Nobel Laureate Krausz: Only ‘world class’ scientific research worthwhile

Krausz, who is the director of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, said the ELI-ALPs laser laboratory in Szeged, in the southeast of Hungary, was “absolutely suitable” for this purpose.

Even the richest, strongest countries can’t be at the “cutting edge” of all areas of science, and for a country the size of Hungary to conduct research that has an international impact, focusing on specific areas is “unavoidable”, he said.

He added that sufficient funding was not enough to produce world class research results, the right infrastructure and people were also necessary.

Krausz said his interest in physics started in the classroom of “Mr Kiss” at the Radnoti Miklos Primary School in Mor, in the west of Hungary, and grew at the city’s Tancsics Mihaly Gymnasium.

He earned a degree in electrical engineering at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and started to deal with laser physics at the technical university in Vienna.