Leo Esaki

Japanese physicist (1925-)

Find birthday twins Open interactive profile

Born: March 12, 1925
Age in 2026: 101
Zodiac sign: Pisces
Birth year: 1925

About Leo Esaki

Leo Esaki (born March 12, 1925) is a Japanese physicist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ivar Giaever and Brian Josephson for his work on tunneling in semiconductors, which led to his invention of the tunnel diode that exploits this phenomenon. His research was done when he was with Sony. He has also contributed in being a pioneer of semiconductor superlattices. Since the death of Yoichiro Nambu in 2015, Esaki is currently the oldest Japanese Nobel laureate. As a result, he discovered that as the voltage is increased, the current decreases inversely, indicating negative resistance. In 1956, Esaki became chief physicist at Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (now Sony).

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Leo Esaki timeline

1956In 1956, Esaki became chief physicist at Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (now Sony).
2015Since the death of Yoichiro Nambu in 2015, Esaki is currently the oldest Japanese Nobel laureate.

The world when Leo Esaki was born

Leo Esaki was born in 1925. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1925

#1 song"Sweet Georgia Brown"
Top movieThe Gold Rush (Charlie Chaplin)
Best-selling bookThe Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Headlines and milestones

Major sports momentRed Grange signs with the Chicago Bears
Top headlineThe Scopes Trial captivates America
Technology milestoneTelevision demonstrated by John Logie Baird
Defining fadCharleston dance craze
Notable inventionMasking tape
World population1.98 billion

United States snapshot

U.S. leaderCalvin Coolidge
Sports championPittsburgh Pirates (World Series)
U.S. population115.8M

1925 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Leo Esaki's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure	1925	2026
Gas	$0.22	$3.45/gal
Average home	$5,900	$435,000
Average income	$3,600	$67,500
Movie ticket	$0.25	$11.95
Postage stamp	$0.02	$0.73
Population	115.8M	341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.