祝！ノーベル物理学賞受賞！

日本人として、そして物理をかじった者として、非常にうれしいニュースが飛び込んできました。このニュースを会社のブルームバーグで知ったとき、それはもう大変でした。ぼくのまわりは物理出身の人がけっこう多いのですが、特にとなりに座っている方はPh.Dまでお持ちで、しかもこの方が研究されていた分野に非常近い分野でのノーベル物理学賞受賞ということで、大興奮でした（ぼくは物性なので、いまいち中身にはついていけてません）。
日本人3人が受賞！と思いきや、、、

ノーベル物理学賞に小林誠氏ら日本人３人
スウェーデン王立科学アカデミーは７日、２００８年のノーベル物理学賞を高エネルギー加速器研究機構の小林誠名誉教授（６４）と益川敏英京都大名誉教授（６８）＝京都産業大教授、米シカゴ大の南部陽一郎（８７）の３氏に授与すると発表した。授賞理由は「小林・益川理論」と「対称性の自発的な破れ」による素粒子物理学への貢献。宇宙や物質の成り立ちにかかわる根源的な現象を解明し、素粒子物理学の基礎となる「標準理論」を構築した功績が評価された。日本人のノーベル賞は６年ぶりで、共同受賞は初めて。
　日本人のノーベル賞受賞者は２００２年の小柴昌俊氏（物理学）、田中耕一氏（化学）以来。南部氏は福井県出身で米国籍。物理学賞は故湯川秀樹氏、故朝永振一郎氏、江崎玲於奈氏、小柴氏に続く受賞。授賞式は１２月１０日、ストックホルムで行われ、３氏に賞金計１０００万スウェーデンクローナ（約１億８０００万円）が贈られる。

http://www.iza.ne.jp/news/newsarticle/natnews/science/184974
こちらのニュースを読むと、南部先生は米国籍になられていることがわかります。

南部、小林、益川氏に物理学賞＝素粒子理論で－ノーベル賞日本人６年ぶり
スウェーデン王立科学アカデミーは７日、２００８年のノーベル物理学賞を南部陽一郎米シカゴ大名誉教授（８７）＝米国籍＝、小林誠高エネルギー加速器研究機構名誉教授（６４）と益川敏英京都産業大教授（６８）の計３人に授与すると発表した。
　南部氏は、現在の物理学の集大成「標準理論」の基盤となる「自発的対称性の破れ」を１９６０年という早期に提唱。小林、益川両氏は、物質の最小単位である素粒子のクオークがまだ３種類しか見つかっていなかった７２年、６種類あると予言し、宇宙誕生の謎を解く「小林・益川理論」をまとめた。残り３種類も９４年までに発見された。
　日本人のノーベル賞は、０２年に小柴昌俊東大名誉教授（８２）が物理学賞、田中耕一島津製作所質量分析研究所長（４９）が化学賞を受賞して以来６年ぶり。南部氏を含めれば計１５人となった。複数の日本人の共同受賞は初めて。故湯川秀樹博士以来、物理学に強い伝統が示された。（2008/10/07-22:38）

http://www.jiji.com/jc/c?g=soc_30&k=2008100700867&j1
同じニュースのはずですが、いきなり「米国人、2人の日本人、、、」とずいぶん印象の異なるタイトルになっています。さすがUSA TODAY。
それにしても、USA TODAYの記事はかなり詳しく載ってますね。それにしても、先日の日経とFinancial Timesの比較ではありませんが、日本のメディアももう少し詳しく報道してもいいような気がします。もちろん、ぼくら素人には理解しづらい内容だとは思いますが。

American, 2 Japanese share Nobel Prize in Physics
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Two Japanese citizens and an American won the 2008 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for discoveries that help explain the behavior of the smallest particles of matter.
American Yoichiro Nambu, 87, of the University of Chicago, won half of the 10 million kronor (US$1.4 million) prize for the discovery of a mechanism called spontaneous broken symmetry.
Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa of Japan shared the other half of the prize for discovering the origin of the broken symmetry that predicted the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature.
The academy said the trio “presented theoretical insights that give us a deeper understanding of what happens far inside the tiniest building blocks of matter.”
In physics, the idea of symmetry refers a kind of equality or equivalence in a situation. At the subatomic level, for example, you should not be able to tell whether you are watching events unfold directly or in a mirror, or whether a movie of those events is running forward or backward. And particles should behave just like their alter egos, called antiparticles.
If any of these rules is violated, the symmetry is broken.
One big broken symmetry arose immediately after the big bang, when just a tiny bit more matter than antimatter was created. Because these two kinds of particles annihilate each other when they meet, that excess of matter was responsible for seeding the universe.
Nambu introduced his description of spontaneous symmetry violation into particle physics in 1960.
The Nobel citation said Nambu’s theories now permeate the Standard Model of physics, which is the basic theory of how the universe operates. For example, they help explain why different particles have different masses.
In 1972, Kobayashi and Maskawa explained why an experiment eight years before had found that some subatomic particles called kaons failed to follow the rules of symmetry. Their explanation predicted the existence of three unknown subatomic particles called quarks. In fact, scientists discovered those predicted particles between 1974 and 1994.
Kobayashi and Maskawa also predicted that symmetry would be broken in the behavior of other particles, called B-mesons. As early as 2001, scientists confirmed that prediction, too.
Nambu said he was awakened by the academy, which called to tell him about the prize.
“I was surprised and honored. I didn’t expect it. I’ve been told for many years that I was on the list (to get the award),” he said. “I had almost given up.”
The Japanese-born Nambu moved to the United States in 1952 and is a professor at the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago, where he has worked for 40 years. He became a U.S. citizen in 1970.
Kobayashi, 64, works for the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, or KEK, in Tsukuba, Japan. Maskawa, 68, is a physics professor at Kyoto Sangyo University in Japan’s ancient capital of Kyoto, who also teaches at Nagoya University in his hometown in central Japan.
“I wasn’t expecting the prize,” Kobayashi said. “I’ve been only pursuing my interest.”
“It’s an honor to receive the prize for my work from long time ago,” Kobayashi said at a news conference in Japan. “I wrote that paper more than 30 years ago.”
Kobayashi seemed to be astonished by the big crowd of reporters and said “Looks like it’s a big deal.”
His news conference was interrupted several times by a phone call from Prime Minster Taro Aso, who congratulated the 64-year-old professor.
In a separate news conference at his university, Maskawa said, “As a scientist, I’m not thrilled by the prize.”
“I was happier when our findings were acknowledged around 2002. The Nobel prize is a rather mundane thing.”
The last Japanese citizen to win the physics prize was Masatoshi Koshiba of the University of Tokyo in 2002. He shared half of the prize with Raymond Davis Jr. of the U.S. for work in detecting cosmic neutrinos. American Riccardo Giacconi received the other half of the prize for his work that led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources.
The 2008 prize is “recognizing one of the most basic and fundamental aspects of existence,” said Phil Schewe, a physicist and spokesman for the American Institute of Physics in College Park, Md. “Nature works in strange ways, and these three physicists helped to explain that strangeness in an ingenious way.”
On Monday, three European scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine for separate discoveries of viruses that cause AIDS and cervical cancer.
The prizes in chemistry, literature and the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced later this week, while the economics award will be presented on Monday.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2008-10-07-nobelprize-physics_N.htm
とにかくめでたい！すばらしい！