Japan's First Nobel Laureate Survived Two World Wars

Hideki Yukawa (1907-1981) was the first Japanese Nobel laureate who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1949. This recognition was a silver lining to the devastating second world war that destroyed Japan's cities. Yukawa inspired a whole new generation of children to look up to scientists.

Childhood

Hideki Yukawa was born on January 23 in Tokyo as Hideki Ogawa to a middle class Japanese family of academicians that belonged to the Samurai clan.

While he was not as outstanding a student as his older brothers, Hideki showed an aptitude for mathematics and the sciences.

When Hideki was 8 years old, the first world war broke out in which Japan participated in an alliance with Entente Powers. By the time war ended, Yukawa was already a teenager in Kyoto.

Yukawa's geologist father wanted him to become a mathematician. Hideki ditched that idea in high school after his teacher marked his exam answer incorrect when he proved a theorem in a different manner than the teacher expected.

Education

Yukawa graduated from Kyoto University at age 22 where he stayed on as a teacher for four years, until 1933. During this time, he also married Sumi Yukawa in accordance with Japanese customs.

Since his father-in-law had no sons, Hideki Ogawa was adopted by the Yukawa family and thereby a name change from Ogawa to Yukawa. The couple had two sons.

In 1933, Yukawa moved to Osaka University where he earned his doctorate in 1938, aged 31. He rejoined Kyoto University in 1939 as a professor of theoretical physics.

Major works

In 1935, during his time at Osaka University, Yukawa proposed a theory of nuclear forces in which he predicted the existence of a carrier particle of strong and weak interactions.

The particle's predicted mass was between that of the electron and that of the proton. It was named meson taken from mesos, the Greek word for intermediate.

Yukawa returned to Kyoto University in 1939 but could not continue his research work as the second world war broke out. One of Yukawa's younger brothers died in the war.

With most physicists working in applied projects for wartime necessities, Yukawa who grew up resenting the war, spent this time with his family.

Good news came after the war ended as Meson was discovered in 1947 in the cosmic radiation showers by British experimental physicist Cecil Frank Powell. Yukawa went on to be the first Japanese Nobel laureate in 1949.

In 1955, Hideki Yukawa signed the Russell–Einstein Manifesto, issued by British polymath Bertrand Russell calling for nuclear disarmament. Yukawa retired from Kyoto University in 1970 as a Professor Emeritus.

Nobel laureate Yukawa, who survived two world wars, became an inspiration for modern Japan. Since his victory, 20 Japanese nationals have won Nobel Prize in the sciences. In 1977, Yukawa was awarded Order of the Rising Sun, one of the highest honors in Japan.

Google Honors Stephen Hawking With New Doodle

Renowned astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking was nicknamed Einstein at school because he did fairly well in scientific subjects. He was inspired by his maths teacher Dikran Tahta to pursue a degree in mathematics.

However, Hawking's father Frank (who was a medical researcher) advised his son to study medicine instead, as jobs were very few for maths graduates. Stephen showed no interest in biology and so he found a middle ground...

Hawking graduated with a bachelor degree in physics from Oxford University in 1962. This feat was overshadowed by the diagnosis of Lou Gehrig's disease, a condition in which motor neurons get damaged leading to paralysis.

The crippling disease did not dishearten Stephen Hawking for long – not when he completed his doctorate in physics from Cambridge University, 1966. Or when later in life he went on a zero gravity flight:

Hawking authored several best-selling books on physics and astronomy. His most successful written work A brief history of time sold more than 25 million copies, making him an international celebrity. In 2014, a film depicting hawking's battle with the Lou Gehrig's disease was also released.

Hawking said: The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away.

Because of his excellent sense of humor, Hawking starred on such TV shows as Futurama, The Simpsons and The big bang theory as himself. Hawking said: Humor is what keeps me going, and life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.

In 2022, on Hawking's 80th birthday, Google has honored the legendary astrophysicist with a doodle on their homepage and a heartwarming video to top it off.

The doctor had given Stephen just a few years to live in his twenties credit to the life threatening disease. Not only did Hawking beat the odds but also revolutionized physics for next half a century.

His work with mathematician Roger Penrose about the universe's origins and the theorems on black holes made Hawking an undeniable force in the field of physics.

Following are 5 motivational Stephen Hawking quotes:

1. Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.


2. However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don't just give up.


3. One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn't exist.....Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.


4. We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.


5. It surprises me how disinterested we are today about things like physics, space and philosophy of our existence. I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these 'how' and 'why' questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.

When Stephen Hawking abruptly passed away in 2018, he left a many in tears... an aching void in the scientific world that still needs to be filled. Because, Hawking was the most beloved scientist of this generation, rightly on par with Einstein.

10 Best Astrophysics Books For Students

Books break the shackles of time... one glance at a book and you are inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

That is how astronomer Carl Sagan described his love of books in the popular TV show Cosmos: a personal voyage. As per him, a book allows reader to see back in time much like a telescope, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs.

In this post, let us take a look at 10 great astronomy and astrophysics books that every science student should read. These highly popular books were written by famous scientists of this generation, so without further ado...

Astrophysics for people in a hurry

An essential text on the subject by American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson – from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.

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A brief history of time

This classic book was written by Stephen Hawking for non-specialist readers with no prior knowledge of physics and astronomy. Hawking has touched upon his own research on black holes in the book as well for more experienced students.

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The first three minutes

Written by Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate, this book describes what happened immediately after the big bang. Weinberg elaborately explains the evidence in support of the big bang theory and takes us back in time to the origin of the universe.

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Cosmos

This book by astronomer Carl Sagan covers astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology and philosophy of the universe. In one sentence, it is amalgamation of the sciences in one book, a story of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution, science and civilization.

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Special and general relativity

You can gain insights into the theory of relativity from its creator, Albert Einstein, by reading this book he authored in 1916. Einstein wrote this book for interested students who are not yet comfortable with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics.

A universe from nothing

This book by physicist Lawrence M. Krauss answers the deep philosophical question - why there is something rather than nothing? It is again a text that takes us back in time to the origin of the universe when there was practically none of space and time.

Dark matter and dark energy

This book by Brian Clegg is about the hidden 95% of the universe that astronomers have been confused by since the 1970s. It explores why the expansion of the universe is accelerating at a faster and faster rate and what causes it. This book is a treat for modern physics students.

The elegant universe

In this international bestseller, Brian Greene, one of the world's leading string theorists explains what the string theory is in layman's terms. He unravels the eleven hidden dimensions of the universe and introduces the superstring theory in this book.

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Parallel worlds

This book by Michio Kaku covers M-theory and Everett interpretation (many worlds) of quantum mechanics. It also discusses creation of wormholes and hyperspace (a 11-dimensional wormhole) to enable humanity survive big freeze - end of the universe.

Black holes reith lectures

In 2016, Stephen Hawking delivered the Reith Lectures on a subject that fascinated him for decades - black holes. He argues that by understanding black holes we can unlock the secrets of space and time that make up the universe.

Why James Webb Telescope Is Better Than Hubble

The James Webb space telescope (JWST) is named after the longest serving NASA administrator and is the official successor to the Hubble space telescope. JWST is the costliest astronomy project having spent nearly three decades in the making.

The largest and the most powerful telescope in the world is scheduled to be launched in December 2021 after many delays since completion. The JWST will be able to look back in time closer to the Big Bang than ever before.

Comparison

JWST was built by NASA in collaboration with European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency. It will explore the universe in the infrared region, something that Hubble space telescope is incapable of doing. The mirror size is 6.5 meters - three times the size on the Hubble telescope but it weighs half of Hubble.

Protection

To make observations in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, JWST must be kept under 50K or −223°C which is extremely cold. It uses a cryocooler and a large five-layer sunshield to block light and heat from the Sun, Earth and Moon to maintain a stable temperature.

Mission

The objectives of JWST include detecting clues to the origins of the universe, like observing infant galaxies and their evolution. As well as locating earth like planets outside the solar system and study the origins of life.

Hubble space telescope is capable of observing events that happened in space some 500 million years after the Big Bang, whereas Webb telescope can go back even further to around 100 million years after that event.

Instruments

JWST has a near infrared camera for observation of faint extrasolar planets very close to the bright stars. It also has a near infrared spectrograph capable of measuring spectrum of faint stars and galaxies. A fine guidance sensor helps the telescope stay pointed at whatever it is commanded to look at.

Challenges

It was scheduled to launch before but accidental tears in the delicate sunshield in 2018 delayed the project. Controversy also erupted over naming of the telescope as activists alleged that James Webb had discriminated against LGBTQ scientists during his term.

The mirror in JWST will be folded before launch. It is made up of 18 hexagonal segments - shaped so to join without gaps in between them. The mirror will unfold after the launch and it will take at least two weeks before the telescope becomes operational in orbit.

How it works

When picture of a galaxy is taken we see it the way it was millions of years ago because light takes time to travel. It is like finding a picture of a child dated from 1900 but if that child was still alive, they would be among the oldest people on the planet.

As the light travels, it becomes red-shifted due to expansion of the universe. So, objects at extreme distances are easier to see in the infrared. We can see these objects the way they were millions of years ago, that is, when that galaxy was fairly young.

JWST's infrared capabilities will allow humans to see back in time to the first galaxies for the first time. Infrared astronomy will also help us to learn how stars and galaxies have evolved over time. By overcoming all the challenges, JWST is set to launch in December 2021.

10 Engineers Who Won Nobel Prize In Physics

It is not surprising that there are many engineers whose first passion is physics (or mathematics). However, under unavoidable circumstances, they end up doing engineering instead. For example: did you know that Paul Dirac's father wanted him to become an electrical engineer?

After graduating, Dirac was without job. He decided to shift his attention to his first love-physics and the rest is history. Today we know Dirac as one of the founders of quantum mechanics. So, even if you might be clueless in life right now, your passion will find you in the end.

John Bardeen

Bardeen is the only person in history to have won two Nobel Prizes in physics. He received his bachelor and master degrees in electrical engineering in 1928 and 1929 respectively from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

At first, John was employed by Gulf Oil corporation where he worked for four years. But he switched career by enrolling at Princeton University in 1933 to obtain a degree in mathematical physics. John went on to win Nobel Prizes in 1956 and 1972.

Henri Becquerel

Henri Becquerel was born into a family which produced four generations of physicists. He specialized in civil engineering at one of the most prestigious institutions in France. Becquerel was appointed as chief engineer at the Department of Bridges and Highways in 1894.

Around the same time he was investigating the properties of chemical elements. In 1896, he stumbled upon a new phenomenon that was named radioactivity by Madame Curie. The 1903 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Becquerel and the Curies.

Wilhelm Röntgen

Röntgen was a student of mechanical engineering at ETH Zurich. He was a contemporary of Becquerel... in fact, their ground-breaking discoveries were apart by only a few months. In 1895, Wilhelm produced very high energy waves called the x-rays, an achievement that earned him the inaugural Nobel Prize in 1901.

Eugene Wigner

Eugene Wigner was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1963 for contributions he made to nuclear physics, including the formulation of the law of conservation of parity.

Wigner enrolled at the Budapest University of Technical Sciences in 1920 but he was unhappy there and decided to drop out. In 1921, as guided by his parents, he joined the Technical University of Berlin where he studied chemical engineering.

Wigner accepted this offer because he was able to attend weekly conferences of the German Physical Society that hosted leading physicists of the time including Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg and Albert Einstein.

Paul Dirac

As mentioned before, Dirac studied electrical engineering at the University of Bristol. He graduated in 1921 but despite having a first class honors in engineering, he was unable to find work as an engineer in the post-war Britain.

Dirac again enrolled for a bachelor degree, this time in mathematics at the University of Bristol. He was allowed to skip a year as well as study free of charge because he was an exceptional student during his engineering years.

In 1923, Dirac once again graduated with a first class honors. Several years later, he became part of the quantum revolution that engulfed Europe. In 1928, Dirac predicted the antimatter which was discovered within few years by Carl Anderson in America.

Dennis Gabor

Dennis Gabor was a Hungarian-British electrical engineer and physicist who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1971 for the invention of Holography, a technique he created in 1948 to create photographic recording of a light field.

Jack Kilby

Kilby was an American electrical engineer who was one of the inventors of the integrated circuit, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 2000. Jack also invented hand-held calculator and thermal printer. He had completed bachelor and master degrees in engineering in 1947 and 1950 respectively.

Simon van der Meer

Dutch scientist Van der Meer was born in a family of teachers. He received an engineer's degree in 1952 from Delft University of Technology, which is the largest public university in the Netherlands. Simon joined CERN in 1956 and remained there until his retirement in 1990.

In 1984, he shared the Nobel Prize in physics with Italian physicist Carlo Rubbia for contributions to various projects at CERN that led to the discovery of the W and Z particles, which play a role in the weak nuclear force.

Shuji Nakamura

Nakamura was a Japanese-American electronics engineer who holds over 100 patents. He won the Nobel Prize in 2014 for the creation of blue laser diodes in the early 1990s that were later on used in the HD-DVD and blue-ray technologies.

Shuji Nakamura obtained his bachelor and master degrees in electronics engineering from the University of Tokushima in 1977 and 1979 respectively. Nakamura was also awarded a D.Eng. degree from the University of Tokushima in 1994.

Ivar Giaever

Ivar Giaever is a Norwegian-American engineer who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in physics with Esaki and Josephson for their discoveries regarding electron tunneling. Giaever had earned a bachelor degree in mechanical engineering from the Norwegian Institute of Technology in 1952.

5 Discoveries at CERN That Changed The World

More than 12,000 scientists from 110 nationalities work at CERN whose discoveries shape the future of technology and advance our understanding of the universe. Founded in 1954, the facilities at CERN include one of the largest and most advanced particle accelerators in the world.

Higgs Boson

The 2012 detection of Higgs Boson was groundbreaking for two reasons. Firstly, the elusive particle was postulated in 1964, almost five decades prior to discovery. Its search required big budget and collaboration of many countries.

Secondly, because the Higgs Boson explains as to how fundamental particles such as electrons and quarks have mass. Due to its pervasive nature, Higgs particle was termed the God Particle by several scientists. However, Peter Higgs himself didn't endorse the name.

World Wide Web

It was physicist Tim Berners-Lee who developed the concept of hypertext at CERN in 1989. Many engineers including Robert Cailliau chipped in and the first website was ready by 1991, as a tool to allow scientists to share information.

The world wide web was made freely available to the world in 1993 so that anyone anywhere could connect to the internet. Not only www, the scientists at CERN have also helped develop technologies like PET scans, which is used to detect cancers.

Antimatter

Antimatter was theoretically described by physicist Paul Dirac in 1928. Creation of antimatter could shed light on why almost everything in the known universe consists of matter.

In 1995, scientists at CERN successfully created a stable antihydrogen for the first time. In 2002 they produced antihydrogen atoms in large quantities, but for an incredibly short lifespan, just several milliseconds.

In 2011, scientists were able to maintain antihydrogen atoms for more than 15 minutes, a historic feat. This will allow them to conduct a more detailed study of the antimatter and to create stable antimolecules soon.

Weak Neutral Current

Weak neutral current, a prediction of electroweak theory, is how subatomic particles interact with one another using the weak force. Here, the word current only implies the exchange of Z particle and has nothing to do with electrical current.

In 1973, weak neutral currents were detected by CERN in a neutrino experiment and confirmed the electroweak unification theory by Salam, Glashow and Weinberg who were recognized by the Nobel Prize in 1979.

New State of Matter

In the 1970s and early 1980s, cosmologists theorized the conditions immediately after the Big Bang. They predicted the existence of a new state of matter, a quark-gluon plasma in which quarks, instead of being bound up into protons and neutrons, are liberated to roam freely.

One of the objectives at CERN is to mimic those early universe conditions. In doing so, detection of quark gluon plasma was confirmed in 2000. The then director general of CERN called it an important step forward in the understanding of the early evolution of the universe.

Summing up

You will be surprised to know that of all the people working at CERN, only 3% are physicists. They employ technicians, engineers, IT specialists, writers, etc. who not only aid the advancement of physics but also help change the world by innovating medical, computing and aerospace technologies.

10 Famous Physicists Who Played Chess

Chess is a tactical board game that is enjoyed by professionals and hobbyists all over the world. It is well known that chess playing not only develops concentration but also improves memory. In this post, let us look at ten physicists who enjoyed the game of Chess.

Paul Dirac

Growing up, Dirac played Chess on the Sundays with his father. He learned it quickly and went on to become the president of chess club of St. John’s College, Cambridge. Paul Dirac also played chess with the Nobel Prize winning physicist friend Pyotr Kapitsa.

Roger Penrose

He won the Nobel Prize for physics in 2020 for the work done on black hole singularities. His brother is the chess Grandmaster Jonathan Penrose. Their love for chess emerged thanks to their father Lionel Penrose who was a geneticist, mathematician and chess theorist.

Stephen Hawking

Hawking played chess just for fun with his youngest child, Timothy.

picture credit: pinterest

Albert Einstein

The renowned physicist was friends with German chess player and world champion Emanuel Lasker. In 1933, Oppenheimer played against Einstein in Princeton, USA and lost by resignation. Einstein was a good player but played very little chess.

Richard Feynman

American physicist Richard Feynman was drawn to chess in the high school. He was particularly interested in observing the chess gameplay. In one interview, Feynman said, in regards to physics: The gods are playing a great game of chess and the scientists are merely observers trying to figure out the rules of the game.

Werner Heisenberg

As a young boy, Heisenberg spent his free time in the evenings playing chess against neighborhood friends. His love of the game grew and became intolerable for teachers and professors. Especially Arnold Sommerfeld, Heisenberg's doctoral advisor, forbade him to play chess.

Edward Teller

Hungarian physicist Edward Teller learned to play chess from his father at the age of 6. Like his doctoral advisor Werner Heisenberg, Teller was also an avid chess player. Unfortunately, he could never beat Heisenberg at chess, though he was able to defeat Heisenberg in table tennis.

picture: ESVA

William Henry Bragg

He won the Nobel Prize in physics along with his son for their work in the analysis of crystal structure using X-rays. He was the secretary of the Adelaide University Chess Association.

Erwin Schrödinger

Erwin Schrödinger shared the 1933 Nobel Prize in physics with Paul Dirac. He once wrote "I do like chess, but it has turned out to be not the appropriate relaxation from the work I am doing."

Max Planck

German physicist Max Planck, who proposed the quantum theory, played chess with the world chess champion and mathematician Emmanuel Lasker.

Climate Scientists Win Nobel Prize In Physics

In 2020, mathematician Roger Penrose was bestowed upon the most prestigious honor in science along with Andrea Ghez, who became only the fourth woman laureate in physics and Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute, for furthering our understanding of the black holes.

This year, the Nobel Prize foundation has again elected three joint winners. One half of the Nobel prize to climate scientists Syukuro Manabe of U.S.A and Klaus Hasselmann of Germany and the other half to Italian physicist Georgio Parisi.

We have all read about the global warming in our school textbooks, that humans are influencing the climate and the earth's temperature by burning fossil fuels. But how did the scientific community arrive at that conclusion in the first place?

The answer is, works of notable scientists like Syukuro Manabe, who is a senior meteorologist at the Princeton University, have helped establish humanity's increasing role in much of everything that is gone wrong with this planet.

Starting in the 1960s, Manabe pioneered the use of computers to simulate climate change. He demonstrated in 1970 that increase in the amount of carbon dioxide levels will rise global temperatures by 0.57°C by 2000. He was spot on as the earth had warmed by 0.54°C.

Klaus Hasselmann, leading oceanographer in Germany and the then director of the Max-Planck-Institute of Meteorology, also arrived at the same conclusion. He showed that despite short term weather fluctuations, climate models are reliable in long term.

Their studies further revealed that the global temperature is projected to increase by an additional 2°C – 3°C during the 21st century. So, we may take climate change lightly today but in the future its dangers will be observable in day to day life as the scientists have warned.

The third winner is Geogio Parisi whose research areas include statistical mechanics and complex systems. He has developed a mathematical model in order to understand complex systems such as the earth's global climate, the human brain and ultimately the entire universe.

Did you know that total 115 Nobel prizes in physics have been awarded since 1901? The winners this year include some of the oldest awardees. Manabe and Hasselmann are 90 and 89 respectively, while Parisi is relatively younger at 73 years.

Their recognition by the Nobel Prize committee shows that our knowledge about the climate change is built upon strong scientific foundations. Thus, no matter how much the politicians, the industrialists or the others deny climate change, it is happening at every moment.

After the announcement, Giorgio Parisi said in relation to climate change: “It is very urgent that we take strong decisions and move at a very strong pace. It is clear for future generations that we have to act now to tackle the climate change."