2007-9-14

Riccardo Giacconi (Age 71), Raymond Davis Jr. (Age 87), Masatoshi Koshiba (Age 76)

The Nobel Prize for Physics 2002 was awarded to USA scientist Raymond Davis Jr., Japanese scientist Masatoshi Koshiba and USA scientist Riccardo Giacconi for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, including detection of cosmic neutrinos and discovery of cosmic X-ray sources.

USA scientist Raymond Davis Jr. , who was born in Washington, DC and had received the chemical doctor's degree of Yale University, is an honorary professor in Department of Physics & Astronomy of University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA, USA. He was awarded with a quarter of the cash award of that year's Nobel Prize for this pioneering contribution to astrophysics, esp. detection of cosmic neutrinos.

Japanese scientist Masatoshi Koshiba, who was born in Toyohashi of Aichi in 1926 and had received doctor's degree of University of Rochester, New York in 1955, is an honorary professor of University of Toky, Japan and serves at Elementary Particle Physics Centre of Tokyo University. He was awarded with a quarter of the cash award for his similar contribution as Raymond Davis Jr. .

USA scientist Riccardo Giacconi, who was born in Genoa, Italy in 1931 and had received the doctor's degree of University of Milan, Italy in 1954, is director of Associated Universities Inc. Washington (AUI), USA now. Riccardo Giacconi played a leading role in research of the first cosmic X ray detector, found X ray source outside the solar system for the first time and proved that there exists X ray background radiation in the cosmos for the first time. Hence, he was awarded with half of this year's cash award for Nobel Prize in Physics.