UCSB Professor’s Nobel Prize to be auctioned off

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. -- In 1998, UC Santa Barbara Professor Walter Kohn won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for both the scientific impact of his work and his life experience as a Kindertransport survivor during World War II.

On Thursday, Kohn's Nobel Prize will be auctioned off.

"To think what would have been lost to the world had Walter Kohn not made it to the UK during WWII is incomprehensible," said auction owner Nate Sanders. "This Nobel Prize is not only a testament to the knowledge that mankind is capable of, but also to its humanity."

Nate D. Sanders Auctions said bidding on the Nobel Prize medal starts at $275,000.

Event organizers said Kohn was one of the children rescued from Nazi-occupied territories in World War II through the Kindertransport program. Kohn later moved to Canada after both of his parents were killed in the Holocaust.

While in Canada, Kohn bought three science books titled ''A Course of Pure Mathematics'', ''Dent's Modern Science Series'' and ''Properties of Matter''.

Event organizers said these books will also be in the auction.

As for his work in the science field, Kohn devised the computational quantum mechanical modeling system that has allowed scientists to understand the nuclear structure of microscopic matter.

According to the auction organizers, Kohn earned his PhD from Harvard in Physics, and later taught as a research professor of physics at UC Santa Barbara.

During his time at UCSB, Kohn became the founding director of the campus's Institute for Theoretical Physics, now known as KITP.

Kohn died in 2016 at the age of 93.

For more information on Kohn's work and the bidding of his Nobel Prize, click the link here.