Yoichiro Nambu

Yoichiro Nambu (南部 陽一郎) was a Japanese-American physicist and professor at the University of Chicago.

Known for his contributions to the field of theoretical physics, he was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2008 for the discovery in 1960 of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics, related at first to the strong interaction's chiral symmetry and later to the electroweak interaction and Higgs mechanism.

The other half was split equally between Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa "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
Nambu was born on 18 January 1921 in Tokyo, Empire of Japan (Now Japan). After graduating from the then-Fukui Secondary High School in Fukui City, he enrolled in the Imperial University of Tokyo (Now University of Tokyo) and studied physics. He received his Bachelor of Science in 1942 and Doctorate of Science in 1952. In 1949, he was appointed to associate professor at Osaka City University and promoted to professorship the next year at the age of 29.

In 1952, Nambu was invited by the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, to study. He moved to the University of Chicago in 1954 and was promoted to professor in 1958. From 1974 to 1977, Nambu was also served as the Chairman of the Department of Physics, and then he became as an American citizen from 1970 until his death in 2015.

Career in physics
Nambu proposed the "color charge" of quantum chromodynamics, having done early work on spontaneous symmetry breaking in particle physics, and having discovered that the dual resonance model could be explained as a quantum mechanical theory of strings. He was accounted as one of the founders of string theory.

After more than fifty years as a professor, he was Henry Pratt Judson Distinguished Service Professor emeritus at the University of Chicago's Department of Physics and Enrico Fermi Institute.

The Nambu–Goto action in string theory is named after Nambu and Tetsuo Goto. Also, massless bosons arising in field theories with spontaneous symmetry breaking are sometimes referred to as Nambu–Goldstone bosons.

Death
Nambu died of heart failure at the hospital in Osaka on 5 July 2015, at the age of 94. The announcement of his death was delayed until 17 July, just 12 days after his death. His funeral and memorial services were held among close relatives.

Nambu was survived by his wife, Chieko, and his son, John.

Recognition
In 2017, the Nambu Hall was opened on the second floor of Osaka University Graduate School of Science, J Building in memory of Emeritus Professor Nambu.

Nambu won numerous honors and awards including:
 * 1970: Dannie Heineman Prize
 * 1977: J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Prize
 * 1978: Order of Culture, Japan
 * 1978: Person of Cultural Merit, Japan
 * 1979: Honorary Citizen of Fukui City, Japan
 * 1982: National Medal of Science
 * 1985: Max Planck Medal, Germany
 * 1986: Dirac Prize
 * 1994: Sakurai Prize
 * 1994/1995: Wolf Prize in Physics
 * 2003: Fukui Prefectural Award, Japan
 * 2005: Benjamin Franklin Medal, Franklin Institute
 * 2005: Oskar Klein Memorial Lecture
 * 2008: Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics".
 * 2011: Honorary Citizen of Toyonaka City