Nobel Prize-winning physicist to help Ukrainian children prepare for international competitions
29 November 2024 12:56
Nobel Prize winner in physics, Hungarian-born Ferenc Kraus intends to implement a project in Zakarpattia to create an educational center for gifted children. This was announced by Myroslav Biletsky, the head of the Zakarpattia Regional Education Association, following a meeting with Ferenc Kraus, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
It is planned that in this educational center, leading experts, teachers, and professors, including those from abroad, will prepare gifted Ukrainian and Hungarian children to participate in international competitions in mathematics, physics, and computer science, and later in chemistry and biology.
The center also plans to build a sports complex, a park, a playground, and a dormitory. In the future, a whole children’s town will grow here.
Ferenc Kraus assured that his initiative is supported by the Hungarian government and the Nobel Foundation.
Who is Ferenc Kraus?
61-year-old Ferenc Kraus is a Hungarian-born physicist who, together with a group of scientists, first generated and measured the first attosecond light pulse and used it to observe the behavior of electrons in atoms. As NV notes, he thus became one of the co-founders of a new branch of physics, attophysics.
It was for this discovery that Krauss became one of last year’s three Nobel Prize winners in physics, whose names were announced on October 3, 2023. The other two laureates were scientists who also made discoveries in attophysics – Pierre Agostini (Ohio University) and Anne L’Huillier (Lund University).
Ferenc Kraus was born and educated in Hungary, but now works in Germany. Since 2003, he has been heading the Institute of Quantum Optics of the Max Planck Society in Garching, Germany (a suburb of Munich, Germany), and is also the head of the Department of Attosecond Physics.
Ferenc Kraus actively supports Ukraine
In 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kraus founded the Science4People initiative, which helps Ukrainian schoolchildren and students to gain knowledge and study at universities abroad. He decided to donate the prize money to support Ukrainians affected by the war. He said this in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio shortly after learning about the award. The Nobel Prize includes a cash prize of approximately SEK 11 million (about $1 million).
One of Science 4 People’s educational projects is School, which was launched on October 2, 2023, in cooperation with Tabula Rasa for the Future Generation. It aims to help students in two rural Zakarpattia schools overcome learning gaps caused by the war and the COVID-19 pandemic. Science4People is also helping an elementary school in the village of Bakosha in Berehove region.
