3 win Nobel for subatomic physics research

[Coventina]

Source: Associated Press

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Two Japanese citizens and a Japanese-born American won the 2008 Nobel Prize in physics for discoveries in the world of subatomic physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Tuesday.

American Yoichiro Nambu, 87, of the University of Chicago, won half of the prize for the discovery of a mechanism called spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics. Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa of Japan shared the other half of the prize for discovering the origin of the broken symmetry that predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature.

"Spontaneous broken symmetry conceals nature's order under an apparently jumbled surface," the academy said in its citation. "Nambu's theories permeate the standard model of elementary particle physics. The model unifies the smallest building blocks of all matter and three of nature's four forces in one single theory."

The Japanese-born Nambu moved to the United States in 1952 and is a professor at the University of Chicago, where he has worked for 40 years. He became a U.S. citizen in 1970.



Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i3qm0Y8td2T63_bc7_bsbSoqPWNQD93LKRCG0

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Congrats to the winners!

:toast:

[Lerkfish]

1. ok, but can someone explain it to the rest of us?

I feel like Homer Simpson