As part of its educational activities, CTP PAS is currently implementing the following projects:1. Project “Physics in the Cloud – Polish physics resources on Khan Academy“, financed from the funds of the Ministry of Education and Science (38 800.00 PLN awarded), project leader Prof. Lech Mankiewicz, implementation period 2020-06-01 – 2022-05-31. The project aims to develop scripts and to record within 24 months ca. 50 videos (ca. 550-570 minutes of narrated runtime) from the field of physics, which will be placed on the Khan Academy platform in the Polish language version. Creative Commons licence CC:NC-BY-SA will allow non-commercial use of the created materials by other entities and organisations. Created materials will be available for three on the pl.khanacademy.org website and in the Khan Academy mobile application, available in Polish both for iOS and Android.
2. Project “Popularisation of Quantum Cryptography“, financed from the funds of the Ministry of Education and Science (26 500,00 PLN awarded), project leader Prof. Krzysztof Pawłowski, implmentation period 2021-12-01 – 2023-02-28. The project aims to hold workshops and to build an exhibit for demonstrating quantum encryption methods. Quantum technologies, thanks to advances in experimental physics, are undergoing a tangible breakthrough. Despite the inherent potential of these technologies, knowledge of them is not widespread, whereas quantum mechanics seems to boast the status of secret lore. During the course of this project, a circuit will be constructed to demonstrated the simplest encryption method to use quantum mechanics principles, the so-called BB84 protocol. The protocol is based on generation and transmission of an encryption key using singular photons of random polarity. During the workshop the participants will modify the circuit, generate the encryption key, encrypt and decrypt sent messages. The workshop will use commonly available, relatively cheap lasers generating multiphoton impulses. This does not guarantee full security of information exchange about the encryption key. Some participants will be tasked with exploiting this vulnerability to intercept messages, making everyone aware of what the devices lack to be “quantum”. 10 workshops are planned to be held with groups of 10-15 participants. Another part of this project is to create an animation explaining in an accessible way what quantum cryptography is, what BB84 protocol is and how to possibly improve it with entangled states (Artur Ekert’s algorithm).
Khan Academy is an educational web portal for students, with more than 600 thousand monthly visits. The Center for Theoretical Physics, PAS supports and provides content supervision for mathematics and physics. We are the authors of numerous recordings and translations! Polish language version activities are coordinated by the Chairman of the Scientific Council of CTP PAS, Prof. Lech Mankiewicz.
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Our activity in previous editions: (2002) (2003) (2004) (2005) (2006) (2007) (2008) (2009) (2010) (2011) (2012) (2013) (2014) (2015) (2016) (2017) (2018) (2019) (2020) (2023) (2024) (2025)
We also recommend Young Person’s Science Festival: (2008) (2009) (2010)
Late Prof. Łukasz Turski was the initiator of the Picnic, which attracts tens of thousands of Polish attendants every year.
Our activity in previous editions: (2003) (2004) (2005) (2006) (2007) (2008) (2009) (2010) (2011) (2012) (2013) (2015) (2016) (2017)
