Nambu wins Nobel Prize in Physics!

Congratulations, Yoichiro Nambu! This guy is 87 years old and is just now winning for something the did nearly half a century ago in Chicago.

Nambu introduced his description of so-called spontaneous broken symmetry into particle physics in 1960. The Nobel citation said his theories now permeate the Standard Model of physics, which is the basic theory of how the universe operates. For example, spontaneous broken symmetry offers an explanation for how different particles acquired different masses.

Truthfully, I have only a vague idea of the meaning and importance of this work, but wrote this post because I thought it was cool that he shares a name with the railway station near my house (and in several other cities, plus a number of bus stations). Nambu meaning "southern section" in Korean and being one of those many Korean words that sounds Japanese.

Here's a picture looking toward Puchŏn's [Bucheon/부천] Nambu Station, circa 1970. I got it from this bus-themed look at the Korea of yesteryear (other buses by Hyundai, Daewoo, Asia, Ssangyong, etc., found here, here, here, here, and here ; I really like looking at old stuff).