著者
佐藤 徹
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究 (ISSN:21887535)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.26, no.164, pp.193-206, 1987 (Released:2021-09-21)

Archimedes gave geometrical demonstrations to find the volume of a sphere and the ellipsoids of revolution in totally different ways, although both lead to the same integral,∫[2a,0]x (2a — x)dx. Nicolas Bourbaki -a group of French mathematicians-state their views on why Archimedes had no concept of integral calculus as follows: "Might it not be that Archimedes regarded such a standpoint as extreme 'abstraction,'and dared to concentrate on studying characteristic properties of each figure he was working on ?" Certainly there is something in what Nicolas Bourbaki say. However, their views do not answer fully the question To the solution of this difficult problem, in my opinion, an important clue can be found by considering Archimedes' scholastic career in chronological order. It was not until Archimedes wrote On Spirals in his late forties or early fifties that he could work out the summing of the series 1²+2²+…n². In his later work On Conoids and Spheroids Archimedes could obtain for the first time the sum of a series ∑Xk(2a—Xk), necessary to give geometrical proofs about the volume of the ellipsoids of revolution However,it was difficult for Archimedes,in writing On the Sphere and Cylinder I, to obtain the sum. Therefore, he proved the theorem about the volume of a sphere in a way not making use of such summation When the same integral appeared, Archimedes could not notice the internal connection unifying them. This may be because, for one thing, he excluded from geometry, due to their mechanical nature, the discussions using indivisibles found in The Method which could have been a clue toward noticing the internal connection. Secondly, obtaining the sum of a series was not a simple matter to Archimedes who lacked the necessary algebraic symbols.
著者
古川 安
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究 (ISSN:21887535)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.49, no.253, pp.11-21, 2010 (Released:2021-08-02)

Umeko Tsuda (1864-1929), a pioneering educator for Japanese women and the founder of Tsuda College, was a scientist. As an English teacher at the Peeresses School in Tokyo, the young Tsuda was granted a leave of absence by the government to study "teaching method" at Bryn Mawr College, a women's college near Philadelphia. During her stay in Bryn Mawr (1889-1892), however, she majored not in pedagogy but in biology, despite the fact that the Peeresses School officially banned science education for noble women. Following the vision of the feminist Dean Carrey Thomas, Bryn Mawr College offered full-fledged professional education in science comparable to that of Johns Hopkins University. Bryn Mawr's Biology Department was growing; there, Tsuda took courses from such notable biologists as Edmund B. Wilson, Jacques Loeb, and the future Nobel Laureate Thomas H. Morgan. In her third year, under Morgan, she carried out experimental research on the development of the frog's egg, which was published in a British scientific journal as their joint paper two years later. Tsuda was considered one of the best students in the department, and Bryn Mawr offered her opportunities for further study. However, after much consideration, she chose to return to Japan. Although Tsuda gave up a possibly great career as a biologist in American academe, she knew that it was almost impossible for a woman to pursue a scientific career in Meiji Japan and wanted to develop her dream of establishing an English school for women. Her experience of "forbidden" scientific study at Bryn Mawr seems to have given her great confidence in realizing her feminist ideal of enlightening Japanese women at the women's school she founded in 1900, the forerunner of Tsuda College.
著者
坂本 卓也
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究 (ISSN:21887535)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.59, no.294, pp.131-148, 2020 (Released:2021-01-24)

The author will clarify the engine operation and its specifications of Hakki-Maru of Kaga clan that was the steamship introduced to Japan at the end of the Tokugawa period. Hakki-Maru was propelled by sails and a steam engine on Japanʼs coastline. The engine operation was relatively smooth under the calm weather, but some steam leaks of the boiler occurred mainly at the stormy weather. Though the boiler of Hakki-Maru was designed to generate steam pressures of 60 psi., the steam pressure was frequently less than 1/4 of the maximum working pressure. The repair of the engine required the help of a Shogunate engineer with a lot of operating experience. Hakki-Maru built in the United Kingdom and was equipped with a compound engine. Also it is highly probable that a combination of cylindrical boiler and surface condenser was equipped. These were developed to improve the efficiency of the engine but had been just put into practical use. The frequent breakdowns at Hakki-Maru were due to the installation of the latest equipment that required careful operation and maintenance. The steamship sold to Japan at the end of the Tokugawa period included not only old ones but also new one equipped with some cutting-edge technology. Since the steamship itself was the means of transportation, the latest technology onboard could quickly spread to the distant locations.
著者
伊藤 憲二
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究 (ISSN:21887535)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.57, no.288, pp.266-283, 2019 (Released:2021-01-24)

This paper examines one of the most publicized scientific scandals in Japan before the end of WWII, Takeuchi Tokioʼs alleged discovery of artificially induced radioactivity in common salt. In 1936, Takeuchi, then an associate professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology, claimed a discovery of a new way to produce a radioactive substance. According to his paper, he could induce radioactivity in common salt by a gamma ray from a radium source. When Takeuchiʼs patent for this alleged discovery was announced, Nishina Yoshio and other researchers at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) objected. A debate took place at a monthly meeting of the Mathematico-Physical Society of Japan in June 1941. The controversy ended when Takeuchi and Nishikawa Shōji conducted an experiment to confirm that Takeuchiʼs result was due to contamination from the radium cells, and Takeuchi withdrew his patent. This incident attracted much media attention: Newspapers and magazines published many articles on it. By examining the debates and the media coverage, this paper analyzes how Nishina and other nuclear physicists sought to set a clear boundary between acceptable and unacceptable studies of radioactivity, and shows that not only researchers, but also newspapers treated and demonstrated to the public the studies of radioactivity as something rationally verifiable, rather than magical or mysterious, indicating that the relation between the lay public and nuclear physics at that time was far more sophisticated than previously suggested. The paper concludes by discussing how such boundary work was possible in the given socio-cultural context.
著者
泊 次郎
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究 (ISSN:21887535)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.44, no.233, pp.23-32, 2005 (Released:2021-08-12)

The concept of geosynclines was born in the middle of the nineteenth century had been a fundamental concept in geology for more than one hundred years. Geosynclines had been understood as the places where mountainbuilding occurred. However many geologists thought that mountain-building forces existed outside geosynclines. Many mountain-building theories as earth contraction, continental drift, etc. coexisted before the advent of plate tectonics. When plate tectonics which was applied to mountain-building appeared, it was regarded as one acceptable theory of mountain-building at first. Therefore the concept of geosynclines did not conflict with plate tectonics in the West. After World War II, the Japanese geological community was involved in a passionate movement for democracy and the members of this political group tended to apply their own scientific theories. In particular, they came to the idea that geosynclines possessed mountain-building forces within them. According to this idea, in the center of geosynclines granite is made from geosynclinal deposits, and it is so much lighter than other materials that it gets enough buoyancy to upheave the mountain surrounding it. This idea, which became dominant among Japanese geologists, was called geosynclinal mountain-building theory. It gradually grew into a kind of paradigm. In contrast, plate tectonics account for mountain-building as a conquence of plate motion. When plate tectonics was introduced into Japan in the end of 1960s, the adherence of the Japanese geosynclinal mountain- building theory therefore did not accept plate tectonics. Consequently, it was not until the middle of 1980s that plate tectonics was generally accepted in the Japanese geological community.
著者
西山 崇
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究 (ISSN:21887535)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.50, no.259, pp.129-137, 2011 (Released:2021-07-21)

This article examines engineering and military ethics in the Japanese Navy during World War II. It focuses on what a group of engineers did from 1944 to 1945 for research and development of MXY 7, the world's only aircraft specifically created and deployed for suicide missions. Contrary to common portrayals of the military operation, I argue that the process was complicated and contested, especially among the engineers. They remained neither monolithic nor fanatic, rationally debating inherently moral issues within themselves. The engineers' detailed calculations, design blueprints, and personal memos during the war testify to this untold story of the war.
著者
千葉 庫三
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究 (ISSN:21887535)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.59, no.294, pp.113-130, 2020 (Released:2021-01-24)

In the 1960s, radio astronomy research in Japan was at a developing stage in comparison with that of leading countries. However, in the following decades the situation improved dramatically, and Japan gained a competitive position in this research field. This was achieved largely through the construction of the Nobeyama Radio Observatory (NRO). This paper describes the NROʼs construction history by focusing on the setting of scientific goals and development of the equipment to achieve them. Although there have been a few preceding studies on the Japanese history of modern astronomy including radio astronomy, it is characterized that this study utilized mainly the minutes of the Science Council of Japan and documents of research groups as primary sources. This paper clarifies the following processes. In the 1960s, with a series of major worldwide discoveries in radio astronomy, the importance of radio astronomy was recognized in Japan as well, which led to the planning of the Science Council of Japan. Responding to the global trend of radio astronomy, Japan set as the scientific goal exploring millimeter-wave astronomy. In order to meet the requirements, the 45m radio telescope and an acousto-optic radio spectrometer for spectral observations were designed and their specifications were actually realized, which far exceeded world standards at that time. Consequently, Japanese radio astronomy could obtain its global position.