Nobel Prize in Physics Masatoshi Koshiba's "Adversity Life" is November 13, 17:15
The life of Masatoshi Koshiba, who won the Nobel Prize, is not a flat one, but rather a series of adversities, and it can be said that he has overcome it without fail.
Mr. Koshiba dreamed of becoming a musician and a soldier when he was a boy, but when he was a child, he became a childhood paralysis and gave up.
Mr. Koshiba became interested in physics when he was in junior high school, and when he was ill and was hospitalized, he read Einstein's book given by his homeroom teacher.
I was in the old system of high school, but my grades were not so good, so I happened to say that a professor of physics said, "Koshiba is not good at physics. I will not go on to physics." I heard it.
Mr. Koshiba said that he was inspired by this and began to study hard, his grades in physics became particularly good, and he began to study physics.
Then, when Mr. Koshiba, who became a professor at the University of Tokyo after studying abroad at an overseas university, was asked by a colleague researcher to come up with an experimental device for observing a phenomenon called "proton decay." That is, I wrote a conceptual diagram of the experimental equipment overnight.
Later, it will be realized as an observation device called "Kamiokande", which has a huge aquarium installed 1000 meters underground in Kamioka Town, Gifu Prefecture.
It was a big job for Mr. Koshiba, who called himself an "experimental shop" and had the belief that he believed only what he had confirmed in the experiment rather than what was written in the textbooks.
However, adversity continues after this.
No matter how long I continued to observe, I could not catch the desired sign of "proton decay".
Mr. Koshiba, who was worried, came up with the idea that "Kamiokande" could observe elementary particles called "neutrinos", and changed his policy to "neutrinos".
Two months after modifying the device, I finally succeeded in capturing neutrinos.
It was observable because a large amount of neutrinos were released in the phenomenon of a supernova explosion that occurred in the Large Magellanic Cloud for the first time in about 380 years.
It was a lucky event that luck was finally on our side and a great opportunity to observe neutrinos.
It was just before Mr. Koshiba retired from the University of Tokyo at the mandatory retirement age.
But even then, it didn't end smoothly.
At that time, a joint team of Italy and the former Soviet Union announced that they had captured neutrinos before Mr. Koshiba and others.
Mr. Koshiba did not rush and announced the observation results after verifying the data.
As a result, the Italian and former Soviet teams were found to have incorrect data, and the observation results of Mr. Koshiba's team were accepted in the big reversal.
On October 8, 2002, the news of winning the Nobel Prize will finally be sent to Mr. Koshiba.
Mr. Koshiba was alerted by repeating "Thank you very much match" over the phone when he was informed of the award decision.
After receiving the Nobel Prize, Mr. Koshiba said, "The students have succeeded me and have achieved excellent results. My dream is for my students to receive the Nobel Prize in the future."
His student, Takaaki Kajita, director of the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2015, and Mr. Koshiba's wishes have been fulfilled.
Mr. Koshiba said, "Since I graduated from the Faculty of Science at the University of Tokyo, I have been studying hard to catch up with the people around me. I was fortunate to meet wonderful people such as teachers, colleagues, and students. I look back.
In Mr. Koshiba's life history and his words, I can feel the weight of a person who has continued to move forward without being discouraged even in times of adversity.