Physics Out of Africa
Tuesday December 2, 2008
A few days ago (Hawking Accepts Canadian Research Job), I mentioned Neil Turok, the cosmologist who is director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and co-author of Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang. A recent New Scientist article, Will the next Einstein come from Africa?, explores Turok's goal of helping spread math and physics education throughout the dark continent.
Turok himself is from South Africa and sees Africa as an untapped wealth of potential for the next generation of physicists and mathematicians. Toward this end, he has founded the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Cape Town, South Africa. This work has caught the attention of the Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) prize committee, who offered help toward Turok's "Next Einstein from Africa" initiative with a $100,000 TEDPrize to build on the AIMS model.
The TEDPrize motto is "Wishes big enough to change the world," and Turok's wish is that "within our lifetimes we are celebrating an African Einstein." His talk (available at the TEDPrize website) is well worth viewing, both for the physics and the humanitarianism.
Comments
Hey what can i say, physics is a great subject it makes you think about the world and i think its a GREAT idea to give this experience to people around the world…
Anyway i will check out his website
Why not? While Einstein has become an icon for those who have little background in physics, his mentor, minkowski, tesla, even fermi and above all poincare and debroglie are forgotten by the media. A current which might validate African research is Nambu from Japan who pursues research related to ITER, now almost forgotten. Two other books which would shock the world if known appeared on my site: “the Never-Ending Universe” and “our Undiscovered Universe.” The latter refutes the possibility of a big bang as an event horizon–not enough energy and the age of the universe as well as the possibility of measuring it. They are reputable physicists. My concern with a finished prototype is “can a planet with this small mass support this amount of energy?” This question has come up repeatedly with regard to ITER.