 Hideki Yukawa

Hideki Yukawa proposed explaining the short range of the nuclear interaction through exchange of a massive field quantum. A schematic static Yukawa potential has the form $V(r)\propto e^{-mcr/\hslash }/r$: the exponential introduces a range of order $\hslash /(mc)$, linking an inferred force range with a predicted particle mass. His 1935 proposal made the observed nuclear scale a clue to a new particle, while the later distinction between muons and pions was an experimental question.^[ref]

A physicist.^[ref][ref]

Hideki Yukawa was a prominent Japanese theoretical physicist, best known for his pioneering work in the field of particle physics. Born on January 23, 1907, and passing away on September 8, 1981, he was the first Japanese Nobel laureate in physics, awarded the Nobel Prize in 1949 for his prediction of the existence of mesons, which are subatomic particles that mediate the strong nuclear force.