Hideki Yukawa
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Hideki Yukawa
Born: 23 January 1907, Tokyo, Japan
Died: 8 September 1981, Kyoto, Japan
Affiliation at the time of the award: Kyoto Imperial University, Kyoto, Japan , Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
Prize motivation: "for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces."
Prize share: 1/1
Work
Atomic nuclei consist of protons and neutrons held together by a strong force. Hideki Yukawa assumed that this force is borne by particles and that there is a relationship between the range of the force and the mass of the force-bearing particle. In 1934, Hideki Yukawa predicted that this particle should have a mass about 200 times that of an electron. He called this particle a "meson". Mesons' existence was verified in later experiments.
Recommended reading
All Nobel Prizes and laureates
See the list of all Nobel Prizes, awarded for "the greatest benefit to mankind."
Alfred Nobel founded the Nobel Prizes
In his will, Alfred Nobel left 31 million SEK to found the Nobel Prizes.
"I got super excited by that unexpected result"
Medicine Laureate Shinya Yamanaka talks about the importance of taking risks.
