Hideki Yukawa was the first citizen of Japan to receive a Nobel Prize, an award given to him in 1949 for his theory of the meson, the subatomic particle that binds the nucleus' protons and neutrons. In addition to that honor, Yukawa received the Imperial prize of the Japan Academy in 1940, the Lomonosov Gold Medal of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1964, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1964, and the Order of the Rising Sun (Japan) in 1977.

Hideki Yukawa was born Hideki Ogawa in Tokyo on January 23, 1907. He was the fifth of seven children born to Takuji and Koyuki Ogawa. His father was employed at the Geological Survey Bureau in Tokyo at the time of Hideki's birth and a year later was appointed professor of geology at Kyoto Imperial University. In his autobiography, Tabibito (The Traveler ), Yukawa describes the experience of growing up in...