U. of C.'s Yoichiro Nambu Gets his Nobel Prize Next Week

When I used to work at the University of Chicago, every fall someone would stick a little yellow traffic sign in the lawn that read, "Caution: Nobel Laureates Crossing." It was barely an exaggeration. There are that many - or have been that many - of them swarming on campus.

This year is no different. Next week, Yoichiro Nambu, a physics professor, will claim his half of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics, which was announced in October. According to the Nobel Foundation, "In 1960, (Nambu) was the first to introduce spontaneous symmetry violation into elementary particle physics." For this introduction, he is now being awarded the Nobel Prize.

The award will be presented in Stockholm next Wednesday, December 10. Nambu will give his lecture, which is required as part of accepting the prize, on Monday. It's title? Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in Particle Physics: a Case of Cross Fertilization.

• In case you'd like to watch his speech live or see a video of the lecture, it will be posted here next week.
• If you'd like to read the Nobel Foundation's reasoning on why they chose Nambu, you can download their pdf overview here.
• Read Nambu's brief U. of C. bio here.

Image by Peter Thompson/Getty Images