editorial Light on dark Dark energy is a prime target in the proposed US astronomy programme.

The US National Research Council it’s the optical Large Synoptic Survey agencies such as NASA decide to run with has published its latest decadal survey, Telescope (LSST). any of the proposals is another matter. identifying research priorities for astronomy It’s striking that both WFIRST and LSST Meanwhile, the European Space Agency and astrophysics in the years ahead are wide-reaching instruments — wide in the (ESA) already has under consideration a (www.nap.edu/catalog/12951.html). It’s an area of sky they will survey, wide in the studies proposal for a dark-energy-solving spacecraft, exercise that has taken note of straitened they will undertake. Both will target dark called Euclid; whether it will fly or not is likely economic circumstances and consulted energy, the phenomenon invoked to explain to be decided within the next 12 months. widely across all of astronomy and the accelerating expansion of the Universe. NASA and ESA are set to open bilateral talks astrophysics. Top slot in space has gone to These are, of course, only this month: the quest to understand dark the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope recommendations compiled by representatives matter would surely be best pursued through (WFIRST); for large ground-based projects, of the astronomy community — whether international collaboration. ❐ Nicola Cabibbo 1935–2010

Significant work in particle physics bears his name, but the list of Nobel winners does not.

Italian particle physicist Nicola Cabibbo Cabibbo, Kobayashi and Maskawa had died on 16 August 2010. Cabibbo had looked a natural line-up for the prize, and been a towering figure in Italian physics, were much tipped in the field. Certainly particularly as president of the National it seemed an easier call than the possible Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) between future award for the elucidation of the mass- 1983 and 1992, and then as president of generating mechanism in nature — named the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. His for Peter Higgs but to which many parties legacy in particle physics is recorded in (and more than the canonical three) can the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa (CKM) lay claim2. There is no doubt whatsoever matrix and the Cabibbo angle. of Nambu’s exceptional contribution to His name did not appear, however, in physics, and his Nobel reward was overdue. the list of winners of the 2008 Nobel Prize1, But the ‘sticking together’ of Nambu which was carried by Makoto Kobayashi with Kobayashi and Maskawa, thereby and Toshihide Maskawa, alongside forcing the omission of Cabibbo, made Yoichiro Nambu. The prize announcement the prize seem a little less sweet — and provoked much comment, and in Italy reminiscent of, for example, the 2002 award feelings ran particularly high. Italian to Ray Davis, Masatoshi Koshiba and newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported Riccardo Giacconi, all deserving winners but Cabibbo’s passing under the headline “Death for rather disparate contributions that didn’t of physicist Cabibbo, who was denied necessarily sit comfortably together as a the Nobel”. single prize, and with the omission of Davis’ In the early 1960s, Cabibbo postulated long-time collaborator John Bahcall. ‘weak universality’ to make sense of the How much more satisfying those awards

behaviour of the then-known leptons (two that recognize a single, self-contained piece BONA MARCELLA generations) and quarks (only up, down of physics: Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg and strange)3. For the down and strange in 2007 for giant magnetoresistance; made the truly exceptional contributions to quarks, he introduced the Cabibbo angle, or David Gross, David Politzer and physics, thereby ensuring their legacy in the which explains the mixing of quarks in Frank Wilczek in 2004 for asymptotic history of the subject. As ever, we are excited terms of a rotation between their mass freedom. A one-topic prize is also an easier about the next prize announcement, to be eigenstates and their weak eigenstates. sell to the media who will publicize the made early next month. Kobayashi and Maskawa took these award, no matter how esoteric that one topic Nicola Cabibbo was not a winner, but ideas further, adding a third generation might be. it would be a shame to let that define his of particles to the mix and neatly The Nobel committee, of course, valuable legacy to physics. ❐ encapsulating the physics in the 3×3 CKM have a thankless task. It will always be matrix. Experiments subsequently proved possible to quibble over who is awarded References that there are indeed three generations of for what, when and with whom. But the 1. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2008/ quark, adding charm, bottom and top to committee members bear well the difficult 2. www.nature.com/news/2010/100804/full/news.2010.390.html the original cast. responsibility of rewarding those who have 3. Cabibbo, N. Phys. Rev. Lett. 10, 531–533 (1963). nature physics | VOL 6 | SEPTEMBER 2010 | www.nature.com/naturephysics 633

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