2008-10-16Nambu, Kobayashi, and Maskawa win the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics |
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the
Nobel Prize in Physics for 2008 with one half to Yoichiro Nambu Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, IL, USA "for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics" and the other half jointly to Makoto Kobayashi, High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba, Japan and Toshihide Maskawa, Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP), Kyoto University, Japan "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature".
At a press conference this morning 87-year-old Nambu said he was awakened by a telephone call from the academy. "I was surprised and honored. I didn't expect it. I've been told for many years that I was on the list (to get the award)," he said. "I had almost given up."
Nambu, Kobayashi, and Maskawa win the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics