Biography

After completing his PhD at Nagoya University in 1972, Kobayashi worked as a research associate on particle physics at Kyoto University. Together, with his colleague Toshihide Maskawa, he worked on explaining CP-violation within the Standard Model of particle physics. Kobayashi and Maskawa's theory required that there were at least three generations of quarks, a prediction that was confirmed experimentally four years later by the discovery of the bottom quark.

Kobayashi and Maskawa's article, "CP Violation in the Renormalizable Theory of Weak Interaction", published in 1973, is the fourth most cited high energy physics paper of all time as of 2010. The Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix, which defines the mixing parameters between quarks was the result of this work. Kobayashi and Maskawa were jointly awarded half of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work, with the other half going to Yoichiro Nambu.

Academic career

• April, 1972 : Research Associate of Kyoto University
• July,1979 : Assistant Professor of the National Laboratory of High Energy Physics
• April, 1989 : Professor of the National Laboratory of High Energy Physics, Head of Physics Division II
• April, 1997 : Professor of the Institute of Particle and Nuclear Science, KEK Head of Physics Division II
• April, 2003 : Director, Institute of Particle and Nuclear Studies, KEK
• April, 2004 : Trustee (Director, Institute of Particle and Nuclear Studies), KEK (Inter-University Research Institute Corporation)
• June, 2006 : Professor emeritus of KEK.

Honors

• 1979 - Nishina Memorial Prize
• 1985 - Sakurai Prize
• In October 2008, Kobayashi was honored with Japan's Order of Culture; and an awards ceremony for the Order of Culture was held at the Tokyo Imperial Palace.

Personal life

Kobayashi was born and educated in Nagoya, Japan. He married Sachiko Enomoto in 1975; they had one son, Junichiro. After his first wife died, Kobayashi married Emiko Nakayama in 1990, they had a daughter, Yuka.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]