Brain Power Rather Than Military Might is Fast Becoming the Way Countries Exercise Their Sovereignty, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin . (October 10, 2004)

     In November 2001 TFW reported on the founding of Canada's Perimeter Institute. Ten days ago Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada, officially opened the new home of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.

Bob Park of the American Physical Society writes:

    The driving force behind creation of the Institute was entrepreneur Mike Lazarides, who donated $100 million, and led the drive to get additional backing from federal and provincial governments.  For three years, the Institute was in temporary quarters with a small research staff, but it is now expected to become the largest concentration of theoretical physicists in the world.  This is the future.  The great basic research labs of industry are gone; research funding for university and government labs is narrowly targeted.  An advisory committee, composed of top theoretical physicists from around the world, described the Perimeter Institute as "a bold experiment with the potential to become the most important new institute in theoretical physics since the founding of the Institute for Advanced Study 70 years ago."  One member of that committee, Frank Wilczek, would be awarded a Nobel Prize three days later.

Prior to the opening Canada News Wire reported, "Attending the official opening... will be Nobel Prize winners Steven Weinberg and Sir Anthony Leggett. Also on hand will be world renowned mathematician and theoretical physicist Sir Roger Penrose from Oxford University and scientists Margaret Geller, Raymond Laflamme, James Hartle and Juan Maldacena among others."

It remains something of a mystery how Australia and Canada, two nations with similar origins and cultures have developed within the past decade markedly different mindset's, with regard to the importance of supporting their nation's research and higher educational systems -- at least by those currently governing them.