Steven Hawking Considering Move To Canada 378
thepacketmaster learned of "...the possibility of Steven Hawking moving to Waterloo in Canada: 'A report out of Britain suggests Stephen Hawking is considering an invitation to come work at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics....But he's also being encouraged to move to Ontario by his University of Cambridge colleague Neil Turok, the mathematical physicist who will take over as Perimeter's executive director on Oct. 1. Perimeter confirmed last night that it has made a standing offer to Hawking...Turok is leaving Cambridge after failing to persuade university authorities, research councils and sponsors to spend $40 million...By comparison, Waterloo's Perimeter Institute has about $600 million in funding...The addition of Hawking to Perimeter's staff of top physicists would be a major coup for the research institute, founded in 1999 by Mike Lazaridis, founder and co-CEO of Research In Motion, which makes the BlackBerry.'"
Fringe Benefits (Score:4, Informative)
Public Lectures (Score:5, Informative)
The Institute has most of them available for offline viewing and reading [perimeterinstitute.ca]. Maybe they could get Stephen Hawking one day.
Re:Its our (Score:3, Informative)
It's better than [cmwf.org] the American [openmedicine.ca] health [forbes.com] care [businessweek.com] system [commonwealthfund.org], so that would be a plus compared to going to the USA.
"steVen"? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:yes but there was a difference. (Score:5, Informative)
To be fair, we have a Cambridge on this side of the pond, in Massachusetts, and it's home to a rather prestigious institution of higher learning. If one were unfamiliar with the work or background Stephen Hawking, it would be an innocent mistake to confuse our Cambridge (town) with your Cambridge (university).
Re:yes but there was a difference. (Score:3, Informative)
The original text adventure [wikipedia.org] was written by Will Crowther, while working at BBN in Cambridge, MA, USA.
Re:Its not for the WH cutting the NSF budget (Score:2, Informative)
Re:yes but there was a difference. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:yes but there was a difference. (Score:2, Informative)
If I say "I believe 1 + 1 = 2" that is actually shorthand for a more complex "If one accepts the following axioms, then..." which is a very different point of view than saying "Based on faith alone I believe..."
Re:Its our (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed. For those who don't get the joke, the UK's health care system is probably (depending of course on the metric) better than Canada's.
Re:Didn't... (Score:2, Informative)
He's not coming to Canada (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/07/16/hawking-perimeter.html [www.cbc.ca]
The University of Cambridge has poured cold water on reports its most famous physicist might be coming to Canada to work, saying Wednesday Stephen Hawking "has no plans" to leave.
A report in the Daily Telegraph in the U.K. said Hawking was contemplating joining his colleague Neil Turok at Waterloo, Ont.'s Perimeter Institute. The South African-born cosmologist Turok, 49, is leaving Cambridge to take over the role of executive director at the institute, which was founded in 2000 by Research in Motion co-founder Mike Lazaridis and is devoted to the study of theoretical physics.
Cambridge's statement called the report "unfounded speculation."
Re:yes but there was a difference. (Score:5, Informative)
It is possible to synthesize British accents. Hawking has had many opportunities to upgrade his speech software. He chooses to continue to use DECtalk even though it is outdated because it is "his voice" now.
Re:One reason: (Score:3, Informative)
Completely off topic of course but:
The GST Tax (General Services Tax) is currently at 6%, the Provincial Sales Tax (at least here in British Columbia) is at 7%, so here I pay a grand total of 13% tax on most purchased items and services. In Alberta there is no provincial sales tax.
We do pay both Federal and Provincial Income tax though.
However, after hearing the horror stories of people experiencing problems under the US health care system, I will take ours anytime. Its not perfect but its available to everyone.
Case in point: a friend of mine discovered he had a brain tumour the size of a grapefruit (which explained the headaches and vision problems he had). After 2 weeks or so waiting for a chance to get an operation, he was in, got the tumour removed, spending a few weeks in the hospital total, and was out without any problems and no complications thankfully. As far as I know it cost him absolutely nothing. That doesn't seem to be the case for a lot of Americans.
As for on topic: I would be highly honoured as a Canadian to have Stephen Hawking move here and work at Waterloo.
Re:yes but there was a difference. (Score:5, Informative)
I think I counted once, there are 12 states with territory of a higher latitude than the southernmost point in Canada. The strange part is that Vancouver has much milder winters than Pelee Island, despite having a more northern latitude by over 650mi.
And actually the southernmost territory in Canada is Middle Island, just south of Pelee Island (home to some nice wineries), which is south of Point Pelee, the southernmost point of the Canadian mainland.
And there are far more Canadians with residences in southern US than in Maine, aka Snowbirds.
I was worried about getting modded OT but the Cannuck posts are scoring better than the Hawking ones!