Steven Hawking Considering Move To Canada

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.'"

Re:NOOoOOOO!!!

[jellomizer]

Probability states the worlds brightest people are probably in China or India. However due to political structure it may be harder to find these people in those countries. (less so in India)

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:yes but there was a difference.

[denis-The-menace]

The difference is that the US' corrupt regime don't give a rats ass of your religion.
You'll all be wearing DHS shock bracelets soon enough.

Re:NOOoOOOO!!!

[necro81]

That appeal to statistics assumes that the population of brilliant people (both inherently brilliant and the learned) is uniformly distributed among the rest of the population of the world. This is demonstrably not the case. Some cities have higher concentrations of inventors, entrepeneurs, PhDs, etc., than other cities of equal size. Perhaps one city has a university to draw these people in, while the other one doesn't. Perhaps one area, way back when, had a guy or group of people that made some major discovery, started a new industry, which set that region on the path to continued discovery (e.g., Silicon Valley).

The same could be said for countries as a whole. One would expect to find a greater proportion of scientists in an industrialized country over an agrarian one, or over a nation that has only recently industrialized.

I am not trying to make a nationalistic or xenophobic argument against India or China, because I know for a fact that they have lots of brilliant people, I am just trying to delve deeper into the notion that a larger national population equals a larger population of [whatever else].

Hot damn!

[InstinctVsLogic]

I'm a Physics Undergrad student at the University of Waterloo, and I am definitely excited. This will add a lot of value to my degree, and reputation for the physics department in general.

Re:yes but there was a difference.

[Gorshkov]

Never mind Maine - there are parts of Canada are further south than parts of Northern California. Look on a map for Point Pelee sometime .....

Re:yes but there was a difference.

[ashitaka]

The typical response to that I see these days is that:

"Atheists have faith that there is no God since they have no proof that God does not exist.
Since they have faith then atheists are religious."

It would seem that all the reasons atheists may have for stating that do not count as "proof".

If you ignore the fallacy of proving a negative existence.

Re:I'd like to thank...

[Random BedHead Ed]

Godwin right in the first post! Bravo I say, Bravo! A true and shining accomplishment in the field of utterly irrelevant comparisons.

In all seriousness, I do think scientists are an excellent canary for the local political/cultural environment. They rely on public funding while demanding the right to teach/work as they see best.

That's what Hitler said when he forced scientists to bow to the party line.

Re:who in their right mind

[id0ntlikeyou]

Who in their right mind would want to move to Waterloo? I mean, really, the university isn't even the best in Ontario, let alone the country and Waterloo itself is in the middle of nowhere.

UWaterloo is one of the top universities in the world for Math and CS. Besides the Perimeter Institute, it also has the Institute for Quantum Computing which is pretty major in the field. Also, the Fields Institute was originally founded at UWaterloo before moving to the University of Toronto (the only other university in Canada that's comparable in Math). UWaterloo also has strong ties with industry. Research in Motion is right next door and has hundreds of Waterloo graduates in CS working for them. Microsoft has a good number of UWaterloo graduates as well. It's really exciting that he's thinking about going there (not only for Waterloo but also it's very great for Canada as a whole).

Re:yes but there was a difference.

[Retric]

Science makes one assumption: The simple explanation is more likely to be true. The idea that fundamental rules don't change might seem like and assumption but let's look at our options:

In a random universe the fundamental rule it is: This is a random universe.
In a universe with an all powerful god then it is: God decides how things operate.
In a non random universe without god it is: Some set of rules define how all interactions take place.

Now it might not seem obvious how science could differentiate between the above situations but what's a simpler answer you randomly roll heads 100 billion times in a row or it is a non random dice? As to God, if some set of rules define all observed behavior then adding a god to such a universe is a more complex situation.

Cambridge insists Hawkings is Staying

[Anonymous Coward]

Cambridge insists Hawkings is Staying

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2008071603

Re:yes but there was a difference.

[The Moof]

You left off one of my favorites: Having God call in a bear to maul children making fun of baldness [biblegateway.com].

I've always wondered how biblical scholars would explain that (I haven't asked yet).

Re:yes but there was a difference.

[jagdish]

Like the Pilgrims who started out from Plymouth and ended up in Plymouth.

Re:yes but there was a difference.

[HungSoLow]

Which begs the question: if you can determine which parts of the Bible to follow (i.e. golden rule), and which parts to ignore (i.e. slavery, rape, stoning), where does the ability to "sift" come from? It certainly can't come from the book that you have to be critical about. It's clearly something innate in (most) people that is a product of genetics and culture. More than that, some truths are universal, they go without saying, and do not require a book as a guideline. As for the grandparent, if these people NEED the book to live a good life, you need to look for more competent friends. I say anyone who reads the Bible as anything more than an interesting work of fiction is a fool.