The Nobel Prize in physics is to be shared by two Japanese citizens and an American, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has announced.
Yoichiro Nambu, Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa provided new insights into the building blocks of matter.
Nambu identified a mechanism called spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics.
Kobayashi and Maskawa work predicted the existence of three families of elementary particles known as quarks.
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The Nobel Prizes - which also cover chemistry, medicine, literature, peace and economics (more properly called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize) - are valued at 10m Swedish Kronor.
Laureates also receive a medal and a diploma.
Last year's winners in physics were France's Albert Fert and Germany's Peter Gruenberg for work on the discovery of giant magnetoresistance.
Their breakthrough paved the way for much of modern gadgetry by allowing industry to develop sensitive reading tools to pull data off hard drives in computers, iPods and other digital devices.
(BBC)
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