著者
泉水 英計
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究. 第II期 (ISSN:00227692)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.48, no.252, pp.233-237, 2009-12-25
参考文献数
21
著者
森 一夫 出野 務
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究. 第II期 (ISSN:00227692)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.15, no.120, pp.196-199, 1977-01-31

周知のようにニュートンは『自然哲学の数学的諸原理』(以下,『プリンキIピア』と略記する)の冒頭に 定義I 物質量とは,物質の密度と大きさ(マーグニトウードー)(体積)とをかけて得られる,物質の測度である. と質量を定義している.一見循環論法とも思えるこの不自然な定義をめぐり,E.Machを初めとして今日までさまざまな解釈が行われ,議論されてきた.わが国でも『科学史研究』誌上で,渡辺正雄・板倉聖宣両氏の論争が行われたことは記憶に新しい.両者の論争によって新しい視点が提供されたのは注目すべきであるが,なおも問題点は解決されないまま残されているので,筆者はあえて別の視点からニュートンの質量の定義に関して新しい解釈を試みようとした.筆者の見解を述べる前に,その素材を提供したともいうべき両氏の論争を最初に紹介しよう.
著者
和泉 ちえ
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究. 第II期 (ISSN:00227692)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.30, no.178, pp.97-106, 1991-07-03

The Mechanica reveals to us some of Aristotle's basic attitudes towards mathematica and physica. In Aristotle's division of knowledge, there seems to be a clear distinction between mathematica and physica, but in fact, these two kinds of knowledge have the common basis on Plato's five mathemata described in the Republic. Mechanical problems have something in common with both mathematica and physica, for the method is demonstrated by mathematica and its objects belong to physica. Furthermore, mechanica relates closely to stereometria which Plato himself introduced in addition to the Pythagorean four mathemata, intending the reconstruction of those traditional 'quadrivium' in his Republic. In the system of Aristotle's demonstrative science, mechanica connected with stereometria treats its object as a 'stereon' in motion. But in his ontology, the 'stereon' means 'mathematical solid' which must be capable of perception. 'Moving stereon' means 'moving mathematical solid' and if this is restricted to the natural world, the objects of mechanica are metamorphosed into those of physica. Considering mechanica in this division of Aristotle's system, we can see the gradual transition from mathematica to physica. We recognize mechanica as the soil from which physica comes into existence.
著者
METAILIE Georges
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
Historia scientiarum. Second series : international journal of the History of Science Society of Japan (ISSN:02854821)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.11, no.3, pp.205-217, 2002-03-31
参考文献数
42

Prior to the eighteeth-century, a similar approach towards the vegetable kingdom, mainly influenced by the tradition of the Chinese pharmacopoeias, could be observed in China and Japan. During the eighteenth-century, the interest for <<Dutch learning>> led some Japanese physicians and interpreters to be more and more interested in Western knowledge about medicinal plants. At the beginning of the nineteenth-century, a few scholars, through direct contact with foreigners or with foreign books, realised that there was a specific scientific field called <<botany>> and began to introduce the Japanese sholarly community to this new science which became one of the subjects taught at the <<University of Tokyo>> in 1877. In China, up to the middle of the nineteenth-century, no trace of modern botany can be found in any published document. In the second half ot the century, a few botanical treatises were published, all being adaptations or translations of Western books, does by foreign-Chinese teams of translators. This situation began to change when Chinese students had the opportunity to go and study abroad, mainly to Japan, at the beginning of the twentieth-century, and, actually, it is between 20 and 30 years later that botany became a real scientific practise in China. We will analyse these two processes, their specificities and their interactions.
著者
山崎 正勝
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究. [第III期] (ISSN:21887535)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.53, no.270, pp.199-210, 2014-07-24

Japan and the United States signed in 1968 a new atomic energy agreement through which US light-water nuclear reactors, including those of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant of Tokyo Electric Power Company, were to be introduced into Japan. This paper studies the history of negotiations for the 1968 agreement using documents declassified in the 1990s in the US and Japan. After the success of the Chinese nuclear test in October 1964, the United States became seriously concerned about nuclear armament of other countries in Asia including Japan. Expecting that Japan would not have its own nuclear weapons, the US offered to help the country to demonstrate its superiority in some fields of science including peaceful nuclear energy to counter the psychological effect of the Chinese nuclear armament. Driven by his own political agenda, the newly appointed Prime Minister Eisaku Sato responded to the US expectation favorably. When he met in January 1965 with President Johnson, Sato made it clear that Japan would not pursue nuclear weapons. Although the US continued its support after this visit, it nevertheless gave priority to the control of nuclear technology in Japan through the bilateral peaceful nuclear agreement. This paper argues that the 1968 agreement implicitly meant a strategic measure to prevent Japan from going nuclear and also a tactic to persuade Japan to join the Nuclear Non -Proliferation Treaty.
著者
中村 士
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究. [第III期] (ISSN:21887535)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.54, no.275, pp.192-214, 2015-10-24

A star map with an elaborate appearance was discovered in 1998 on the ceiling inside the Kitora burial mound of Nara Prefecture (hereafter we call it the Kitora star map). From archaeological evidence, this ancient tumulus is considered to have been constructed between the end of the 7th century and the beginning of the 8th century. We had a chance to make anew positional measurements of the 28-xiu constellations depicted on this circular star map, with the purpose of inferring their observed time epoch. As sky positions of stars are subject to change due to the precession, we can estimate when the stars in the Kitora star map were observed. We adopted a statistical least-squares approach to minimize the mean positional shift for all the 28-xiu standard stars, where the positional shift of a star means the difference between its measured position and the one calculated using precession theory. For a confidence level of 90%, the confidence interval of the observation year for the Kitora star map was found to be [123BC, 39BC], or approximately 80BC ± 40. This obviously indicates that the star map is of Chinese origin. Thus, in order to investigate the relationship of the Kitora star map to ancient Chinese star catalogs, we made a statistical analysis of Shi-shi's Star Catalog, the oldest star catalog in China. By applying to it the same analysis technique as the one adopted for the Kitora star map, we obtained the confidence interval to be [65BC,43BC]. Comparison of this interval with that for the Kitora star map strongly suggests that the latter was drawn based on the Shi-shi's Catalog. A similar analysis of the Korean star map stone-inscribed in the 14th century, Ch'onsang Yolch'a Punyajido, also showed nearly the same time epoch. Finally we discuss the political and social background why the Kitora star map was produced in such an early time in Japan.
著者
金山 浩司
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究. 第II期 (ISSN:00227692)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.45, no.239, pp.145-156, 2006-09-26
被引用文献数
2

In this paper, I examine the reason for the subsidence of Soviet dispute over philosophical legitimation of modern physics in the late 1930s. The battle of scientists against party ideologues or their sympathizers was politically adventurous in the period of the Great Terror. In fact, established scientists such as Nikolai Vavilov were severely accused by opponents and were led even to be imprisoned. However, in spite of the heated attack to some leading physicists in the dispute over modern physics in philosophical journals, the worst tragedy was avoided in general. I maintain that Sergei Vavilov, one of the most influential physicists of this period, acted as a crucial negotiator in this process. By learning the Marxist terminology or a politically correct attitude in the discourse, Vavilov succeeded in soothing the party ideologues and at the same time guarding modern physics or physicists. In some respect he made a compromise, but it was a very valuable one.
著者
有賀 暢迪
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究. 第II期 (ISSN:00227692)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.51, no.263, pp.160-169, 2012-09-26

In his classical article "Eighteenth-century attempts to resolve the vis viva controversy" (1965), T. L. Hankins gave a reassessment of the vis viva controversy, dispute about the Cartesian (mv) and Leibnizian (mv^2) measures of "force." Contrary to traditional views, Hankins's and others' works have established that it was not d'Alembert's Traite de dynamique (1743) which put an end to the controversy. But then, when and how did it end? The present article argues that in the middle of the eighteenth-century, some philosophers or mathematicians tried to dissolve the controversy by rejecting its very premise: the concept of "force of bodies in motion." After briefly discussing the popularity of this concept in the vis viva controversy, I will examine claims and thoughts of three personae. D'Alembert's ambition to build the system of mechanics with highest certainty led him to abandon the idea of force in bodies, because it was too "obscure" and too "metaphysical" to serve as the basis. In a similar manner Maupertuis complained about the obscurity of that idea, and with his original principle he aimed at substituting "conservation" of force for "least" action. With regard to Euler, he insisted that force could not be attributed to individual bodies but to their relations, and that force was derived from the nature of bodies such as inertia or impenetrability. Thus it was by rejecting "force of bodies in motion" that the vis viva controversy began to end; not by, as is often said, realizing that both measures were valid.
著者
池上 俊三
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究. 第II期 (ISSN:00227692)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.47, no.247, pp.129-139, 2008-09-25
被引用文献数
2

The Japanese optical industry started with the outbreak of World War One when the import of the optical weapons was suspended. The Imperial Japanese Navy made a decision to produce them domestically. The optical factory of the Naval Arsenal in Tsukiji succeeded in making an original rangefinder for preproduction purposes. In this paper, I would like to discuss the technology transformation process of the Japanese optical industry by verifying the technological progress of Japanese rangefinders. The database of the Industrial Property Digital Library is used. The early composition of the Japanese optical industry was the Naval Arsenal factory and two private companies closely associated with the government (i.e. Nippon Kogaku K.K. and Tokyo Gasu Denki K.K.). The new optical design technology (ray tracing method) was introduced to the Naval Arsenal by Kogoro Yamada from England independently from the German engineers whom Nippon Kogaku K.K. invited. However, due to the disarmament by the Washington Naval Treaty, the Naval Arsenal was closed and the optical factory of Tokyo Gasu Denki K.K. was also shut down despite its high technological level. As a result rangefinder and optical glass manufacturing technology was transferred to Nippon Kogaku K.K. from the Naval Arsenal which became a single powerful optical company. It was made clear in this paper that the technological level of the Japanese optical industry was self-reliant by early the Showa era through close cooperation between military, industry and academic.
著者
池上 俊三
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究. 第II期 (ISSN:00227692)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.49, no.255, pp.129-142, 2010-09-24

The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of optical design technology of Japanese photographic lenses by analyzing some historical documents of optical designs, patent specifications and the correspondence between Ryozo Furukawa (an engineer of Nippon Kogaku K.K.) and Tatsuhiko Arakawa (an employee of Nippon Kogaku K.K.). The first Japanese photographic lens "Hexar" was developed by Hiroo Mouri of Rokuoh-sha with the assistance of Kogoro Yamada (an engineering officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy) in 1931. It was manufactured making use of Seidel's formulae and ray-tracing. Kakuya Sunayama (a designing manager of Nippon Kogaku K.K.) directed photographic lens technology in Nippon Kogaku K.K. from 1928 to 1937. Photographic lens technology is dual-use technology. In both cases, the demand by the military that needed aerial cameras advanced photographic lens technology. Later this outcome was transferred to civilian use. The military demanded high quality photographic lenses which met the high cost. Up until about 1935, private companies had sophisticated optical design technology and mass production facilities for photographic lenses. They also owned the data of the photographic lens designs and the technological accumulation of optical designing. It has become clear that the Japanese "original optical designs of photographic lenses" were established around 1938.
著者
水沢 光
出版者
日本科学史学会
雑誌
科学史研究. 第II期 (ISSN:00227692)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.52, no.266, pp.70-80, 2013-06-25

In World War II, when Japan was under a scientific blockade, the Ministry of Education provided a science and technology information service, such as summary reports of foreign journals and translations of foreign books. The information service covered a wide area of scientific investigation. Although the Japanese government advocated an emphasis on wartime research at its August 1943 Cabinet meeting, the Ministry of Education continued to expand the information service. Previous studies give no details on how these science-promoting measures were adopted in wartime. This paper, using the Inumaru Records in Japan's National Diet Library, reveals that the information service started and expanded through a loose coalition between scientists and Ministry of Education officials. Inumaru Hideo( 1904-1990) was a Ministry of Education official who took charge of the information service. In August 1942, the Ministry started a summary reports service for German academic journals in response to scientist complaints about the blockade. The Ministry left the choice of journals up to scientists, and the reports service continued to expand until late 1944. In July 1943, the Ministry started a translation project for foreign books, addressing a decline in students' academic ability resulting from a cut in higher-education requirements. In the project, textbooks in various fields translated into Japanese, and the translation project continued after the war.