TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31 

09:45-10:15 

IDA & ROBERT SPROUL ROOM

OPENING REMARKS

• Carol Christ, Chancellor UCB 

• Mariko KOBAYASHI (JSPS, Director, International Program Department, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

​

10:15-11:45 

CHEVRON AUDITORIUM

Introduced by Hitoshi MURAYAMA, Professor UC Berkeley (Physics) + Kavli Institute, University of Tokyo

​

NOBEL LAUREATE YUAN T LEE

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1986
Dudley R. Herschbach, Yuan T. Lee, John C. Polanyi

​

Born: 19 November 1936, Hsinchu, Taiwan

Affiliation at the time of the award: University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

Prize motivation: "for their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes"

Field: chemical kinetics, physical chemistry

Prize share: 1/3

WORK

Chemical reactions in which molecules comprised of atoms collide and form new compounds represent one of nature's fundamental processes. At the end of the 1960s Yuan Lee and Dudley Herschbach began developing methods to carefully study the dynamics of chemical reactions. Beams of molecules with fixed amounts of energy were made to cross one another so that chemical reactions arose where the beams intersected. By measuring the movement, mass and energy of the molecules produced, the reactions can be mapped.                                                                                          

Nobel Facts

​

13:30-15:00 

CHEVRON AUDITORIUM

Moderated by Yasunori NOMURA, Professor UC Berkeley (Physics) + Director, Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics

​

NOBEL LAUREATE SAUL PERLMUTTER

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2011
Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt, Adam G. Riess

​

Born: 1959, Champaign-Urbana, IL, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

Prize motivation: "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae"

Field: cosmology

Prize share: 1/2

WORK

The universe's stars and galaxies are moving away from one another; the universe is expanding. Up until recently, the majority of astrophysicists believed that this expansion would eventually wane, due to the effect of opposing gravitational forces. Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam Riess studied exploding stars, called supernovae. Because the light emitted by stars appears weaker from a larger distance and takes on a reddish hue as it moves further from the observer, the researchers were able to determine how the supernovae moved. In 1998 they reached a surprising result: the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate.

Nobel Facts

15:30-17:00 

CHEVRON AUDITORIUM

Introduced by Hitoshi MURAYAMA, Professor UC Berkeley (Physics) + Kavli Institute, University of Tokyo

​

NOBEL LAUREATE TAKAAKI KAJITA

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2015
Takaaki Kajita, Arthur B. McDonald

​

Born: 9 March 1959, Higashimatsuyama, Japan

Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan

Prize motivation: "for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass"

Prize share: 1/2

WORK

The Standard Model used by modern physics has three types of a very small and elusive particle called the neutrino. In the Super-Kamiokande detector, an experimental facility in a mine in Japan in 1998, Takaaki Kajita detected neutrinos created in reactions between cosmic rays and the Earth's atmosphere. Measurements showed deviations, which were explained by the neutrinos switching between the different types. This means that they must have mass. The Standard Model, however, is based on neutrinos lacking mass and the model must be revised.                                                                                        

Nobel Facts

​

​