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KEK
, known as KEK, is a Japanese organization whose purpose is to operate the largest particle physics laboratory in Japan, situated in Tsukuba, Ibaraki prefecture. It was established in 1997. The term "KEK" is also used to refer to the laboratory itself, which employs approximately 695 employees. KEK's main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics, material science, structural biology, radiation science, computing science, nuclear transmutation and so on. Numerous experiments have been constructed at KEK by the internal and international collaborations that have made use of them. Makoto Kobayashi, emeritus professor at KEK, is known globally for his work on CP-violation, and was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics. History KEK was established in 1997 in a reorganization of the Institute of Nuclear Study, the University of Tokyo (established in 1955), the National Laboratory for High Energy Physics (established ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Makoto Kobayashi (physicist)
is a Japanese physicist known for his work on CP-violation who was awarded one-fourth of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics "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 Makoto Kobayashi was born in Nagoya, Japan in 1944. When he was two years old, Kobayashi's father Hisashi died. The Kobayashi family home was destroyed by the Bombing of Nagoya, so they stayed at his mother's (surnamed Kaifu) family house. One of Makoto's cousins, Toshiki Kaifu, the 51st Prime Minister of Japan, was living in the same place. His other cousin was an astronomer, Norio Kaifu. Many years later, Toshiki Kaifu recalled Kobayashi: "when he was a child, he was a quiet and lovely boy, always reading some difficult books in my room. I think this is the beginning of his sudden change into a genius." After graduating from the School of Science of Nagoya University in 1967, he obtained a DSc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tsukuba
is a city located in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 244,528 in 108,669 households and a population density of 862 persons per km². The percentage of the population aged over 65 was 20.3%. The total area of the city is . It is known as the location of the , a planned science park developed in the 1960s. Geography Tsukuba is located in southern Ibaraki Prefecture, approximately 50 kilometers from central Tokyo and about 40 kilometers from Narita International Airport. Mount Tsukuba, from which the city takes its name is located in the northern part of the city. Except for the area around Mount Tsukuba, the city is a part of the Kantō Plain with an altitude of 20 to 30 meters. Mountains: Mount Tsukuba, Mount Hokyo. Rivers: Kokai River, Sakura River, Higashiyata River, Nishiyata River, Ono River, Hanamuro River, Inari River. Parks: The city has more of 100 parks and green areas to relax. Different parks are connected by pedestrian w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High-energy Physics
Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) and bosons (force-carrying particles). There are three generations of fermions, but ordinary matter is made only from the first fermion generation. The first generation consists of up and down quarks which form protons and neutrons, and electrons and electron neutrinos. The three fundamental interactions known to be mediated by bosons are electromagnetism, the weak interaction, and the strong interaction. Quarks cannot exist on their own but form hadrons. Hadrons that contain an odd number of quarks are called baryons and those that contain an even number are called mesons. Two baryons, the proton and the neutron, make up most of the mass of ordinary matter. Mesons are unstable and the longest-lived last for only a few hundredths of a mic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CP-violation
In particle physics, CP violation is a violation of CP-symmetry (or charge conjugation parity symmetry): the combination of C-symmetry (Charge (physics), charge symmetry) and Parity (physics), P-symmetry (Parity (physics), parity symmetry). CP-symmetry states that the laws of physics should be the same if a particle is interchanged with its antiparticle (C-symmetry) while its spatial coordinates are inverted ("mirror" or P-symmetry). The discovery of CP violation in 1964 in the decays of neutral kaons resulted in the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1980 for its discoverers James Cronin and Val Fitch. It plays an important role both in the attempts of Physical cosmology, cosmology to explain the dominance of matter over antimatter in the present universe, and in the study of weak interactions in particle physics. Overview Until the 1950s, parity conservation was believed to be one of the fundamental geometric conservation laws (along with conservation of energy and conservation of mome ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electron
The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no known components or substructure. The electron's mass is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton. Quantum mechanical properties of the electron include an intrinsic angular momentum ( spin) of a half-integer value, expressed in units of the reduced Planck constant, . Being fermions, no two electrons can occupy the same quantum state, in accordance with the Pauli exclusion principle. Like all elementary particles, electrons exhibit properties of both particles and waves: They can collide with other particles and can be diffracted like light. The wave properties of electrons are easier to observe with experiments than those of other particles like neutrons and protons because electrons have a lower mass and hence a longer de Broglie wavele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Particle Physics
Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) and bosons (force-carrying particles). There are three generations of fermions, but ordinary matter is made only from the first fermion generation. The first generation consists of up and down quarks which form protons and neutrons, and electrons and electron neutrinos. The three fundamental interactions known to be mediated by bosons are electromagnetism, the weak interaction, and the strong interaction. Quarks cannot exist on their own but form hadrons. Hadrons that contain an odd number of quarks are called baryons and those that contain an even number are called mesons. Two baryons, the proton and the neutron, make up most of the mass of ordinary matter. Mesons are unstable and the longest-lived last for only a few hundredths of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1984 In Science
The year 1984 in science and technology involved some significant events. Astronomy and space exploration * February 7 – Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk. * The National Radio Astronomy Observatory in the United States converts the 36-foot radio telescope on Kitt Peak (originally built in 1967) to the ARO 12m Radio Telescope. Biology * First known case of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, in England. * The enzyme telomerase is discovered by Carol W. Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn in the ciliate ''Tetrahymena''. * Danish physiologist Steen Willadsen first successfully uses cells from early embryos to clone a mammal (sheep) by nuclear transfer at the British Agricultural Research Council's Institute of Animal Physiology, Cambridge. Chemistry and physics * Peter Kramer and Dan Shechtman publish their discoveries of what will soon afterwards be named quasicrystals. * Hiroshi Kobayashi and colleagues announce synthesis of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Particle Beam
A particle beam is a stream of charged or neutral particles. In particle accelerators, these particles can move with a velocity close to the speed of light. There is a difference between the creation and control of charged particle beams and neutral particle beams, as only the first type can be manipulated to a sufficient extent by devices based on electromagnetism. The manipulation and diagnostics of charged particle beams at high kinetic energies using particle accelerators are main topics of accelerator physics. Sources Charged particles such as electrons, positrons, and protons may be separated from their common surrounding. This can be accomplished by e.g. thermionic emission or arc discharge. The following devices are commonly used as sources for particle beams: * Ion source * Cathode ray tube, or more specifically in one of its parts called electron gun. This is also part of traditional television and computer screens. * Photocathodes may also be built in as a part of an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proton
A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' elementary charge. Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron mass ratio). Protons and neutrons, each with masses of approximately one atomic mass unit, are jointly referred to as "nucleons" (particles present in atomic nuclei). One or more protons are present in the nucleus of every atom. They provide the attractive electrostatic central force which binds the atomic electrons. The number of protons in the nucleus is the defining property of an element, and is referred to as the atomic number (represented by the symbol ''Z''). Since each element has a unique number of protons, each element has its own unique atomic number, which determines the number of atomic electrons and consequently the chemical characteristics of the element. The word ''proton'' is Greek for "first", and this name was given to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1982 In Science
The year 1982 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below. Astronomy * January 17 – Allan Hills A81005, the first lunar meteorite found on Earth, is discovered in the Allan Hills at the end of the Transantarctic Mountains by John Schutt and Ian Whillans during the ANSMET meteorite gathering expedition. * March 10 – Syzygy: all 9 planets align on the same side of the Sun. * October 14 – Halley's Comet: First spotted in the sky after 70 year return. Biology * September – First report of anti-human monoclonal antibody production. Computer science * January 7 – The Commodore 64 8-bit home computer is launched by Commodore International (released in August); it becomes the all-time best-selling single personal computer model. * January 30 – First computer virus, the Elk Cloner, written by 15-year-old Rich Skrenta, is found in the wild. It infects Apple II computers via floppy disk. * July 9 – Sci-fi movie ''Tron'' is the first feature film ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Photon
A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless, so they always move at the speed of light in vacuum, (or about ). The photon belongs to the class of bosons. As with other elementary particles, photons are best explained by quantum mechanics and exhibit wave–particle duality, their behavior featuring properties of both waves and particles. The modern photon concept originated during the first two decades of the 20th century with the work of Albert Einstein, who built upon the research of Max Planck. While trying to explain how matter and electromagnetic radiation could be in thermal equilibrium with one another, Planck proposed that the energy stored within a material object should be regarded as composed of an integer number of discrete, equal-sized parts. To explain the photoelectric effect, Eins ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synchrotron
A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the cyclotron, in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop path. The magnetic field which bends the particle beam into its closed path increases with time during the accelerating process, being ''synchronized'' to the increasing kinetic energy of the particles. The synchrotron is one of the first accelerator concepts to enable the construction of large-scale facilities, since bending, beam focusing and acceleration can be separated into different components. The most powerful modern particle accelerators use versions of the synchrotron design. The largest synchrotron-type accelerator, also the largest particle accelerator in the world, is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, built in 2008 by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). It can accelerate beams of protons to an energy of 6.5 tera electronvolts (TeV or 1012 eV). Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
