News

This article was submitted by Timea Udvarhelyi from Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, Romania, for a competition held by the European Office of Charles University by the occassion of the 30th anniversary of the Erasmus programme. Timea Udvarhelyi studies Computer Science and is at present hosted by the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University.

A search tool developed by Matfyz Computer Science students has scored another success, this time at the international competition ‘Video Browser Shutdown’ (VBS), which took place on 5 February in Bangkok, Thailand.

A year ago they achieved a historical milestone in artificial intelligence development. Martin Schmid and Matej Moravčík, doctoral students of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, were members of an international research team that participated in DeepStack program development, the very first program that beat human professional poker players. Both young scientists have been finishing their studies and since October they have been working on artificial intelligence for Google DeepMind enterprise in Canadian Edmonton.

It has been eight years since a unique collection of audio-visual recordings held by the USC Shoah Foundation was made available to the Czech public. These archival materials are being used by researchers, teachers, and students.

The project supported by Operational Programme Prague – Growth Pole of the Czech Republic analyses and also simulates climate or weather conditions in our capital. Thanks to this project the quality of life of Prague citizens will improve.

The night before November 17th the oldest Czech foundation awarded meaningful personalities of local science. Apart from the others awarded, two representatives of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics were honoured. Prof. Eva Hajičová got a medal for Nestors of Czech science, Dr. Martin Balko got the award of Josef Hlávka for exceptional academic and scientific results.

The Fulbright-Masaryk program for a non-profit sector celebrated 10 years organizing a concert at the Lesser Town Refectory.

The National Heritage Institute awarded the best projects of monument conservation, the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University was awarded twice. The preservation project of St. Wenceslas Rotunda won the category "value presentation" and also in public vote "Památky děkují".

MODEST17, an international conference on astronomy, held at Charles University in Prague from September 18th until 22nd.

The start-up grant by European Research Council of total budget € 920,000 goes to the Department of Chemical Physics and Optics to Dr. Jiří Klimeš. The grant is there to support his project focused on development of methods for materials modelling.

The Space Physics Group from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics participates in the development of the ESA Solar Orbiter spacecraft, which will observe the Sun surface, solar eruptions, and their products in the interplanetary space. Thanks to the participation in one of the instrument consortia the faculty will gain access to unique science data.

Shadasha Williams comes from New Jersey and now is one of the students who attend lectures at Lesser Town lecture rooms since last October. She studies Computational Linguistics there. She is also the second international student who was given a scholarship by the Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics and the School of Computer Science of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University.

Monday April 3rd was the day when another Job Fair for Mathematics and Computer Science was held.

On April 11 the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics welcomed one of the most prestigeous contemporary mathematicians. Prof. Cédric Villani gave a lecture called Of Particles, Stars and Eternity.

DeepStack the first computer program to outplay human professionals at heads-up no-limit Texas hold'em poker.