Neil Turok at the Perimeter Institute in Canada, which he hopes to turn into a global hub for frontier physics
Will the next Einstein come from Africa? If Neil Turok gets his wish the answer will be a resounding yes. When he's not pondering the origin of the universe, Turok is setting up mathematical science institutes across Africa. Ivan Semeniuk caught up with him at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada to find out how Turok plans to change not only who does physics, but how physics is done
NEIL Turok may not be a visitor from another dimension, but he could certainly play one on TV. With an other-worldly energy, he evinces the gentle curiosity of an outsider accustomed to crossing barriers. When he walks into a room, the dust of three continents trails behind him.
Turok is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist whose journey has taken him from his South African homeland to some of the world's most renowned scientific institutions, including Fermilab, Princeton and Cambridge. Now, at 50, Turok finds himself in starting anew once again, taking the reins of what may be the most ambitious intellectual experiment on Earth.
Like Turok, the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics seems strangely out of place in Waterloo, Ontario, a university town 90 minutes' drive from cosmopolitan Toronto. Unlike other institutions of this type, Perimeter is not in an alluring geographic location, is not under the umbrella of a major university, and does not benefit from a rich history of former faculty with the pedigree of an Einstein or a Dirac. Nevertheless, it has attracted some of the biggest names and brightest newcomers in physics today. And now it has Turok, who took over last month as executive director.
"It's quite surreal to find a place like this in a small town," Turok tells me when I meet him at Perimeter during his first week on the job. The location is not accidental. Waterloo is home to Research in Motion, the high-tech company behind the Blackberry. The company's charismatic founder, Mike Lazaridis, was pondering what to do with $100 million of his personal fortune when he made a wonderfully eccentric decision to create a world-class facility for theoretical physics, one not beholden to a larger institution and therefore flexible enough to take intellectual risks. The original donation has since been augmented by personal and public funds. Not since the Medici hired Galileo has there been anything quite like it.
All of this suits Turok who, like Lazaridis, is no stranger to going against the grain. As a scientist he is best known, along with collaborator Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, for conceiving the "ekpyrotic universe", which re-imagines the big bang as a collision between two branes - constructs of string theory - in a higher-dimensional space. According to the theory, the collisions occur again and again, producing a cyclic universe.
More prosaically, Turok challenged the global development status quo by creating the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). Located in a converted hotel in Cape Town, AIMS recruits students from across Africa for an intensive nine-month mathematics course. Students are taught by top international lecturers, and by the end are qualified for advanced programmes abroad.
At first, Turok says, the project generated widespread scepticism. Critics didn't think that students would rise above the remedial level. Now the project has been recognised by the African Union, and this year earned Turok a $100,000 TED, at the Technology Entertainment and Design conference.
TED prizewinners are asked to make a wish before the resourceful TED community; Turok's wish was for the next Einstein to come out of Africa. The AIMS experience provided him with a glimpse of a vast talent pool of gifted mathematicians, physicists and engineers around the globe who need only the right opportunity to flourish and contribute. "This field is entirely driven by brilliant individuals," says Turok. "We need to catch these people."
The idea that Africa should be seen not as a perpetually despondent continent, but as the largest single repository of untapped human potential in the world, is a vision that owes much to Turok's parents. Both were anti-apartheid activists and members of the African National Congress when Turok was growing up in Johannesburg in the 1960s. After falling foul of the government, the family was forced to flee South Africa with their three children, including Neil, the youngest. During the long exile, Turok grew increasingly fascinated with maths and physics, which he taught at a remote mission school in the tiny nation of Lesotho before heading to Cambridge for university.
Africa is the biggest repository of untapped potential in the world
His experiences with the young African students left a deep impression on him. "It was amazing to see how the light bulbs went on for these children in a village with no electricity or running water, and no career options," he recalls.
Turok's parents eventually returned to South Africa where his father remains a member of Parliament. It was his father who encouraged Neil to create AIMS.
Now Turok and his collaborators are trying to recreate the experiment by raising $30 million per year for the next five years - enough to endow 15 AIMS centres across Africa. "That's enough to graduate 750 students per year on an ongoing basis," says Turok. "I think that will change the face of development in Africa."
Turok's efforts in Africa drew the attention of Perimeter last year when Lazaridis was searching for a new director. "I wasn't looking for a job," Turok says, but the opportunity proved irresistible. He was excited by the possibility of working outside of the traditional academic environment, where he found the bureaucracy inhibiting to scientific progress.
Now Turok's mission is to bring promising young theoretical physicists from around the world to Perimeter and offer them an environment in which to thrive. For Turok, it's no surprise that many promising candidates come from less affluent countries such as Iran or Venezuela. "They had to fight," he says. "It wasn't easy for them to get here, and the levels of motivation are very high."
To turn motivation into innovation, Turok believes that these physicists need a place far more freewheeling and flexible than the traditional university department has become, a crossroads where brilliant minds gather from all corners of the globe and challenge one another with new ideas. He hopes to make Perimeter a second home for leading researchers in need of a haven to work out new ideas without the distractions of academic life. Stephen Hawking is among the big names that Turok hopes to attract for an extended visit next year.
Walking through Perimeter with Turok, I notice the small details - working fireplaces, pool tables, classical music recitals - that are designed to stimulate the imagination. We slip into a small conference room to listen to a series of short talks, where the atmosphere is lively. The round table includes Lee Smolin, a founding faculty member of Perimeter and author of the controversial The Trouble with Physics. After one talk, a visiting Chinese researcher speaks emotionally about the new ideas that have inspired him while at Perimeter. Turok reacts as though he is seeing exactly what he came for.
Later, I'm sitting with Turok over coffee in his office when there's a knock on the door. In walks Lazaridis, stopping by to greet his new executive director. Although he is no physicist, "Mike" is the personality that both conjured up Perimeter and continues to influence its character. I ask Lazaridis why he hired Turok, and his answer is immediate. I defer to my advisory panel to weigh Turok's significant scientific contributions, he says, but what sold me was realising that Turok is a kindred spirit: "Neil's an entrepreneur."
Now, in Waterloo, and across Africa, Turok is preparing to change the business of theoretical physics, and change the world in the process.