Tomonaga

A second researcher, Masaki Tomonaga, was also dismissed, two others were suspended, and several other faculty and staff members were given warnings.

His resulting paper, “The Radiation Theories of Tomonaga, Schwinger and Feynman,” was regarded as an instant classic and gave Mr. Dyson lifelong credibility in the sciences even as he went on to tackle more speculative interests.

Yet, his results — equivalent to more systematic, rigorously expounded mathematical techniques independently proposed by co-laureates Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga — matched atomic-physics data beautifully.

Tomonaga's work on radar during the war had proven similarly essential to his theoretical approach.

As it turned out, Japanese physicist Sin-Itiro Tomonaga had accomplished the same goal a few years earlier.