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Three S. Korean researchers take part in prize-winning physics team

November 24, 2015
Left to right: Im In-taek, Kim Jae-yool, Joo Kyung-kwang (Photo courtesy of Chonnam National University)

Left to right: Im In-taek, Kim Jae-yool, Joo Kyung-kwang (Photo courtesy of Chonnam National University)

Three South Korean professors were a part of a Breakthrough Prize-winning team in fundamental physics, announced earlier this month.

Kim Jae-yool, Lim In-taek and Joo Kyung-kwang, of Chonnam National University, worked as team members under Koichiro Nishikawa and the K2K and T2K collaboration in the “discovery and exploration of neutrino oscillations.”

The research began in 1999 with four other international collaborations — The Daya Bay (China), KamLAND (Japan), SNO (Canada) and Super-Kamiokande (Japan) — each studying the phenomenon, with more than 1,300 physicists involved overall.

A prize of $3 million will be split among the five teams.

The Breakthrough Prize awarded $22 million in total this year to recipients in three categories: physics, mathematics and life sciences. It was founded in 2012, with Google Co-founder Sergey Brin and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg among its founders, and is considered the “Silicon Valley Nobel” prize.