著者
藤村 淳
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.27, no.166, pp.104-109, 1988 (Released:2021-09-06)

As is well known, the famous research of Ore C. Romer, who has confirmed the finiteness of light velocity and has estimated the value of it, is a very remarkable and important work in the history of physics. However, as is seen in several articles, it seems that there have been distributed rather widely some incomplete or erroneous understandings concerning his work. In this short note, studies are made on the investigating process of Romer on the problems of velocity of light, including some remarks of the interpretation of it in modern mathematical words.
著者
合田 昌史
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.27, no.166, pp.75-83, 1988 (Released:2021-09-06)

The Reconnaissance Portugal, it is said recently, had a great impact upon the normal science in the Renaissance Europe. It is true that the Portuguese navigators, especially Duarte Pacheco Pereira (c.1460-1534) and Joao de Castro (1500-1548), had taken the ancient authorities down easily for some matters of Cosmography through their own maritime experiences. But they could not break away from the Aristotelian Paradigm, however faultfinding they might be.
著者
小林 龍彦 田中 薫
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.27, no.166, pp.110-115, 1988 (Released:2021-09-06)

There used to be a field called Senkyo problem or Common Part Problem in Wasan which the old Japanese mathematicians or Wasan experts earnestly studied during the Edo period. We have already explained in some journals that Takakazu Seki (1642?-1708) was able to solve the problems without using integral calculus. This time, we have found a new description about the missing note of T Seki in the introductory remarks and in the main body of KTangen Sanpo", which was wr ten by Shukei Irie in 1739 According to Irie's description, he called it uKongenki Enjutsu 16 Problems" And in the main body of the text Irie had cited, in order to solve a Senkyo Problem, that T.Seki had used an approximate formula to find the area of a segment of a circle. We were able to restore this approximate formula as follows: If we let d be the chord, c the altitude of a segment of a circle, and S the area, we have, (2d+c)cπ/10=S Through research of Irie's statement, regardless of it being true or not, we obtained some new facts about T. Seki as follows: Firstly, it is obvious that Seki studied "Sanpo Kongenki" written by Seiko Sato in 1669, from which he learned an approximate formula like the one mentioned above. We believe that this matter may create a new point of view on the study of T. Seki. Secondly, T. Seki must have made a note called "Kongenki Enjutsu 16 Problems" immediately after "Kokon Sanpoki" by Kazuyuki Sawaguchi was published. This is because K. Sawaguchi did not solve 16 out of 150 problems in "Sanpo Kongenki", which Sato poured out as new questions for Wasan experts of that time. Thus, we are able to place the missing note in an early time of his work. Thirdly, it is certain that Seki's successors have passed on this missing note for mathematical education and it existed until around the end of the first half of the 18th century.

1 0 0 0 OA 紹介

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.27, no.166, pp.119, 1988 (Released:2021-09-06)

1 0 0 0 OA ゼロの発見

著者
林 隆夫
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.27, no.166, pp.84-92, 1988 (Released:2021-09-06)

The decimal place-value notation with a zero symbol (called bindu or a point) is found to be used in the Yavanajataka (A.D.269/270) of Sphujidhvaja, while the recognition of the zero as a number to be an object of mathematical operations can be attested in Var hamihira's Pancasiddhantika (ca.A.D.505). In this paper I have proposed the hypothesis that a place-value notation with a zero symbol and computation on board by using that notation, both of which existed in India in the early centuries of the Christian era, were the necessary conditions for the recognition of zero as a number.

1 0 0 0 OA 紹介

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.227, 1987 (Released:2021-09-21)
著者
梶 雅範
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.27, no.165, pp.24-36, 1988 (Released:2021-09-21)

The author has examined the historical context of the first edition of Mendeleev's famous chemistrytextbook The Principles of Chemistry (Osnovy khimii) written during 1868-1871. Mendeleev's career began in 1854, when he published his first scientific paper, and reached its first landmark in 1869, when he announced his discovery of the Periodic Law of the Elements. Those years were the period of great change and reforms in Russia, beginning in the middle of the 1850's after the defeat in the Cremean War, and running its course by the end of the 1860's, climaxed by the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. It was also the time of change in chemistry the dispute over the merits of different atomic weight systems had been finally settled, the classical organic structural theory had emerged, and several systems of classifying all elements based on Cannizzaro?s new atomic weight system had been presented by several chemists. The author has paid special attention to the objectives which the Russian chemists, including Mendeleev, were expected to achieve during 1860's. There were two: the practical and the theoretical. The practical objective was the education of qualified professionals for the new capitalistic production Russia then was in want of. The educational system, especially at higher level, was reorganized during this period, and enough number of Russian chemists acquired posts in the academic institutions, so that they could form the Russian Chemical Society in 1868 Their theoretical objective was to deal with the current theoretical problems as well as the experimental ones in chemistry to meet the needs of the period when the classical foundation of chemistry was about to be laid. The author has shown that Mendeleev's famous textbook was the culmination of his work in regard to those two objectives. The Principles of Chemistry, offering an advanced way of systematization of inorganic chemistry, was the new textbook for universities urgently required by Russian society, and in the process of s writing the final step to the discovery of the' Periodic Law was taken.

1 0 0 0 OA 紹介

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.27, no.165, pp.51, 1988 (Released:2021-09-21)
著者
後藤 美智子
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.27, no.165, pp.9-23, 1988 (Released:2021-09-21)

In this paper, clarified are the motivation leading the development and the contrivance featuring the processes of Millikan's verification of the elementary electrical charge, with the expectation as a case study for the new implication of the experimental researches in early 20th century physics. The controversy on the atomic theory, occurred in St.Louis Congress (1904), and Millikan's own photo-electric effect research drove him to the momentous question as to the reality of "the electron as the natural unit of electricity". Throughout his observational process ―"seeing the electron―, the confidence in and the limiting factors of his experimental apparatus are particularly noteworthy, as well as the active figures in his experimental methods in this period (1906-1911), especially in the process of converting the capture of ions by water droplets, found in the balanced method, into the core of his next oil-drop method. As to the process under consideration, his essential result was the direct verification of the atomic interpretation of both electricity and matter, confirmed independently of the uncertain theory of Stokes' law of fall of a small spherical body through a gas.

1 0 0 0 OA 紹介

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.163, pp.172-183, 1987 (Released:2021-09-21)