Makoto Kobayashi (小林 誠, Kobayashi Makoto, born April 7, 1944, in Nagoya, Japan) is a Japanesephysicist 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."[1]
Early life and education
Makoto Kobayashi was born in Nagoya, Japan in 1944.[2][3] 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.[4] His other cousin was an astronomer, Norio Kaifu.[5] 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."[4]
After graduating from the School of Science of Nagoya University in 1967,[2][3] he obtained a DSc degree from the Graduate School of Science of Nagoya University in 1972.[6] During college years, he received guidance from Shoichi Sakata and others.
After completing his doctoral research at Nagoya University in 1972, Kobayashi worked as a research associate on particle physics at Kyoto University. Together, with his colleague Toshihide Maskawa, he worked on explaining CP-violation within the Standard Model of particle physics. Kobayashi and Maskawa's theory required that there were at least three generations of quarks, a prediction that was confirmed experimentally four years later by the discovery of the bottom quark.
Kobayashi and Maskawa's article, "CP Violation in the Renormalizable Theory of Weak Interaction",[7] published in 1973, is the fourth most cited high energy physics paper of all time as of 2010.[8] The Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix, which defines the mixing parameters between quarks was the result of this work. Kobayashi and Maskawa were jointly awarded half of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work, with the other half going to Yoichiro Nambu.[1]
In October 2008, Kobayashi was honored with Japan's Order of Culture; and an awards ceremony for the Order of Culture was held at the Tokyo Imperial Palace.
Kobayashi was born and educated in Nagoya, Japan. He married Sachiko Enomoto in 1975; they had one son, Junichiro. After his first wife died, Kobayashi married Emiko Nakayama in 1990, they had a daughter, Yuka.[10]
