Upon the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC), China adopted a foreign policy of “one-sidedness,” aligning with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in the context of the cold war in support of socialism. In the 1950s, China actively sought assistance from the Soviet Union in support of the Chinese economy, science and technology, culture, and military. The government also sent students and scientists to participate in international cooperative efforts. While took part in the scientific work of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in the 1950s and the 1960s cultivating a group of talents majored on nuclear and particle physics. Upon their return to China, those scientists played a crucial role in the development of nuclear weapons, the construction of accelerators, and the advancement of theoretical physics in China. Based on Chinese and Russian archives and other publications, this paper selected Zhou Guangzhao 周光召 (1929‒), a theoretical physicist who worked at the JINR from 1957 to 1961, as the subject of a case study to discuss his theoretical physics research at the JINR as well as his contribution after returning to China. In addition, this paper attempted to analyze how his work experience in the JINR influenced his later work.

In the 1950s, the Soviet Union provided scientific and technological assistance to Chinese projects geared toward economic development and the modernization of their military armament, which included nuclear weapon development. Many Soviet scientists were dispatched to China to assist Chinese scientists during that period. What motivated them to visit China? Were they merely complying with their government's request? A comprehensive study on the Soviet scientific and technological assistance to China does not reveal the true intentions of the involved Soviet scientists. Some scientists who were dispatched to China in the 1950s submitted reports on their visits to China to the Soviet Academy of Sciences and its research institutes. These reports have been preserved in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Drawing primarily from these archival sources, which had not been referred to in previous literature, this paper attempts to find the answer that corresponds with the newest developments in Soviet studies̶which suggest that their own motivations of the scientists should be given more consideration than they previously were.

SAKATA Shōichi, known as a physicist who contributed significantly to the development of the theory of elementary particles, held a sincere belief in the Marxist philosophical view of nature. He acquired the basic core of this worldview by reading the classics of Marxism as a youth and later added original insights via correspondence with others or development of his own inquiry into the microscopic world. Several visits to the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China also deeply impressed Sakata. This article examines the features of his understanding of Marxist natural philosophy and the factors that helped him establishing it. By focusing on Sakata's experience of the international/domestic exchange with Marxists, this study will also reveal how the orthodox and unique part of his understanding of dialectical materialism divided and conjoined.

This paper focuses on the communication between Japanese Mendelian geneticists and Soviet Michurinists, including Ivan Glushchenko, at the International Genetics Symposia in Tokyo and Kyoto, September 1956. The Symposia attracted attention because a Soviet delegation had not attended an international genetics meeting in Western Bloc countries since 1932. More importantly, the Symposia were held five months after T. D. Lysenko's resignation from the presidency of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The Soviet delegates, particularly Glushchenko, aimed to rescue the international reputation of the Michurinist school through "diplomacy" in Japan. After his return to the USSR, Glushchenko utilized the favorable response the Soviet delegation received in Japan to enhance the standing of the Soviet Michurinists in the USSR Academy of Sciences. At a personal level, some members of the Organizing Committee in Japan, including Hitoshi Kihara and Yoshito Shinoto, were motivated to communicate directly with the Soviet Michurinists in connection with their own research interests. Glushchenko, Kihara, and Shinoto benefited from their individual exchanges at the Symposia and from their continued collaborations and correspondence afterwards. I present the 1956 Symposia as a unique case where geneticists belonging to opposing scientific camps sought collaboration with each other, seeing beyond their disagreements.

This paper traces the development of Newton's theory of “fits,” designed primarily as an explanation of the phenomenon of periodic rings created by light, and developed in Bk. II of his Opticks. We can recognize three distinct stages in the development of Newton's explanation of this phenomenon: the aethereal vibration hypothesis, the corpuscular vibration hypothesis, and the theory of fits. My aim is to show what led Newton through these successive explanations, and why he ultimately settled on the theory of fits in the Opticks. Alan Shapiro has argued that Newton avoided committing himself to the corpuscular vibration hypothesis in the Opticks because of his methodological precept of abstaining from hypotheses that lack sufficient demonstration. In addition, I highlight Newton's observations concerning the partial reflection of light and his experiments involving thick glass plates, which may provide a further reason why he avoided committing himself to the corpuscular vibration hypothesis.