This year’s Nobel Prize is worth eleven million Swedish crowns (approx. 950,000 euros). Austro-Hungarian physicist Ferenc Krausz has been happy with this since Tuesday: he has received the most important science prize together with his colleague Pierre Agostini and his colleague Anne L’Huillier. Now he has revealed what will happen to the money.
It’s a truly noble gesture that Krausz is aiming for – as with the previous prizes he has received for his scientific work in recent years, this time “a good chunk” should go to an initiative he helped launch to people in Ukraine, as he revealed on ORF “Zib 2”.
As Science 4 People explains on its website, the first projects will help about thirty children in eastern Ukraine who have lost their homes. “We want to provide resources for online teaching and healthy meals from a renovated school kitchen,” it continues. In addition, a new temporary home for refugees will be built, which will later serve as a youth center.
Good memories of Vienna
Krausz also revealed that he still remembers his time in the Austrian capital fondly: “I had a wonderful time in Vienna – actually the most beautiful and in a way most productive years of my academic career.” Krausz started his career at the Technical University. University of Vienna started.
At the same time, the physicist, who grew up in Hungary, underlined his European vision: “We should all be Europeans here in Europe. And I am very proud that I have received a lot from three countries.” Hungary, Austria and Germany gave him important impulses at different stages of his career: “I am very grateful that I can now give these countries this prize, that I can give something back.”
Highest science prize for complex research
The 61-year-old Krausz is honored for his research in the field of attoseconds together with the two co-laureates Anne L’Huillier and Pierre Agostini. The developed methods allow the fastest possible movements outside the atomic nuclei to be tracked in real time.
I didn’t think about a possible Nobel Prize
In any case, Krausz emphasized in ‘ZiB 2’ that he had not once thought about a possible Nobel Prize when he made the discovery in Vienna: ‘Instead, I was very fascinated by the idea of being able to move on to a world where people hadn’t been yet.”
“We may have to wait a little longer for the practical benefit,” said the scientist, but at the same time he outlined possible areas of application of his basic research, for example whether switching electric current could be done significantly faster: “That could lead to a hundred thousandfold improvement of computer performance.”
Source: Krone
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