I used to be part of a collaboration at a particle accelerator called RHIC. It was the most powerful accelerator of it's type before the LHC was built, and a lo

I used to be part of a collaboration at a particle accelerator called RHIC. It was the most powerful accelerator of it's type before the LHC was built, and a lot of really great research was done there. One year, the budget got slashed and there just wasn't enough funding for it to operate. Simons donated a massive amount of his own money, and organized fundraising from other sources, both of which played central roles in the experiments being able to continue on with their research. There's now a road inside of Brookhaven National Lab called "Renaissance" in honor of him to celebrate his contributions. It's actually pretty sad that it was necessary for something like that to happen, but it certainly speaks volumes about Simons.