NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Masatoshi Koshiba

Masatoshi Koshiba (小柴昌俊 Koshiba Masatoshi, born on September 19, 1926 in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture -) is a Japanese physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002. Image File history File links MasatoshiKoshiba. ... September 19 is the 262nd day of the year (263rd in leap years). ... 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Toyohashi (è±Šæ©‹å¸‚; -shi) is a city located in Aichi, Japan. ... Aichi Prefecture ) is located in the ChÅ«bu region of Japan. ... September 19 is the 262nd day of the year (263rd in leap years). ... 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Toyohashi (è±Šæ©‹å¸‚; -shi) is a city located in Aichi, Japan. ... Aichi Prefecture ) is located in the ChÅ«bu region of Japan. ... Physicists working in a government lab A physicist is a scientist who is a practitioner of physics. ... Hannes AlfvÃ©n (1908â€“1995) accepting the Nobel Prize for his work on magnetohydrodynamics [1]. List of Nobel Prize laureates in Physics from 1901 to the present day. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ...

Dr. Koshiba graduated from University of Tokyo, School of Science in 1951. He received a Ph.D in physics at the University of Rochester, New York, in 1955. In 2002 he won Nobel Prize in Physics "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos". The Yasuda Auditorium on the University of Tokyos Hongo Campus. ... The University of Rochester is a private, coeducational and nonsectarian research institution located in Rochester, New York. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... Spiral Galaxy ESO 269-57 Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties (luminosity, density, temperature and chemical composition) of celestial objects such as stars, galaxies, and the interstellar medium, as well as their interactions. ... The neutrino is an elementary particle. ...

He is now Senior Counselor of ICEPP and Emeritus Professor of University of Tokyo. The International Center for Elementary Particle Physics is a division of the University of Tokyo, Japan dedicated to the study of particle physics. ... A professor giving a lecture The meaning of the word professor (Latin: one who claims publicly to be an expert) varies. ... The University of Tokyo (æ±äº¬å¤§å¦; TÅkyÅ Daigaku, abbreviated as æ±å¤§ TÅdai) is one of the leading research universities in Japan. ...

Koshiba earned a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in New York in 1955. He then joined the University of Tokyo, where he became professor in 1960 and emeritus professor in 1987. From 1987 to 1997 Koshiba taught at Tokai University.

Koshiba's award-winning work centred on neutrinos, subatomic particles that had long perplexed scientists. Since the 1920s it had been suspected that the Sun shines because of nuclear fusion reactions that transform hydrogen into helium and release energy. Later, theoretical calculations indicated that countless neutrinos must be released in these reactions and, consequently, that Earth must be exposed to a constant flood of solar neutrinos. Because neutrinos interact weakly with matter, however, only one in a trillion is stopped on its way to Earth. Neutrinos thus developed a reputation as being undetectable.

In the 1980s Koshiba, drawing on the work done by Davis, constructed an underground neutrino detector in a zinc mine in Japan. Called Kamiokande II, it was an enormous water tank surrounded by electronic detectors to sense flashes of light produced when neutrinos interacted with atomic nuclei in water molecules. Koshiba was able to confirm Davis's results—that the Sun produces neutrinos and that fewer neutrinos were found than had been expected (a deficit that became known as the solar neutrino problem). In 1987 Kamiokande also detected neutrinos from a supernova explosion outside the Milky Way. After building a larger, more sensitive detector named Super-Kamiokande, which became operational in 1996, Koshiba found strong evidence for what scientists had already suspected—that neutrinos, of which three types are known, change from one type into another in flight.

External links

Prof. Koshiba has won the Nobel prize.
Masatoshi Koshiba, Autobiography in English
Freeview video 'An Interview with Masatoshi Koshiba' by the Vega Science Trust

Nobel Prize in Physics: Laureates

Results from FactBites:

Masatoshi Koshiba (557 words)
	Masatoshi Koshiba was born in 1926 in Toyohashi city, Japan.
	Koshiba has been playing leading roles in the experiments on cosmic ray physics, notably Kamiokande, a detector in Japan which precisely recorded the time of arrival, energy, and direction of incoming neutrinos, and Super-Kamiokande, as well as the experiments in high energy physics using the electron-positron colliders with the highest energies.
	In 2002, Dr. Koshiba was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos.

Koshiba, Masatoshi - Hutchinson encyclopedia article about Koshiba, Masatoshi (204 words)
	Studying neutrinos from the sun and from supernova explosions, Koshiba built the giant water tank detector Kamiokande which was housed in the bottom of a mine in Japan.
	In 1987, Koshiba was able to detect 12 of the neutrinos that had been generated by a supernova explosion.
	Masatoshi was professor of physics at the University of Tokyo, Japan, from 1970 until he retired in 1987.

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