How did modern physics become something studied in Japan?

by my_coding_account

As early as 1904 Hanturo Nagaoka postulated a "Saturnian" model of the atom with flat rings of electrons around a positively charged nucleus, and in 1935 Hideki Yukawa published the theory of mesons which he got the nobel prize for. Similarly Shinichiro Tomonaga.

I largely think of theoretical physics as a European and American thing. How were the Japanese able to get access to scientific articles? Did they have university laboratories? Did the Japanese already have there own study of physics and mathematics before they became aware of the European one? How were japanese physicists received by the Europeans?

y_sengaku

Please delete this post if it does not meet the academic standard of this subreddit.

+++

  • If I remember correctly, Part II of Scott L. Montgomery, Science in Translation: Movements of Knowledge through Cultures and Time, Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2000, deals with the reception of the 'modern' western science in Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-1925) Period in Japan (Sorry for that I've only read it in Japanese translated version, and I couldn't find the book in my hand right now so that I cannot summarize what you want to know here).
  • Castro, Gerald T., 'The role of the higher education in physics in the industrialization of Japan', focusing on the Physics in the university system, seems OK to me (Native Japanese).
  • The most standard work for the history of Science in Japan is: Shigeo SUGIYAMA, Nihon no Kindai Kagaku-shi (A History of Modern Science in Japan: in Japanese), Tokyo: Asakura Shoten, 2010 (1st ed. 1994). Unfortunately, I couldn't find any translation of this work. Sugiyama also seemed to write an introductory article about the history of science in Japan in: Gregory J. Clancey (ed.), Historical perspectives on east asian science, technology and medicine (2002).

+++

Since Meiji Restoration, Imperial Japan had tried to adapt diverse fields of science (humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences) from various European countries. As for physical science, Japan first took Germany, then USA as its own model. The switching point of this German to USA is probably set around WWI. The science academics of respective country might have some kind of connection with the academics in Japan (kind of a destination country of studying abroad).

As for Hantaro NAGAOKA, one of his first tutors was Scottish Scientist Cargil Gilston Knott (1856-1922) (Obituary Note) who was then invited as a 'foreigner professor' (Oyatoi Gaikokujin: lit. trans. hired foreigner) in Japan, but later he studied under von Hermholz and Bortzmann in Germany (1893-), so, so to speak, he belonged to a kind of 'German Generation' of the History of Science in Japan.