Yoshio Nishina

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Yoshio Nishina (仁科芳雄) (December 6, 1890–January 10, 1951) was a Japanese physicist. He was a friend of Niels Bohr, and a close associate of Albert Einstein. Nishina was a world-class scientist with excellent leadership qualities. He co-authored the well-known Klein-Nishina Formula, and the Nishina crater on the moon is named in his honor.

During World War II he was the head of the Japanese atomic program, which was alleged to have detonated a nuclear weapon during testing in 1945.

Nishina was born in Satosho, Okayama. After graduation, he became a staff member at RIKEN. In 1921 he was sent to Europe for research. He visited some European universities and institutions, including Cavendish Laboratory, Georg August University of Göttingen, and University of Copenhagen. In Copenhagen he did research with Niels Bohr and they became good friends. In 1928 he wrote a paper on incoherent or Compton scattering with Oskar Klein in Copenhagen, from which the Klein-Nishina formula derives.

In the same year he returned to Japan, where he endeavored to foster an environment for the study of quantum mechanics. He invited some Western scholars to Japan including Heisenberg, Dirac and Bohr to stimulate Japanese physicists.

His research was concerned with cosmic rays and particle accelerator development.

In 1946 he was awarded the Order of Culture by the Emperor of Japan.