Early History
In 1949, Japanese theoretical physicist Hideki Yukawa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. He became the first Japanese citizen to receive the Nobel Prize. To commemorate this historic event, the president of Kyoto University immediately proposed to create a memorial hall on campus for Yukawa. In 1950, the Science Council of Japan unanimously resolved a request to the central government to allocate a special funding for the promotion of research in theoretical physics. Enthusiastic discussions among Japanese physicists followed in support for the idea of creating a new institution, similar to the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen or the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
Yukawa Hall was inaugurated in 1952 and in 1953, it became the Research Institute for Fundamental Physics (RIFP). Hideki Yukawa was appointed as the first director of the institute. He led the institute until his retirement in 1970.
Read more about this topic: Yukawa Institute For Theoretical Physics
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or history:
“As I went forth early on a still and frosty morning, the trees looked like airy creatures of darkness caught napping; on this side huddled together, with their gray hairs streaming, in a secluded valley which the sun had not penetrated; on that, hurrying off in Indian file along some watercourse, while the shrubs and grasses, like elves and fairies of the night, sought to hide their diminished heads in the snow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)