Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI,

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical
Perimeter, PITP) is an independent research centre in
Physics
foundational theoretical physics located in Waterloo,
Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1999.[1] The
institute's founding and major benefactor is Canadian
entrepreneur and philanthropist Mike Lazaridis.[2]

The original building, designed by Saucier +

Perrotte,[3] opened in 2004[4] and was awarded a
Governor General's Medal for Architecture in 2006.[5]
The Stephen Hawking Centre, designed by Teeple
Architects, was opened in 2011[6] and was LEED Established 1999
Silver certified in 2015.[7] Type Research institute

In addition to research, Perimeter also provides Location Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

scientific training and educational outreach activities to Director Marcela Carena
the general public. This is done in part through
Website www.perimeterinstitute.ca (htt
Perimeter's Educational Outreach team.[8]
p://www.perimeterinstitute.ca)
www.pitp.ca (http://www.pitp.ca)

History
In 1999, Howard Burton—who had a PhD in theoretical physics
from the University of Waterloo—emailed Mike Lazaridis along
with 20 CEOs in an attempt to leave his Wall Street job.[9]: 118
Lazaridis then pitched the idea of the Perimeter Institute to Burton
as he wanted to use his BlackBerry wealth for a philanthropic
endeavour.[9]: 118 Lazaridis' initial donation of $100 million was
announced on October 23, 2000, believed to be the biggest private
donation in Canadian history to that point.[10] Jim Balsille and
Inside the Perimeter Institute
Doug Fregin each donated $10 million.[9]: 119 The city of Waterloo
offered four sites of land for free; Lazaridis chose the former site
of the Waterloo Memorial Arena (near Uptown Waterloo).[9]: 120

Research operations began in 2001, in a temporary site in a nearby post office.[9]: 120 Burton became the
Institute's founding director.[9]: 116 The permanent building's construction finished in 2004.[9]: 120 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 second director
replacing Howard Burton.[11] Lazaridis donated a subsequent $50 million on June 4, 2008.[12] 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.[13][14]

Designed by Teeple Architects, a new 5,000 m2 (55,000 sq ft) expansion, the Stephen Hawking Centre at
Perimeter Institute, was completed in September 2011.[15] The centre's grand opening was in September
2011 and included a video greeting from Hawking, who rarely traveled due to disability.[16] This was the
first-ever Gold Seal-managed project in Ontario, it attained LEED Silver certification in 2015.[17][18]

On February 28, 2019, Dr. Robert Myers was appointed as the third director of the Perimeter Institute. On
Nov 4, 2024, Marcela Carena was announced as the fourth director.[19]

Design
The Institute was designed by Montréal-based architectural firm Saucier + Perrotte.[20] A concrete
stairwell in the building's atrium was designed by Blackwell Engineers.[20] The Institute's front aluminum
wall is black with small windows to represent a blackboard.[9]: 117 There are wooden fireplaces and
blackboards throughout the building.[9]: 117 Writing for The Globe and Mail, architecture critic Lisa
Rochon praised the Institute's "seamless connections" between the building's interior and exterior and
said the building is about "the flow of light and the directions we can take".[20] Rochon described the
building as modernism, and cited Tadao Ando as an influence.[20]

Research
Perimeter's research encompasses nine fields:[21]

Cosmology
Mathematical physics
Particle Physics
Quantum fields and strings
Quantum foundations
Quantum gravity
Quantum information
Quantum matter
Strong gravity

Programs

Perimeter Institute Recorded Seminar Archive (PIRSA)

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),[22] 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. The PIRSA project is
enlarged by the creation of SciTalks (See below).

SciTalks
After more than 13,000 talks uploaded to PIRSA, Perimeter Institute created in 2020 a new public video
archive called SciTalks[23] with the support of the Simons Foundations. It is a meta-repository search tool
of scientific talks beyond what is produced at PI and aims to "revolutionize the world of scholarly
communication in the way that the arXiv has done for print scientific papers".[24] Apart from PIRSA's
existing content, SciTalks indexes videos from other institutions, such as CERN, Simons Institute for the
Theory of Computing, ICTP and ICTP-SAIFR.[25] As a meta-repository, SciTalks only stores metadata
and links related to the videos, which are stored in other databases.

Educational outreach
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.[26][27]
Perimeter Institute operates an international outreach program.

The annual EinsteinPlus[28] summer school for high school physics teachers is held for one week each
summer. The International Summer School for Young Physicists (ISSYP) is a physics camp for high
school students.[29][30] It brings approximately 20 Canadian students and 20 International students aged
16 – 18 to Perimeter for two weeks each year.[31]

Public lectures series

Perimeter Institute has welcomed a number of very prominent scientists to deliver lectures on a wide
variety of subjects.[32] Lecturers have included: Freeman Dyson, Gerard ‘t Hooft, Jay Ingram, Seth
Lloyd, Jay Melosh, Sir Roger Penrose, Michael Peskin, Leonard Susskind, Frank Wilczek and Anton
Zeilinger.[33]

BrainSTEM: Your Future is Now

This festival connected technological innovations to the scientific breakthroughs that make them possible.
The festival, held September 30 to October 6, 2013, featured science-centre styled exhibits, special
presentations, public lectures, Science in the Club events and insider-tours of the Perimeter Institute.
Webcast Public Lectures featured James Grime, Ray Laflamme and Lucy Hawking.[34]

Quantum to Cosmos: Ideas for the Future festival

Held in October, 2009, the Quantum to Cosmos: Ideas for the Future festival (Q2C Festival) was a
science outreach event held in Canada. The festival included events and activities spanning: lectures,
panel discussions, pub talks, cultural activities, a PI documentary premiere (The Quantum Tamers:
Revealing Our Weird and Wired Future), sci-fi film festival, an art exhibit and the hugely popular Physica
Phantastica exhibit centre, a 460-square-metre (5,000 sq ft) space filled with demonstrations, hands-on
activities, experiments and an immersive 3D tour of the universe narrated by Stephen Hawking.[35]

The Q2C Festival attracted some 40,000 attendees (including over 6,000 in the secondary school program
that brought students from Ontario and New York State and nearly one million viewers – and counting –
through online streaming, video-on-demand services and special television broadcasts. Special editions of
TVO’s “The Agenda with Steve Paikin", filmed live in PI's Atrium in Waterloo attracted hundreds of
thousands of viewers from across Canada with just five broadcasts.[36]

Training

Joint masters-level program

In partnership with the University of Waterloo, PI conducts Perimeter Scholars International (PSI),[37] a
master's level course in theoretical physics.[38] The 10-month course was inaugurated in August 2009,
and admits around 30 scholars per year. Students admitted (on average 3% of all applicants) receive full
scholarships and living expenses. The master's degree itself is issued by the University of
Waterloo.[39][40][41]

Doctoral studies
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics also hosts PhD students wishing to pursue full-time graduate
studies under the supervision of a PI faculty member. PhD students receive their doctoral degrees from a
university partner, such as the University of Waterloo.

Courses
Perimeter Institute offers a number of planned courses each year, including cross-listed programs with
universities and mini-courses given by PI faculty, associate faculty and visiting researchers. The courses
are made available to all students enrolled in surrounding universities. The popular courses are attended
by students from University of Waterloo, University of Western Ontario, McMaster University,
University of Guelph, University of Toronto, York University, and other centres.

See also
Institute for Theoretical Physics (disambiguation)
Center for Theoretical Physics (disambiguation)

References
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4. THEODORE, DAVID. "Perimeter Institute for Research in Theoretical Physics" (http://www.t
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om/news-story/2574111-hawking-to-open-new-wing-that-bears-his-name/). TheRecord.com.
2011-03-07. Retrieved 2017-09-29.
7. "Stephen Hawking Centre at Perimeter Institute | Project 11818 -- Canada Green Building
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Kitchener-Waterloo (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1110109511). Toronto. ISBN 978-1-4594-
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11. Johnston, Hamish (9 May 2008). "Neil Turok chosen to lead Perimeter Institute" (http://physi
csworld.com/cws/article/news/2008/may/09/neil-turok-chosen-to-lead-perimeter-institute).
Physics World. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
12. "RIM co-founder donates $50M to Waterloo physics centre" (http://www.cbc.ca/news/technol
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17. PI Expansion Achieves First Gold Seal Rating in Ontario (http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/N
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18. "Perimeter's Stephen Hawking Centre Gains LEED Silver Status" (https://perimeterinstitute.
ca/news/perimeters-stephen-hawking-centre-gains-leed-silver-status). Perimeter Institute.
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institute.ca/news/perimeter-institute-welcomes-new-executive-director-dr-marcela-carena).
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mail.com/arts/this-in-a-city-of-exceeding-ugliness/article746452/). The Globe and Mail.
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20English%20Annual%20Report%202020.pdf) (PDF). p. 25. Retrieved 2021-03-08.
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rograms-and-opportunities/einsteinplus). www.perimeterinstitute.ca.
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External links
PIRSA (http://pirsa.org/) – Perimeter Institute Recorded Seminar Archive
Perimeter Scholars International (PSI) (http://www.perimeterscholars.org/)
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (https://www.youtube.com/user/PIOutreach)

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