Hideki Yukawa was a Japanese theoretical physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1949 "for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces." The Nobel Prize in Physics 1949, announced November 3, 1949. Hideki Yukawa, “for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces”. Hideki Yukawa: born 1907, Tokyo, Japan. Wiki link Data: the Nobel Foundation (CC0).