May 23, 2008

A Major Theoretical Physicist Moves From Cambridge to Canada; South Asia's First Regional University Hires a Leader

By KAREN BIRCHARD and SHAILAJA NEELAKANTAN

UNLIMITED THINKING: The theoretical physicist and author Neil G. Turok will take up new duties in October as executive director of Canada's Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics. Mr. Turok is chair of mathematical physics at the University of Cambridge, where he is also director of the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology and a close colleague of Stephen Hawking. Together the two developed the Hawking-Turok theory, which says that the universe started from a minuscule particle called an