1906-1979

Japanese Physicist

Apioneer in the field of quantum electrodynamics, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga developed a theory about subatomic particles that resolved earlier difficulties encountered by physicists seeking to bring together principles of quantum mechanics and special relativity. He shared the 1965 Nobel Prize for Physics with Richard Feynman (1918-1988) and Julian Schwinger (1918-1994).

Tomonaga was born in Tokyo on March 31, 1906, to Sanjuro and Hide Tomonaga. His father became a professor of philosophy at Kyoto Imperial University when Tomonaga was a boy, and the family moved to Kyoto. Later Tomonaga enrolled in Kyoto's renowned Third High School, and there he studied alongside Hideki Yukawa (1907-1981), who would later become Japan's first Nobel Prize winner (also in physics) in 1949. Both men later majored in physics at Kyoto Imperial University, earning their bachelor's degrees in 1929, and both remained as research assistants to physicist Kajuro Tamaki.

In 1932 Tomonaga took a job as...