Ishiwara's Contributions to Early Quantum Theory and the Reception of Quantum Theory in Japan

抄録

Low estimation of Japanese physics in the late-Meiji (1906‒1912) and the Taisho era (1912‒1926) by Tetsuo Tsuji is criticized. In order to show this, Jun Ishiwara's 1911‒12 paper on the light-quantum theory, and 1915 paper on the generalized quantum condition are investigated. On the latter, Tsuyoshi Ogawa and Hiroshi Arakawa's paper, evaluating Ishiwara's quantum condition inferior to Wilson-Sommerfeld's, is criticized and shown that the inverse is true. Already in the Taisho era, Japanese physics had caught up with physics in the western countries.