Tōichirō Kinoshita (, '' Kinoshita Tōichirō ''; b. 23 January 1925 in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

) is a

Japanese-American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asia ...

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experimen ...

. Kinoshita studied physics at the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

, earning his bachelor's degree in 1947 and then his PhD in 1952. Afterwards he spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher of the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, and then one year at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. His research interests include

quantum field theory In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines classical field theory, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct physical models of subatomic particles and ...

, and the

Standard Model The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces (electromagnetism, electromagnetic, weak interaction, weak and strong interactions - excluding gravity) in the universe and classifying a ...

.T. Kinoshita
History. American Institute of Physics (AIP). Accessed October 4, 2018. He has been working at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

since 1955. He was at first a research associate. In 1958 he became assistant professor, in 1960 associate professor. He became a full professor in 1963 (starting from 1992 as Goldwin Smith professor) at Newman Laboratory of Nuclear Studies of Cornell University. In 1962-63 he was a Ford Fellow at

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

. In 1995 he retired from Cornell as professor emeritus. He was a guest professor at the University of Tokyo, at CERN, and at the national laboratory for high-energy physics

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 ...

in Japan. Kinoshita is known for his extensive precision computations of fundamental quantities in

quantum electrodynamics In particle physics, quantum electrodynamics (QED) is the relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. In essence, it describes how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quantum mechanics and spec ...

. The fundamental quantities involved

electroweak In particle physics, the electroweak interaction or electroweak force is the unified field theory, unified description of two of the four known fundamental interactions of nature: electromagnetism and the weak interaction. Although these two force ...

theory and corrections related to the

, such as the anomalous magnetic moments of both the

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 kn ...

and the

muon A muon ( ; from the Greek letter mu (μ) used to represent it) is an elementary particle similar to the electron, with an electric charge of −1 '' e'' and a spin of , but with a much greater mass. It is classified as a lepton. As wi ...

and the spectra of

positronium Positronium (Ps) is a system consisting of an electron and its antimatter, anti-particle, a positron, bound together into an exotic atom, specifically an onium. Unlike hydrogen, the system has no protons. The system is unstable: the two parti ...

and

muonium Muonium is an exotic atom made up of an antimuon and an electron, which was discovered in 1960 by Vernon W. Hughes and is given the chemical symbol Mu. During the muon's lifetime, muonium can undergo chemical reactions. Due to the mass diffe ...

, which made possible far more exact comparisons between theory and experiment. In 1962 he introduced the Kinoshita-Lee-Nauenberg theorem. In the 1970s he worked on

quantum chromodynamics In theoretical physics, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the theory of the strong interaction between quarks mediated by gluons. Quarks are fundamental particles that make up composite hadrons such as the proton, neutron and pion. QCD is a type ...

and

quarkonium In particle physics, quarkonium (from quark and -onium, pl. quarkonia) is a flavorless meson whose constituents are a heavy quark and its own antiquark, making it both a neutral particle and its own antiparticle. Light quarks Light quarks ( up ...

- spectroscopy with

Estia Eichten Estia Joseph Eichten (born 1946), is an American theoretical physicist, of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). He received his Ph.D. in 1972 from the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics, where he was a student of Roman Jackiw's, ...

, Kenneth Lane,

Kurt Gottfried Kurt Gottfried (May 17, 1929 – August 25, 2022) was an Austrian-born American physicist who was professor emeritus of physics at Cornell University. He was known for his work in the areas of quantum mechanics and particle physics and was also ...

. In 2001 Kinoshita had to admit there was an error in his computation of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, after experiments at Brookhaven discovered a discrepancy in the 9th to-right-of-the-decimal-point position — leading many to believe that experimental evidence had revealed "new physics". However, a group in

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

examined Kinoshita's calculation in precise detail and found that the error resulted from a sign error within the computer algebra program used for the original calculation. When the software bug was fixed, the discrepancy was resolved.Schwartzschild, 2002
/ref> In 1973-1974 he was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

. He received in 1990 the

Sakurai prize The J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, is presented by the American Physical Society at its annual April Meeting, and honors outstanding achievement in particle physics theory. The prize consists of a monetary award ($10,000 U ...

. In 1991 he became a member of

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

Publications

* Kinoshita as editor and co-author
''Quantum Electrodynamics.''
World Scientific 1990 (hbk); (pbk)

External links

Biography from the APS

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kinoshita, Toichiro Japanese physicists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 1925 births Living people Cornell University faculty Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics recipients People associated with CERN