In 2006, Renaissance Technologies Corporation, a New York hedge fund, raised $13 million to keep the Relativisitic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory operating.

Why was a hedge fund supporting a particle physics facility? Partly it was an philanthropic opportunity-- gift was organized by Jim Simons, founder of Renaissance Technologies and a member of the Brookhaven board-- but it also nicely symbolizes the deepening connections between the worlds of physics and finance. The only thing that may prove unusual about the gift is that it went to an experimental facility: other efforts by scientists-turned-entrepreneurs-turned-philanthropists have tended to focus on theoretical research.