Makoto Kobayashi
However, this theory allowed a compound symmetry CP to be conserved. CP combines parity P (switching left to right) with charge conjugation C (switching particles with antiparticles). Physicists were again surprised when in 1964, James Cronin and Val Fitch provided clear evidence in kaon decays that "CP" symmetry could be broken too, winning them the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1973, Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa showed that "CP" violation in the weak interaction required more than two generations of particles, effectively predicting the existence of a then unknown third generation. This discovery earned them half of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics.