How We Make a Difference
At FQxI, we are committed to supporting scientific revolution, not just evolution. FQxI funds high-risk, high-reward projects that challenge the status quo. Our interest is in science as an end in itself. Before technological advances and lucrative spin-offs comes curiosity and a desire for knowledge in its own right.
Through FQxI’s grantmaking programs, we are able to support scientists working at the forefront of their disciplines. Those who challenge the ideas that others take for granted. Those who are able to dream big and then roll up their sleeves to test their ideas.
FQxI runs grant programs to support research endeavors varying from large-scale support of laboratory work to mini-grants awarded to create workshops where great ideas can be exchanged between colleagues. To date, we have provided over US$29 million in funding across ten RFPs and 28 mini-grant (now Fulcrum Grant) rounds, generated thousands of scientific papers, hosted six international conferences, and supported a large number of meetings and workshops.
the foundational questions institute in numbers
Founded 2006 BY MAX TEGMARK and Anthony aguirre
US$28 million AWARDED in Grants
10 RFPs and 28 Mini-grant rounds
6 International Conferences
OVER 350 Members
4 Nobel LaureaTEs
10 FUNDING THEMES
Over 1,000 research papers
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PressRelease: Out of the string theory swampland
String theory has long been touted as physicists’ best candidate for describing the fundamental nature of the universe, with elementary particles and forces described as vibrations of tiny threads of energy. But in the early 21st century, it was realized that most of the versions of reality described by string theory’s equations cannot match up with observations of our own universe. In particular, conventional string theory’s predictions are incompatible with the observation of dark energy, which appears to be causing our universe’s expansion to speed up, and with viable theories of quantum gravity, instead predicting a vast ‘swampland’ of impossible universes. Now, a new analysis by FQxI physicist Eduardo Guendelman, of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel, shows that an exotic subset of string models–in which the tension of strings is generated dynamically–could provide an escape route out of the string theory swampland. The analysis was reported in The European Physical Journal C, in March.