Kazuhiko Nishijima
Kazuhiko Nishijima
Born	4 October 1926 Tsuchiura, Japan
Died	15 February 2009 Tokyo, Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Alma mater	University of Tokyo Osaka University
Known for	Strangeness Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula
Scientific career
Fields	Theoretical physics Particle physics
Institutions	Osaka City University Max Planck Institute for Physics Institute for Advanced Study University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University of Tokyo Kyoto University Chuo University

Quantum field theory
Feynman diagram
History
Background Field theory Electromagnetism Weak force Strong force Quantum mechanics Special relativity General relativity Gauge theory Yang–Mills theory
Symmetries Symmetry in quantum mechanics C-symmetry P-symmetry T-symmetry Lorentz symmetry Poincaré symmetry Gauge symmetry Explicit symmetry breaking Spontaneous symmetry breaking Noether charge Topological charge
Tools Anomaly Background field method BRST quantization Correlation function Crossing Effective action Effective field theory Expectation value Feynman diagram Lattice field theory LSZ reduction formula Partition function Propagator Quantization Regularization Renormalization Vacuum state Wick's theorem
Equations Dirac equation Klein–Gordon equation Proca equations Wheeler–DeWitt equation Bargmann–Wigner equations
Standard Model Quantum electrodynamics Electroweak interaction Quantum chromodynamics Higgs mechanism
Incomplete theories String theory Supersymmetry Technicolor Theory of everything Quantum gravity
Scientists Adler Anderson Anselm Bargmann Becchi Belavin Bell Berezin Bethe Bjorken Bleuer Bogoliubov Brodsky Brout Buchholz Cachazo Callan Coleman Dashen DeWitt Dirac Doplicher Dyson Englert Faddeev Fadin Fayet Fermi Feynman Fierz Fock Frampton Fritzsch Fröhlich Fredenhagen Furry Glashow Gelfand Gell-Mann Goldstone Gribov Gross Gupta Guralnik Haag Heisenberg Hepp Higgs Hagen 't Hooft Iliopoulos Ivanenko Jackiw Jona-Lasinio Jordan Jost Källén Kendall Kinoshita Klebanov Kontsevich Kuraev Landau Lee Lehmann Leutwyler Lipatov Łopuszański Low Lüders Maiani Majorana Maldacena Migdal Mills Møller Naimark Nambu Neveu Nishijima Oehme Oppenheimer Osterwalder Parisi Pauli Peskin Plefka Polyakov Pomeranchuk Popov Proca Rubakov Ruelle Salam Schrader Schwarz Schwinger Segal Seiberg Semenoff Shifman Shirkov Skyrme Sommerfield Stora Stueckelberg Sudarshan Symanzik Thirring Tomonaga Tyutin Vainshtein Veltman Virasoro Ward Weinberg Weisskopf Wentzel Wess Wetterich Weyl Wick Wightman Wigner Wilczek Wilson Witten Yang Yukawa Zamolodchikov Zamolodchikov Zee Zimmermann Zinn-Justin Zuber Zumino

Kazuhiko Nishijima (西島 和彦, Nishijima Kazuhiko) (4 October 1926 – 15 February 2009) was a Japanese physicist who made significant contributions to particle physics. He was professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University until his death in 2009.^[1]

He was born in Tsuchiura, Japan. He is most well known for his work on the Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula, and the concept of strangeness, which he called the "eta-charge" or "η-charge", after the eta meson (
η
).^[1][2][3]

He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1960 and 1961.^[4]

Life

Nishijima was born in Tsuchiura, Japan on 4 October 1926.^[3] He obtained his diploma in physics at the University of Tokyo in 1948, and his PhD from Osaka University in 1955 for his thesis on the nuclear potential.^[3]

In 1950, while at Osaka University, Nishijima was hired by Yoichiro Nambu to work on the theory of strong interactions and of strange particles (then called V particles).^[3] While studying the decay of these particles, Nishijima developed, with Tadao Nakano, and independently of Murray Gell-Mann, a formula that would relate the quantum numbers of these particles, the Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula (or sometimes the NNG formula, for Nishijima, Nakano, and Gell-Mann).^[3]

${\displaystyle Q=I_{\text{3}}+{\frac {B+S}{2}}}$

where Q is the electric charge, I₃ is the isospin projection, B is the baryon number, and S is the strangeness quantum number of the particle. This formula was pivotal for the later development of the quark model by Gell-Mann^[5] and George Zweig^[6][7] in 1964 (independently of each other).

From 1956 to 1958, Nishijima worked in Göttingen, Germany, upon the invitation of Werner Heisenberg.^[3] In 1958, he moved to the United States and joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.^[3] A year and a half later, he became a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.^[3] In 1966, he returned to the University of Tokyo, where he founded a theoretical physics research group and served in some administrative positions.^[3] From 1986 until 1989, he served as the director of the Research Institute for Fundamental Physics at Kyoto University, and from 1995 until 2005, he was the president of the Nishina Memorial Foundation, a foundation that promotes physics in Japan, and in 1955 he was the first recipient of the physics prize awarded by the foundation.^[3]

Nishijima kept active in research until near the end of his life. His last subjects of research were color confinement and noncommutative quantum field theory.^[3] He died of leukemia on 15 February 2009 at the age of 82.^[1][3]

Books

• Nishijima, K (1963). Fundamental Particles. W. A. Benjamin. OCLC 536472.
• Nishijima, K (1998) [1974]. Fields and Particles: Field Theory and Dispersion Relations (4th ed.). Benjamin Cummings. ISBN 0-8053-7399-3.

Recognition

• Nishina Memorial Prize (1955)^[3]
• Fellow of the American Physical Society (1961)^[8]
• Japan Academy Prize (1964)^[3]
• Person of Cultural Merit (1993)
• Order of Culture of Japan (2003)^[3][9]
• Guggenheim Fellowship (1965)^[10]

References

Further reading

• Kawarabayashi, K (1987). A, Ukawa (ed.). Wandering in the Fields: Festschrift for Professor Kazuhiko Nishijima on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday. World Scientific. ISBN 9971-5-0363-8.