Nobel Winners 2008 BBC

Nobel Prize in Physics 2008

“for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in

subatomic physics”

“for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature”



Laureates:

Yoichiro Nambu (1/2 of the prize)

Born: 1921

Birthplace: Japan

Nationality: US citizen

Current position:

Harry Pratt Judson

Distinguished Service

Professor Emeritus,

Enrico Fermi Institute,

University of Chicago,

Illinois, USA



Makoto Kobayashi (1/4 of the prize)

Born: 1944

Birthplace: Japan

Nationality:

Japanese citizen

Current position:

Professor Emeritus,

High Energy Accelerator

Research Organization

(KEK), Tsukuba, Japan



Toshihide Maskawa (1/4 of the prize)

Born: 1940

Birthplace: Japan

Nationality:

Japanese citizen

Current position:

Professor Emeritus,

Yukawa Institute for

Theoretical Physics (YITP),

Kyoto University, Japan

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Luckily for us, the Universe is not symmetrical, at least at the subatomic level. If it was, the newly formed matter at the Universe’s birth would have been annihilated by an equal and opposite amount of antimatter, and nothingness would have resulted. Instead, a small imbalance, or asymmetry, in the amount of matter and antimatter created led to a slight excess of matter, from which we are all eventually formed. Such so-called ‘broken symmetry’ is one key to our existence. Understanding symmetry, or the lack of it, is an ongoing task, and the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics rewarded two discoveries concerning symmetry violation in the field of particle physics. In the 1960s Yoichiro Nambu, who had been working on asymmetries underlying superconductivity, was the first to model how broken symmetry can occur spontaneously at the subatomic level. The mathematical descriptions he formulated helped refine the standard model of particle physics, the current working theory that best explains much, but not all, of the way that fundamental particles and the forces that govern their behaviour interact to create the known Universe.



In the early 1970s, Kobayashi and Maskawa formulated a model that explained certain symmetry violations that had recently surprised observers in particle physics experiments. Their model suggested that the collection of subatomic particles known at the time was insufficient to explain the observed behaviours, and predicted the existence of as yet undiscovered elementary particles. It did not, however, specify precisely what form these particles should take. Kobayashi and Maskawa hypothesized the existence of a third family of quarks, which are some of the building blocks from which all matter and antimatter are formed. They then had to wait almost three decades for the experimental results that would fully verify their hypothesis. The existence of all three families was finally confirmed when the last member was observed in the mid 1990s. Symmetry breaking in particle physics continues to be the focus of intense speculation and investigation. One of the most infamous examples of symmetry breaking, the particle or set of particles known as the Higgs boson, thought to be responsible for breaking the symmetry between electromagnetism and the so-called weak nuclear force, could help solve one of the greatest outstanding questions in physics – how particles acquire mass. Whether or not this mysterious particle exists will be the main subject of scrutiny at the Large Hadron Collider, the giant particle accelerator soon to go into operation

outside Geneva, Switzerland.



Source: http://130.242.18.21/nobel_prizes/nobelguide.pdf

A five parts documentary about the laureates in the 2008 Nobel Prize for Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Economics and Literature