Canadian Arthur McDonald shares Nobel Prize in physics with Takaaki Kajita of Japan

STOCKHOLM – Arthur McDonald, a professor emeritus at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., and the director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in northern Ontario, is a co-winner of this year’s 2015 Nobel Prize for Physics.

McDonald, and Japanese scientist Takaaki Kajita, were cited for the discovery of neutrino oscillations and their contributions to experiments showing that neutrinos change identities.

“The discovery has changed our understanding of the innermost workings of matter and can prove crucial to our view of the universe,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in announcing the award early Tuesday.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The discovery has changed our understanding of the innermost workings of matter and can prove crucial to our view of the universe," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in announcing the award early Tuesday.

McDonald, who spoke to reporters by phone from his home in Kingston immediately after the prize was announced, said being named by the committee is a “very daunting experience, needless to say.”

WATCH: The Nobel Prize award began in 1901 and only four Canadian scientists, including Arthur McDonald, have been given the prestigious award.

“Fortunately, I have many colleagues as well who share this prize with me.”

McDonald said they have put in a “tremendous amount of work” and that he benefited from having a “very friendly collaboration among scientists from Canada, the United States, Britain, and Portugal.”

He said that group will help him “enjoy the moment” when he has a chance to speak with them.

McDonald said there was a “eureka moment” when they were able to see that neutrinos were able to change from one type to another in travelling from the sun to the earth.

“Neutrinos are among the fundamental particles (which) we do not know how to subdivide any further. Therefore, their position within the models of physics at the most fundamental level is very important,” he said.

“When you do not know whether they have mass, it’s otherwise difficult to understand how to incorporate them into those theories that give us a more complete understanding of the world of physics at the most fundamental level. Discovering this property helps us tremendously in this regard.”

McDonald, 72, is a native of Sydney, N.S., who studied at Dalhousie University in Halifax in the mid-60s and later at the California Institute of Technology. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2006.

McDonald and Kajita, who is the director of the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research and professor at the University of Tokyo, will split about $960,000 in prize money.

Each winner will also get a diploma and a gold medal at the prize ceremony on Dec. 10.