First, you should know that I am not employed by any company or foundation associated with Jim Simons. His foundation has been supporting science for many years and making a big difference. That’s why I wanted to write this post.
Jim Simons – a former mathematician – is the founder of the investment firm Renaissance Technologies. He is one of the titans of Quantitative Trading. There are many newspaper articles about him, some positive and some negative. There is also a book about him titled “The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution” by Gregory Zuckerman.
I respect Jim Simons not for his accomplishments in Quantitative Trading but for his significant financial support of mathematics and basic science. I particularly appreciate his support of the physics projects. I was impressed when he and his friends from Renaissance Technologies donated 13 million dollars to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 2006. That’s a small amount compared to the scope of the projects the Simons Foundation currently supports.
I also respect him for his outsized contribution to Autism research. I rarely mention Autism in my writings but friends know that it is personal for me. I deeply care about Autism research and appreciate scientists and philanthropists who contribute.
Simons Foundation supports a wide variety of science projects but let’s not forget about the Quanta Magazine. Simons Foundation publishes the Quanta Magazine which is the best science education resource in the world. No exaggeration!
To commemorate the 25’th anniversary of the Simons Foundation a book was prepared. This book in PDF is freely available.
Click to access SIMONS_25TH_121719_FINAL.pdf
This book is an excellent educational resource with many photographs and diagrams. I wanted to list the titles of the articles from the book to give you an idea about the contents of the book.
- “Five things we think are beautiful”
- “Curiosity is more Beautiful than Ignorance : The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics” by John Ewing
- “Beauty of the Microbial World : Magnificence Under the Microscope”
- “Beauty and the Brain : Cerebral Fascinations” by Larry Abbott
- “Symmetries in Every Direction : The Laws of Nature”
- “Three Dignities and the Progress of Science : Interactions Between Theory and Experiment” by Andy Millis
- “Five things we used to think were true”
- “Our Solo System : The Rise of Exoplanets” by Phil Armitage
- “Many’s Not Too Many Anymore : The Many Electron Problem”
- “A Dark Expanding Mystery : The Composition of the Universe” by David Spergel
- “Rethinking the Spectrum” : The push to gain a deep understanding of the genetics and neurobiology of autism has forced scientists to reexamine three ideas about the condition
- “A Reckoning for Moore’s Law : The Limits of Computation” by Ian Fisk
- “Five unique contributions we’ve made to science”
- “A Home for Computational Sciences : The Flatiron Institute”
- “Working as a Team : Simons collaborations”
- “Inventing Tools for Others : A Data Infrastructure for Autism Discovery”
- “A Cosmic Merger Over Vegan Sprouts : The Simons Observatory” by Brian Keating
- “Tell Us About the Special” by Stacey Greenebaum
- “Five puzzles that continue to intrigue us”
- “A Truly Cerebral Puzzle : The Science of the Brain”
- “History of the Autism Puzzle : Many Mutations but Similar Traits”
- “Bang Bounce or Something Else”
- “Mutations in Uncharted Territory : Noncoding DNA and Autism”
- “Finding Prime Locations : The Riemann Hypothesis”
- “Five questions we hope to answer in the next 25 years”
- “Teaching Computers How to Do Science” by Dan Falk
- “How Life Found a Way”
- “Can Autism Therapy Be Tailored?”
- “Untangling Quantum Entanglement”
- “A Cultural Challenge : Science Outreach” by Marilyn Simons
More details about the Simons Foundation can be found in these web pages
Suresh Emre
Renaissance Universal 