In addition to exceptional abilities and domain-specific aptitudes, frequently creativity potentials are used to explain high achievements in science and technology. In the Guilford tradition, research focuses increasingly on convergent versus divergent thinking, that is, a suspected dichotomy between intelligence and creativity. Despite important insights from this about relationship of ability and creativity, a number of important questions remain unanswered. These relate not only to conceptualization and measurement problems regarding the hypothetical constructs "scientific ability" and "creativity", but also their diagnosis and nurturance in childhood and adolescence. It would appear that, in view of current research paradigms, the role of ability and creativity needs to be redefinded in order to more reliably predict and explain excellent achievements in science and technology. Advances are mostly expected from synthetic approaches. Thus, I will be presenting new theoretical models and empirical research results. Finally, consequences for the prediction and promotion of mathematical-scientific and technical talents will be discussed including the consideration of sex-related problems.

The "First Step to Nobel Prize in Physics" is an annual competition in research projects in physics for secondary (high) school pupils organized by the Institute od Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences. This year the second competition of that type has been completed. Pupils from 36 countries took part in the first two competitions, what certainly should be treated as a great success. We have organized the above competition for the following reasons. During our contacts with secondary school pupils we discovered that some of them try to perform different physical investigations by themselves: at schools, in some laboratories and even at home. Then we decided to organize the National Competition in Pupils' Research Projects in Physics and next - after gaining some experience in the national scale - the international competition "First Step to Nobel Prize in Physics". Our aim was to recognize the effort of the pupils, give them a chance to compare their own achievements with the achievements of their colleagues and organize their work. One should underline that the "First Step" refers to quite different features (long term research work) of the pupils than the International Physics Olympiad (solving well formulated physics problems). The prizes in our competition are not typical. Instead of buying some items for our winners we decided to invite them to our Institute for a research stay. In our opinion in case of people whose hobby is physics such a form of prize is more valuable and more instructive than anything else. The aim of this article is to discuss a genesis of the competition, to present conditions of participation and to discuss the results.

"Is a given boy or girl gifted in physics\ulcorner" That is a very complicated question and it is not easy to answer it as creativity and talents have many aspects. The lecture is devoted to analysis of several of them. In particular, we shall discuss the following points: 1) "Poets in physics". Some pupils have a seldom ability to create very beautiful, intellectual constructions starting from very few assumptions. Any building consists of commonly used bricks or other building elements, any book contains only several tens of commonly used letters or other graphic elements, also any painting may be created by appropriate use of several colors. Some buildings are nice, some not. Some paintings are beautiful, some not. Certain pupils, by appropriate use of several simple laws, are able to create beautiful constructions. They are like poets writing poetry by using several tens of letters known to everybody. 2) "Free hunters". Some pupils solve even very typical problems in a very untypical ways. Their independence in thinking is especially valuable. 3) "Small discoverers". Even very rich syllabuses do not contain whole physics. Some pupils e.g. during solving problems discover laws or rules that are absent in the syllabus. For example, some of them are able to make use of symmetry or dimensional analysis without any preliminary knowledge of that matter. The considerations are illustrated with different examples taken from physics or mathematics. The subject is very large and, of course, we are not able to present the problem in a complete way.o present the problem in a complete way.

The nature of the classroom environment is an important variable to understand when fostering creativity for elementary children. Studies of the classroom climate, structure or interaction commonly depend on behavioral observations or reports from the teacher or other adult-observer. Recent studies have used self-report instruments completed by students regarding their perceptions of various aspects of their class (see Fraser, 1991). The purpose of this study was to determine the developmental differences in the ratings of classroom environment between Korean students who are gifted and their American peers. The My Class Inventory was administered to 141 elementary students in grades three, four, and five. There were 65 Korean students and 76 American students who were identified as gifted by their schools. Reliability coefficients were calculated for all scales (satisfaction = .68: friction, .67; competition = .57; cohesion = .73; difficulty = .22). Results of a multivariate analysis illustrated significant differences between students from Korea and students from America on the MCI. Univariate analysis of variance of cultural group by grade level were conducted for four of the five scales. Significant differences were found by country for the cohesion scale and by country at grade levels for the satisfaction scale. American children expressed greater satisfaction than their Korean counterparts at all grade level, but particularly at grade five. Implications for further research are discussed.