Jaume Gomis: Explorer of “the next layer of reality”

A look around Jaume Gomis’ office at Perimeter Institute tells short stories of his life. 

There’s an old pillow on a chair, quilted by his mother, that bears a cartoon stitched into one side – a zany drawing of Albert Einstein pushing Stephen Hawking in a wheelchair while they giddily talk physics. The cartoon was drawn by a college friend of Gomis’ (who went on to become a Disney animator), so the pillow is an ever-present reminder for Gomis of family, friends, and physics. 

“My mother was an artist, and I think I inherited some of that creativity,” says Gomis, holding the pillow, now flattened from years of being sat upon by visiting colleagues and students. 

On a small table near Gomis’ desk stands a small iron sculpture – a human figure, made of a wrench, perfectly counter-balanced on a platform to swing like a pendulum after being set in motion. 

“This is a piece that my lovely wife, Sheila, gave me shortly after we came to Waterloo,” he recalls. “She thought it was the perfect combination of simple art expressing some science. So this has been here for 20 years.” 

Elsewhere in Gomis’ office are glimpses of his athletic life. He was a longtime competitive swimmer and is currently training for the 2025 World Triathlon Aquathlon Championships in Pontevedra, Spain. 

“You cannot lie to yourself when you’re an athlete,” he says. “You know that when you put in the work, there are no excuses, and you have to trust that you’ll be able to do it.” 

Gomis joined the faculty of Perimeter Institute in 2004, the year construction was completed on Perimeter’s permanent building, and he devoted himself to helping the institute grow and succeed. 

“Whenever I think about it I get a bit emotional,” Gomis says of his decision to join Perimeter. 

“I said to myself that I'm going to not only think about my research, but I'm going to think about making Perimeter what it can be. So I'm very proud now to see that the child has grown so well. Every time I come to Perimeter I feel like it’s a blessing. I have to pinch myself sometimes that we can do this for a living.” 

During his two decades at Perimeter Gomis has explored many facets of his subfield, quantum fields and strings, and he is currently fascinated by “defects” in quantum field theory. 

Although the word “defects” typically refers to imperfections, Gomis is interested in defects of a different sort – extended objects like curves and surfaces within quantum field theories. 

“‘Defects’ has almost a negative connotation, but they encode things that would be not visible any other way,” he explains. “By studying these defects in your physical system, you are able to understand properties of the physical system that would never be visible by studying the usual observables that you find in textbooks.”

Gomis says he and his colleagues are motivated to uncover “the next layer of reality” – a unified, cohesive understanding of how the universe works from the quantum scale to the cosmos as a whole. 

Ultimately, that’s why Perimeter Institute was created: to be a place where brilliant scientists can work together to explain how the universe works. 

“Perimeter is bigger than any one of us,” he says. “That’s a crucial part of the equation. It is our role to make sure we fulfill the promise of what Perimeter wants to be.”

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