Journal of History of Science, JAPAN
Online ISSN : 2435-0524
Print ISSN : 2188-7535
Volume 59, Issue 293
Displaying 1-11 of 11 articles from this issue
  • [in Japanese]
    2020 Volume 59 Issue 293 Pages 1-17
    Published: 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: January 24, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper examines controversy during the safety examination of the first commercial nuclear power plant (NPP) in Japan, the Tokai Nuclear Power Plant, focusing on the issue of major accidents. Politicians, bureaucrats, business leaders, and engineers generally pushed for the plantʼs construction, while scientists̶mainly physicists̶opposed it. At the time, nuclear power technology was a rapidly growing field, with the knowledge of its safety yet to be established. The controversy revolved around four key issues: 1) how to develop NPP technology; 2) how to mitigate the risk of a major accident; 3) how to estimate the potential effects of such an accident on people; and 4) how to determine the "safety" of NPPs. In addressing these issues, scientists consistently upheld the three basic principles on nuclear research and development in Japan, namely democracy, independence, and public disclosure, emphasizing the importance of free discussion and rigorous scientific standards. By contrast, advocates of power plants opposed such an approach and supported the approval of the construction plan on the basis of administrative procedures. In this way, the knowledge on reactor and radiation safety offered by scientists was intentionally and politically disregarded.
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  • [in Japanese]
    2020 Volume 59 Issue 293 Pages 18-37
    Published: 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: January 24, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this paper is to identify who fabricated the three small Ikkanbari (一閑張) telescopes discovered by the author, and to estimate when these telescopes were fabricated from a historical perspective. Zenbei IWAHASHI (1756–1811) was one of the most famous Japanese telescope makers of the Edo period and fabricated many high-performance telescopes. After Zenbeiʼs death, his successors inherited his manufacturing technique and continued to fabricate Ikkanbari telescopes until the Meiji period. To date, telescopes fabricated by the IWAHASHI family have been investigated by the author, Makoto WATANABE and his colleagues, who have already identified 24 telescopes as having been fabricated by the IWAHASHI family. Most of these telescopes provided direct evidence of their origin, such as the IWAHASHI familyʼs original pattern Kuruma gata (車形), the inscription of the name IWAHASHI, and the IWAHASHI trademark. In this study, the author investigated three small Ikkanbari telescopes. There is no direct evidence that the telescopes were fabricated by the IWAHASHI family, except for one telescope that had IWAHASHI trademark on its case. However, the author concluded that a telescope can be considered as having been fabricated by the IWAHASHI family if its size is equal to that of the telescopes described in Saikutsumori-cho (『サイクツモリ□』帳) and if several of its patterns are the same as those of the telescopes known to have been fabricated by the IWAHASHI family. This result confirms M.WATANABEʼs opinion.
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  • [in Japanese], [in Japanese]
    2020 Volume 59 Issue 293 Pages 38-52
    Published: 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: January 24, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Inter-University Research Institutes (IURIs) are supposed to be shared properties of the researchers of corresponding disciplines. The Institute of Nuclear Study (INS) affiliated to the University of Tokyo was the first IURI equipped with large scientific facilities. A newly found set of records, collected and archived by Hiroo Kumagai, a former professor of INS, gives us new insights and interpretation of the history of the INS and its successors. INS was designed to be managed democratically on the sole basis of the common will of all nuclear physicists in Japan (the autonomy of the research community). It conflicted with the principle of the autonomy of the university. It is shown that the conflict of the two different kinds of autonomy was one of the motivations to create a new, larger physics institute, the Laboratory for High Energy Physics (KEK). Because of this historical background, KEK and other newer IURIs could provide “virtual” autonomy for researchers, though they are formally the institutes operated by the government.
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  • [in Japanese], [in Japanese], [in Japanese], [in Japanese], [in Japane ...
    2020 Volume 59 Issue 293 Pages 53-64
    Published: 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: January 24, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • [in Japanese]
    2020 Volume 59 Issue 293 Pages 65-68
    Published: 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: January 24, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (242K)
  • [in Japanese], [in Japanese], [in Japanese]
    2020 Volume 59 Issue 293 Pages 69-71
    Published: 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: January 24, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • 2020 Volume 59 Issue 293 Pages 72-81
    Published: 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: January 24, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • 2020 Volume 59 Issue 293 Pages 82-84
    Published: 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: January 24, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (206K)
  • 2020 Volume 59 Issue 293 Pages 85-93
    Published: 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: January 24, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (347K)
  • 2020 Volume 59 Issue 293 Pages 94-98
    Published: 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: January 24, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (262K)
  • 2020 Volume 59 Issue 293 Pages 99-
    Published: 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: January 24, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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