Physicist Ferenc Krausz – the second Nobel Prize winning Hungarian in as many days
October 5th, 2023Commentators are elated at the news that one day after Katalin Karikó’s Nobel Prize in medicine, Ferenc Krausz won the Nobel Prize in Physics with French physicists Pierre Agostini and Anne L’Huillier, for their superfast pulses of light to study electron dynamics. Just like the previous day, the celebrations are accompanied by political remarks.
In Népszava, Miklós Hargitay remarks that Dr Krausz is the 17th Hungarian to win a Nobel Prize, and attributes that number to the earlier high standards in public and higher education in Hungary. He laments that at present, teaching methods are outdated, and teachers are underpaid. Therefore, he predicts, Hungary can’t be optimistic about her citizens winning Nobel Prizes thirty or forty years from now.
HVG.hu features a list of Nobel Prize winning Hungarians by writer Kriszián Nyáry, who remarks that only two of them, namely writer Imre Kertész and biochemist Albert Szentgyörgyi were awarded the prize for their work in Hungary. Kertész, he adds, was the only one who worked and died on Hungarian soil.
Mandiner’s Milán Constantinovits vituperates against liberals who lament the fate of the typical Hungarian Nobel Prize winner who had to leave Hungary to become successful. Some even call them people of Hungarian origin, which Constantinovits decries as an outrage. Such liberals are just unable to be proud of their country and are out to spoil the festive feelings of their compatriots. Instead, he encourages young Hungarians to take inspiration from the example of the two latest Hungarian Nobel Prize-winning scientists.
Tags: education, Nobel Prize