Hideki Yukawa

File:Hideki yukawa.jpg

Hideki Yukawa

Hideki Yukawa FRSE (湯川 秀樹, January 23, 1907 - September 8, 1981) was a Japanese theoretical physicist and the first Japanese person to win the Nobel prize. His theory of mesons was the first clear depiction on how physical force takes place. A proton and a neutron engage in a give and take action of a pion, which generates a nuclear force. The proton and neutron switch their positions every time they exchange a pion, strengthening their bond (stabilizing their energy state).

He was born in Tokyo, on January 23, 1907. In 1929, after receiving his degree from Kyoto Imperial University he stayed on as a lecturer for four years. After graduation, he was interested in theoretical physics, particularly in the theory of elementary particles. In 1932, he married Sumiko and had two sons, Harumi and Takaaki. In 1933 he became a professor and an assistant professor at Osaka University, at age 26.

In 1935 he published his theory of mesons, which explained the interaction between protons and neutrons, and was a major influence on research into elementary particles. In 1940, he became a professor in Kyoto University. In 1940 he won the Imperial Prize of the Japan Academy, in 1943, the Decoration of Cultural Merit from the Japanese government. In 1949 he became a professor at Columbia University. In 1949, he won the Nobel prize for physics, after the discovery by Cecil Powell of the Yukawa's predicted pion in 1947. Yukawa also predicted K-capture, in which a low energy hydrogen electron could be absorbed by the nucleus.

In 1953 he became the first chairman at Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics [1] An honorary doctorate of the University of Paris and honorary memberships of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Indian Academy of Sciences, the International Academy of Philosophy and Sciences, and the Pontificia Academia Scientiarum are granted to him for acknowledgement in science.

He had been an editor at Progress of Theoretical Physics since 1946. He had published many scientific papers and lecture notes, including Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (1946) and Introduction to the Theory of Elementary Particles (1948), both in Japanese. In 1955, he joined 10 other leading scientists and intellectuals in signing the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, calling for nuclear disarmament.

He died on September 8, 1981 at age 74.

His name remains visible in the quantum field theory. Written in a non-relativistic form, the potential energy of the force is called the Yukawa potential. In the general terms of quantum field theory, the Lagrangian describing the pion-nucleon interaction is called the Yukawa interaction.

External links

• Hideki Yukawa - Biography
• About Hideki Yukawa
• his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces.

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