

In a wider sense, PI is striving to be a global center and resource. It is clearly important that we collaborate with other advanced centers, but I believe it is even more vital that we support emerging centers in the developing world, where enormous pools of talent lie waiting to be unlocked. By helping to promote the cause of these centers, and by offering to share PI’s substantial institution-building expertise, I believe we can make a substantial contribution both to the future of physics and to international development.

The progress of theoretical physics rests, more than anything, on brilliant young people. One of our key objectives is therefore to support a flow of youthful talent through PI. For this reason, we launched Perimeter Scholars International (PSI), an innovative Master’s program designed to attract talented students from around the world into theoretical physics, and to bring them to the cutting edge of research as quickly as possible. This year, 28 students from 16 countries will graduate, and we are delighted with their progress. Many Canadian faculty have been involved in lecturing, and in supervising projects. In the future, we hope PSI will become seen as a valuable new model for teaching theoretical physics, and a global stimulus for the field.

PI already hosts the largest group of independent postdoctoral researchers in theoretical physics in the world. We are now recruiting at the highest level, competing successfully for talent with the strongest institutions internationally. We are also building our strength in terms of senior, established researchers. Over the last eighteen months, we have recruited 20 of the world’s top theoretical physicists as Distinguished Research Chairs (DRCs) at Perimeter Institute. They include both bright young stars such as Patrick Hayden (McGill) and Guifre Vidal (Queensland) and world leading figures such as Yakir Aharonov (Tel Aviv), Stephen Hawking (Cambridge) and Ashoke Sen (Harish Chandra Institute, Allahabad). They span an enormous range of expertise, from quantum foundations through particle physics, condensed matter, cosmology to quantum gravity and black holes. While retaining their permanent positions at home, our DRCs visit PI for extended periods (typically one to two months per year) to do research, collaborate and in some cases to teach on PSI. There has been excellent uptake of these positions, and the continuous flow of top international researchers adds to the excitement of working at PI. We were especially delighted that two of our DRCs were widely touted as potential Nobel prize winners last year. In the end, neither won but Willard Boyle’s prize was certainly great compensation, and his remarks about the importance of curiosity driven research, and of “special” places for science like Bell Labs in its heyday inevitably evoked comparisons with PI.

To accommodate all of this growth, PI’s iconic “black box” building is now being substantially expanded with the Stephen Hawking Centre at Perimeter Institute (see cover), which will be completed next summer. Our expanded facility will allow PI to accommodate around 250 researchers, making it by some margin the largest facility for foundational theoretical physics in the world.

One of the smart things that Mike Lazaridis and Howard Burton did in founding PI was to give public outreach a very high priority. The scale of these efforts—for students, teachers, and the public—is something that really sets PI apart. Just one example is our public lecture series, which attracts an audience of six hundred plus to a local high school auditorium each month. Last fall, we held a science festival called Quantum to Cosmos: Ideas for the Future. It was a huge, risky undertaking: a giant tent in Waterloo town square filled with hands-on exhibits and 3-D film narrated by Stephen Hawking, the world premiere of The Quantum Tamers, a PI-produced documentary on quantum mechanics that is anything but the usual documentary fare, concerts, and a science film festival. Last but not least, TV Ontario came and broadcast five nights of their current affairs program, “The Agenda with Steve Paikin”, right from PI’s atrium. Oh yes, and they filmed and helped broadcast 30 talks and panels with 80 presenters over 10 days, all live online in high definition, something never before attempted on this scale.

As I walked down the hill to PI, to introduce the first lecture, I must admit I was nervous. So much could go wrong, but all we could do was trust to the professionalism of our team. I needn’t have worried. The festival exceeded our wildest hopes—over 40,000 people came to events here, and over a million viewers on TV and online (if you haven’t seen any of the talks yet, you can still see them at www.q2cfestival.com). At every event, questions were encouraged—whether from those present, or those online. It was an all out celebration of where curiosity can lead.

Quantum to Cosmos was a stunning success, and I see it as emblematic of what PI is trying to do and where it is going: to carefully create the best initial conditions, disregard the limits of common wisdom and convention and shoot for the stars. Sometimes, magic can happen.

Neil Turok
Guest Editor, Physics in Canada

Readers’ comments on this editorial are more than welcome.