Stephen Hawking is to become a visiting chair at Waterloo's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics next summer. Presumably this is a big boost for an institution not many Canadians have heard of (yet).
Here's the Toronto Star article:
http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/544641
Last year, I read The Trouble with Physics by Lee Smolin, one of the founders of the Perimeter Institute. Not being a theoretical physicist a bit of it went over my head. But I found it interesting that Waterloo, Ontario should be home to a tiny enclave of scientists trying to find a way ahead that isn't String Theory.
I'd like to think that someday, when Grand Unified Field Theory is finally articulated, that people will back and say, "Canada saved physics. We couldn't have got here without those contrarians in Waterloo."
