Yoichiro Nambu
American theoretical physicist (1921-2015)
Yoichiro Nambu (南部 陽一郎, Nanbu Yōichirō; 18 January 1921 – 5 July 2015) was a Japanese-American physicist and professor at the University of Chicago.
Known for his groundbreaking contributions to theoretical physics, Nambu was the originator of the theory of spontaneous symmetry breaking, a concept that revolutionized particle physics. He was also a pioneer of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), one of the founding figures of string theory, and the proposer of Nambu mechanics. In addition, he co-created the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model, which explained the dynamical origin of mass in nucleons.
He was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2008 for the discovery in 1960 of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics, related at first to the strong interaction's chiral symmetry and later to the electroweak interaction and Higgs mechanism. The other half was split equally between Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature".
Early life and education
Yoichiro Nambu was born on January 18, 1921, in Tokyo, Empire of Japan. In 1923, when Tokyo was devastated by the Great Kanto Earthquake, the Nambu family relocated to Fukui Prefecture, the hometown of his father. Nambu spent the rest of his childhood there and completed his high school education by age 17.
During his youth, he built a crystal radio set by himself.
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