Canadian scientist Arthur McDonald shares Nobel Prize in physics with Japan's Takaaki Kajita

by Charlie Smith on October 6th, 2015 at 5:29 AM

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Physicist Arthur McDonald has become the 24th Canadian to win a Nobel Prize.

The Sydney, Nova Scotia-born professor emeritus at Queen's University in Kingston shares the honour with Takaaki Kajita of the University of Tokyo for their work on neutrinos.

McDonald is the first Canadian to win the Nobel Prize in physics since Willard Boyle in 2009.

According to a Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences news release, neutrinos are "natures most elementary particles" and are produced in nuclear reactions occurring within the sun.

McDonald demonstrated that they did not disappear on their way to Earth.

"Instead they were captured with a different identity when arriving to the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory," the news release states.

Kajita determined that these particles "switch between two identities on their way to the Super-Kamiokande detector in Japan".

Thirteen Canadians have won the Nobel Prize in either physics, chemistry, or medicine. None of them were born in B.C., though genetic researcher Michael Smith was a professor at UBC when he shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry with Kary Mullis in 1993.