Physicists from Japan

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Japanese Physicists of all time. This list of famous Japanese Physicists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Japanese Physicists.

1. #1

   

   Hideki Yukawa

   1907 - 1981

   HPI 73.0686 langs

   Hideki Yukawa was a Japanese theoretical physicist who is most famous for his theory of mesons. He also predicted the existence of quarks.

2. #2

   

   Isamu Akasaki

   1929 - 2021

   HPI 72.3470 langs

   Amu Akasaki is most famous for being the inventor of the blue LED.

3. #3

   

   Shin'ichirō Tomonaga

   1906 - 1979

   HPI 72.3174 langs

   Shin'ichirō Tomonaga is most famous for his work in quantum electrodynamics, specifically the Tomonaga-Schwinger equation.

4. #4

   

   Yoichiro Nambu

   1921 - 2015

   HPI 71.4068 langs

   Yoichiro Nambu is most famous for his work on the theory of spontaneous broken symmetry.

5. #5

   

   Makoto Kobayashi

   b. 1944

   HPI 70.9062 langs

   Makoto Kobayashi is most famous for being the first person to climb Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen.

6. #6

   

   Leo Esaki

   b. 1925

   HPI 70.4773 langs

   Leo Esaki is most famous for his invention of the Esaki Diode in 1959.

7. #7

   

   Toshihide Maskawa

   1940 - 2021

   HPI 69.3963 langs
8. #8

   

   Masatoshi Koshiba

   1926 - 2020

   HPI 68.8472 langs

   Masatoshi Koshiba is most famous for his discovery of the neutrino. He won the Nobel Prize in 2002 for this discovery.

9. #9

   

   Syukuro Manabe

   b. 1931

   HPI 68.2147 langs
10. #10

    

    Shuji Nakamura

    b. 1954

    HPI 66.9868 langs