Particle pioneer: Hideki Yukawa laid the foundation for an active postwar generation of particle physicists in Japan. (Courtesy: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Yukawa Collection)

While modern Japan has had a good record in winning Nobel prizes, the country had to wait 48 years since the inception of the awards in 1901 to receive its first Nobel prize.

The accolade went to particle physicist Hideki Yukawa , who published his theory of mesons in the 1930s that explained the interaction between protons and neutrons.

Yukawa was born in Tokyo on 23 January 1907, graduating from Kyoto University in 1929.…