Journal

rchive Stories

Introduction of the Journals of the Physico-Mathematical Society

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Hideki Yukawa (1907-1981) (Provided by RIKEN (the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research))

January 23, 2007, will be the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Hideki Yukawa, the first Nobel Prize winner (physics) in Japan. The journal in which the papers of the famous meson theory by Yukawa were printed was the "Journal of the Physico-Mathematical Society." The "Journal of the Physico-Mathematical Society" is an academic journal published by an academic society jointly formed between the fields of mathematics and physics, whose original name was the "Tokyo Mathematical Society" that was founded in 1877. Since the names of the society and the journal were often changed, the name of the "Journal of the Physico-Mathematical Society" is adopted here as the general name. The paper of Yukawa was printed in this journal, which was known as the "Proceedings of the Physico-Mathematical Society of Japan", in Vol.17 (1935), p.48-57 under the title of "On the Interaction of Elementary Particles (I)." [ and more... ]

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Hantaro Nagaoka (1865-1950) (Provided by RIKEN (the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research))

Hantaro Nagaoka (1865-1950) is said to be the first Japanese physicist who achieved worldwide recognition. Although he doubted whether Japanese people were able to study science when he was young, he studied in Europe during 1893-1896 under some leading scholars of the time, such as L. Boltzmann, a father of statistical mechanics, and Max Planck, a founder of quantum mechanics. After coming back to Japan, he fostered many talented scholars as a professor at the Science College of Tokyo Imperial University. Later in his life, he became the first president of the newly established Osaka University in 1931, and he formed a base for achieving excellent research results and cultivating talented scientists, such as Hideki Yukawa who was awarded the first Nobel Prize as a Japanese.Nagaoka was on the board of recommendation for Nobel Prize candidates, and the first Japanese candidate who he recommended for the Nobel Prize was Yukawa. [ and more... ]

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Kotaro Honda (1870-1954) (Provided by RIKEN (the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research))

Kotaro Honda (1870-1954) was a father of research on magnetic substances in Japan. Magnets are used at present in large-scale magnetic recording systems, such as hard disks, and they are indispensable in modern society. Ultra-small equipment that can carry several hundred volumes of music, and equipment that can record videos for several hundred hours can be realized entirely on the basis of the large-scale magnetic recording system. In addition, powerful magnets are used in MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), which examine the inside of the body at a hospital, and also in magnetic levitated trains. [ and more... ]