Hideki Yukawa

Facts

Hideki Yukawa

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Hideki Yukawa
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1949

Born: 23 January 1907, Tokyo, Japan

Died: 8 September 1981, Kyoto, Japan

Affiliation at the time of the award: Columbia University, New York, NY, USA; Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

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, 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.

To cite this section
MLA style: Hideki Yukawa – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Fri. 8 Nov 2024. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1949/yukawa/facts/>

Back to top Back To Top Takes users back to the top of the page

Nobel Prizes and laureates

Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.

See them all presented here.

Illustration

Explore prizes and laureates

Look for popular awards and laureates in different fields, and discover the history of the Nobel Prize.