Monday, January 31, 2000

Koshiba (UR Ph.D.'55) to Share Wolf Prize in Physics for Discovery of Neutrino Mass.

Masatoshi Koshiba (Rochester Ph.D.'55) to Share Wolf Prize in Physics for Discovery of Neutrino Mass.

The Wolf Prize for physics, awarded by the Wolf Foundation of Israel, will be shared this year by Raymond Davis Jr., of the University of Pennsylvania, and Masatoshi Koshiba, of the University of Tokyo. "Toshi" received his Ph.D. with Professor Mort Kaplon in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Rochester in 1955 on studies of high-energy Cosmic Rays. (He was also Professor Susumu Okubo's roommate during graduate school.) The prize will be presented at the Israeli Knesset on May 21.

Since 1978, the Wolf Foundation has awarded the prestigious prizes, second only to Nobel Prizes, to the world's outstanding scientists and artists for achievements in the interest of mankind. The prizes in science are in the fields of agriculture, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, and physics. Each prize carries a $100,000 award, with the winners selected by international committees of renowned experts in each field.

Toshi pioneered studies of proton decay and of detection of neutrinos from astrophysical sources. He initiated the Kamiokande experiments in Japan, where he led the design and construction of the detectors that observed neutrinos emitted from Supernova 1987a. Subsequently, he went on to discover, what is now accepted, as the oscillation of neutrinos among their different species, implying that neutrinos have finite mass.

Additional information can be found in the following WWW pages:

University or Rochester News Release February 18, 2000:
http://www.rochester.edu/pr/News/NewsReleases/latest/WWWKOSHIBA.html

Wolf Prize of 2000, Jerusalem Post article of January 19, 2000:
http://server-mac.pas.rochester.edu/yigal/news/jpkoshiba.html

Wolf Prize of 2000, PhysicsWeb article of January 21,2000:
http://server-mac.pas.rochester.edu/yigal/news/pwkoshiba.html

Discovery of neutrino mass, PhysicsWeb article of July, 1999:
http://server-mac.pas.rochester.edu/yigal/news/numass.html

Super-Kamiokande finds neutrino mass, PhysicsWeb article of June 1999:
http://server-mac.pas.rochester.edu/yigal/news/superk1.html

Wolf Foundation home page:
http://www.ifl-holdings.com/wolf/wolfpriz.html

List of Wolf Prize recipients in Physics:
http://www.ifl-holdings.com/wolf/wolf7.html

Article submitted by:
Arie Bodek
1/31/00; 11:42:30 AM

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