Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
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| Established | 1999 |
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| Type | Research institute |
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| Website | www.perimeterinstitute.ca |
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) is an independent research centre in foundational theoretical physics located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1999. The Institute's founding and major benefactor is Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist Mike Lazaridis.
In addition to research, Perimeter also provides scientific training and educational outreach activities to the general public. This is done in part through Perimeter’s Educational Outreach team.
Lazaridis' initial donation of $100 million was announced on October 23, 2000. A subsequent personal donation of $50 million was made on June 4, 2008.
Research operations began in 2001. Along with its research activities, Perimeter Institute operates an international outreach program. It hosts the International Summer School for Young Physicists every summer, which is a physics camp for high school students.
The Ontario budget, announced in March 2006, included a commitment to provide $50 million in funding to PI from the Ministry of Research and Innovation.
In May 2008, Dr. Neil Turok, a cosmologist, was appointed as Perimeter Institute's Director replacing Howard Burton.
In November 2008, it was announced that physicist Stephen Hawking would take the position of Distinguished Visiting Research Chair, a visiting position, at the Institute.
Perimeter's research encompasses eight fields:
An extensive, up-to-date archive of the Institute's varied research activities is readily available to the public via the internet. The Perimeter Institute Recorded Seminar Archive (PIRSA), is a permanent, free, searchable, and citable archive of recorded seminars, conferences, workshops and outreach events. Seminars with video and timed presentation materials can be accessed on-demand in Windows and Flash formats together with MP3 audio files and PDFs of the supporting materials.
Perimeter’s Educational Outreach team’s activities include a monthly public lecture series, a two-week summer camp for the world’s top science students, a series of in-class resources, week-long professional development workshops for science teachers, cultural activities with local and international artists, an online archive of educational resources, an extensive network of science teachers to share content across Canada, and many other special events and science festivals contributing to physics outreach.
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