- Title: SWEDEN / JAPAN: Two Japanese and one American win 2008 physics Nobel.
- Date: 8th October 2008
- Summary: (W3) STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN (OCTOBER 7, 2008) (REUTERS) EXTERIORS EXTERIOR/ THE ROYAL SWEDISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCE MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL SWEDISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCE ENTERING ROOM JOURNALISTS LISTENING (SOUNDBITE) (English) CHAIRMAN OF THE ROYAL SWEDISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCE GUNNAR OQUIST SAYING: "The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2008 Nobel prize in physics, with one half to Professor Yoichiro Nambu at the Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago. And the Academy's citation runs; "for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in sub-atomic physics. And the other part of the prize, the other half of the prize, is awarded jointly to Professor Makoto Kobayashi at the KEK (High Energy Accelerator Research Organization) laboratory, Tsukuba, Japan, and Professor Toshihide Masukawa of the University of Kyoto, in Japan. And they get their prize for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarts in nature." PHOTOGRAPH OF THE THREE WINNERS WIDE OF NEWS CONFERENCE
- Embargoed: 23rd October 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Science / Technology
- Reuters ID: LVAF4WIHCXJJBGI3FCQ1B70PL6EW
- Story Text: Two Japanese scientists and a Tokyo-born American share the 2008 Nobel Prize for Physics for discoveries in sub-atomic particles.
Two Japanese scientists and a Tokyo-born American shared the 2008 Nobel Prize for Physics for discoveries in sub-atomic particles, the prize committee said on Tuesday (October 7).
The Nobel committee honoured Yoichiro Nambu, a Tokyo-born American citizen, and Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa of Japan for separate work that dealt with so-called spontaneous broken symmetries.
They helped figure out the existence and behaviour of the very tiniest particles known as quarks.
Nambu, a professor at the University of Chicago, was recognised for his discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry. It helps underlie the Standard Model of physics, which unites three of the four fundamental forces of nature: strong, weak and electromagnetic, leaving out gravity.
Nambu also influenced the development of quantum chromodynamics, a theory that describes some of the interactions between protons and neutrons, which make up atoms, and the quarks that make up the protons and neutrons.
Nambu shared half of the prestigious 10 million Swedish crown ($1.4 million U.S.-dollar) prize with Kobayashi of Japan's High Energy Accelerator Research Organisation and Maskawa of Kyoto University.
Kobayashi and Maskawa proposed the six types of quarks -- up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top. All were later discovered in high-energy particle physics experiments.
Kobayashi said the news came as a shock.
"I don't know what to say. It's all so unexpected but delightful."
But Maskawa said he was not surprised and was glad the prize went to Tokyo-born American Nambu.
"We are all especially and most happy that Professor Nambu got awarded this prize."
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso was one of the first to congratulate the two Japan-based scientists and hear a few words of advice from them.
"If you have a love for knowledge then studying becomes easy.
However I am worried that with students these days, cramming for exams has sucked away their desire for knowledge," Masukawa told Aso after the Prime Minister called him before his news conference at Tokyo University.
The Japanese Prime Minister was especially happy this news came at a time when news bulletins are focused on the meltdown in global financial markets.
"It's really incredibly happy news. And for the Japanese people, its been a while since we've had such happy news and about six years since we won a Noble prize.. So congratulations," he told Kobayashi over the phone from the Prime Minister's residence.
Physicists are now searching for the spontaneous broken symmetry, the Higgs mechanism, which threw the universe into its current imbalance at the time of the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.
This Higgs mechanism gave the particles their masses and there should be a Higgs particle, theory predicts. Scientists at the world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research or CERN in Switzerland, will be looking for this particle when they re-start the collider in spring of 2009.
The prize, awarded by the Nobel Committee for Physics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, was the second of this year's crop of Nobel prizes.
The prizes are handed out annually for achievements in science, peace, literature and economics. The prizes bearing the name of Alfred Nobel were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the 1895 will of the Swedish dynamite millionaire. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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