The 2008 Physics Nobel Prize was awarded to Kobayashi and Maskawa for their explanation of CP violation in the Standard Model.

Kobayashi and Maskawa's explanation predicted that large CP asymmetries could be observed in the decays of particles containing b-quarks. Verification of their hypothesis was one of the primary goals of the B-factory experiments, Belle at KEKB and BaBar at PEP-II. As indicated in the press release from the Nobel foundation the experimental results confirmed Kobayashi and Maskawa's brillant and bold hypothesis that all CP violation is due to a single complex phase.

Message from Makoto Kobayashi:

" I pray for the success of the upgrade project together with all those people who have been working on KEKB and Belle."