The is the oldest and most prestigious physics award in Japan.

Information

Since 1955, the Nishina Memorial Prize has been awarded annually by the Nishina Memorial Foundation. The Foundation was established to commemorate

Yoshio Nishina was a Japanese physicist who was called "the founding father of modern physics research in Japan". He led the efforts of Japan to develop an atomic bomb during World War II. Early life and career Nishina was born in Satoshō, Okayama. He rece ...

, who was the founding father of modern physics research in Japan and a mentor of the first two Japanese Nobel Laureates,

Hideki Yukawa was a Japanese theoretical physicist and the first Japanese Nobel laureate for his prediction of the pi meson, or pion. Biography He was born as Hideki Ogawa in Tokyo and grew up in Kyoto with two older brothers, two older sisters, and two yo ...

and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. The Prize, of ¥500,000 (about US$5,000) and the certificate, is bestowed upon young scientists who have made substantial contributions in the field of atomic and sub-atomic physics research. As of 2014, five Nobel Prizes have been awarded to prior Nishina recipients (

Leo Esaki Reona Esaki (江崎玲於奈 ''Esaki Reona'', born March 12, 1925), also known as Leo Esaki, is a Japanese physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 with Ivar Giaever and Brian David Josephson for his work in electron tunneling i ...

, Makoto Kobayashi,

Toshihide Maskawa was a Japanese theoretical physicist known for his work on CP-violation who was awarded one quarter 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 famil ...

Masatoshi Koshiba was a Japanese physicist and one of the founders of neutrino astronomy. His work with the neutrino detectors Kamiokande and Super-Kamiokande was instrumental in detecting solar neutrinos, providing experimental evidence for the solar neutrino ...

, and

Shuji Nakamura is a Japanese-born American electronic engineer and inventor specializing in the field of semiconductor technology, professor at the Materials Department of the College of Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and is rega ...

Laureates

Notable Nishina laureates are: * 1955:

Kazuhiko Nishijima (4 October 1926 – 15 February 2009) was a Japanese physicist who made significant contributions to particle physics. He was professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University until his death in 2009. He was born in Tsuchiur ...

* 1957: Ryogo Kubo (1977

Boltzmann Medal The Boltzmann Medal (or Boltzmann Award) is a prize awarded to physicists that obtain new results concerning statistical mechanics; it is named after the celebrated physicist Ludwig Boltzmann. The Boltzmann Medal is awarded once every three years ...

) * 1959:

(1973

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

, 1998 Japan Prize) * 1963:

Chushiro Hayashi was a Japanese astrophysicist. Hayashi tracks on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram are named after him. Hayashi was born in Kyoto and enrolled at the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1940, earning his BSc in Physics after 2½ years, in 1942. ...

* 1968: Jun Kondo * 1969: Hisashi Matsuda,

Hiroyuki Ikezi is a common masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings Hiroki can be written using different kanji characters and can mean: extensive, good fortune, spacious. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . It is written in hir ...

, Kyoji Nishikawa * 1972:

Kyozi Kawasaki was a Japanese physicist. His research interests include chemical physics and statistical mechanics. In 2001, Kawasaki was awarded the Boltzmann Medal for "his contribution to our understanding of dynamic phenomena in condensed matter systems, in ...

(2001 Boltzmann Medal) * 1974:

Bunji Sakita was a Japanese-American theoretical physicist who made important contributions in quantum field theory, superstring theory and discovered supersymmetry in 1971. He was a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the City College of New York. Early ...

* 1976: Susumu Okubo (2006

Wigner Medal The International Colloquium on Group Theoretical Methods in Physics is an academic conference devoted to applications of group theory to physics. It was founded in 1972 by Henri Bacry and Aloysio Janner. It hosts a colloquium every two years. Th ...

) * 1978:

Akito Arima was a Japanese nuclear physicist and politician, known for the interacting boson model. Personal life Arima was born 1930 in Osaka. He studied at the University of Tokyo, where he received his doctorate in 1958. He became a research associate at ...

* 1979: Makoto Kobayashi (2008 Nobel Prize),

(2008 Nobel Prize) * 1982:

Akira Tonomura was a Japanese physicist, best known for his development of electron holography and his experimental verification of the Aharonov–Bohm effect. Biography Tonomura was born in Hyōgo, Japan, and graduated from the University of Tokyo with a d ...

(1998 Benjamin Franklin Medal) * 1985:

Sumio Iijima is a Japanese physicist and inventor, often cited as the inventor of carbon nanotubes. Although carbon nanotubes had been observed prior to his "invention", Iijima's 1991 paper generated unprecedented interest in the carbon nanostructures and ...

(2008

Kavli Prize The Kavli Prize was established in 2005 as a joint venture of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, and the Kavli Foundation. It honors, supports, and recognizes scientists for outstan ...

) * 1987:

(2002 Nobel Prize), Yoji Totsuka (2007 Benjamin Franklin Medal) * 1989:

Ken'ichi Nomoto Ken'ichi Nomoto (野本憲一 ''Nomoto Ken'ichi'', born 1 December 1946 in Tokyo) is a Japanese astrophysicist and astronomer, known for his research on stellar evolution, supernovae, and the origin of heavy elements. Education and career Nomot ...

(2019 Hans A. Bethe Prize) * 1990:

Yoshinori Tokura is a Japanese physicist, Professor at University of Tokyo and Director of Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) at RIKEN. He is a specialist in physics of strongly correlated electron systems and known for his work in high-temperature su ...

* 1992: Yoshihisa Yamamoto * 1996:

(2002 Benjamin Franklin Medal, 2008

Prince of Asturias Award The Princess of Asturias Awards ( es, Premios Princesa de Asturias, links=no, ast, Premios Princesa d'Asturies, links=no), formerly the Prince of Asturias Awards from 1981 to 2014 ( es, Premios Príncipe de Asturias, links=no), are a series of a ...

, 2014 Nobel Prize) * 1997: Anthony Ichiro Sanda * 2009: Hirosi Ooguri * 2012:

Hideo Hosono , ForMemRS, is a Japanese material scientist most known for the discovery of iron-based superconductors. Career and research Hosono is also a pioneer in developing transparent oxide semiconductors: he proposed a material design concept for a t ...

* 2013

Hidetoshi Katori , is a Japanese physicist and professor at the University of Tokyo best known for having invented the magic wavelength technique for ultra precise optical lattice atomic clocks. Since 2011, Katori is also Chief Scientist at the Quantum Metrolog ...

, Yoshiro Takahashi, Takahiko Kondo, Tomio Kobayashi, Shoji Asai * 2014 Yuji Matsuda, Takashi Kobayashi, Tsuyoshi Nakaya * 2015 Shinsei Ryu, Akira Furusaki, Tohru Motobayashi, Hiroyoshi Sakurai * 2016 Tadashi Takayanagi * 2017 Hiroki Takesue, Chihaya Adachi, Mahito Kohmoto * 2018 Masaru Shibata, Koichiro Tanaka * 2019 Yoshihiro Iwasa,

Shigeru Yoshida (22 September 1878 – 20 October 1967) was a Japanese diplomat and politician who served as prime minister of Japan from 1946 to 1947 and from 1948 to 1954. Yoshida was one of the longest-serving Japanese prime ministers, and is the third-long ...

, Aya Ishihara * 2020 Kazushi Kanoda, Kazuma Nakazawa

References

Early career awards Academic awards Physics awards Japanese science and technology awards Awards established in 1955 1955 establishments in Japan {{sci-award-stub

Information

Laureates

See also

References