Yukawa Hideki

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Yukawa Hideki (1907-81), Japanese physicist and Nobel laureate, noted for his study of nuclear forces.

Yukawa was born in Tokyo and was educated at the universities of Kyōto and Ōsaka. He became a lecturer in physics at Kyōto University in 1932 and was made professor in 1939. Yukawa also taught (1933-36) at Ōsaka University and was assistant professor there until 1939. He was visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, New Jersey, in 1948 and at Columbia University from 1949 to 1953. Yukawa became (1950) professor emeritus at Ōsaka University and was named (1953) director of the Research Institute for Fundamental Physics at Kyōto University. Yukawa did extensive research in quantum mechanics (see Quantum Theory) and the fields of force affecting elementary nuclear particles. In 1935 he theoretically deduced the existence of the meson (see Elementary Particles), for which he was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in physics. The existence of the meson was proved in 1936.

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