Hantaro Nagaoka and ‘Russo-Japanese War not-knowing scientist’

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  • 長岡半太郎と「日露戦争を知らなかった学者」
  • ナガオカ ハンタロウ ト 「 ニチロ センソウ オ シラナカッタ ガクシャ 」

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Nagaoka Hantaro (1865-1950) was a leading physicist of the prewar Japan. His enthusiasm for physics was so famous, that a rumor was going around him after the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) that he was unaware of that war because of his hard work. Of course the rumor was groundless, but it was a fact that the rumor spread out immediately, continued persistently and many people believed it real in the prewar Japan. We did not focus in the reality or unreality of the rumor, but in the so-called social function of it. It is our problem to see whether the people hearing the rumor respected or despised such a scientist, and then how the public opinion of Japan considered the attitude of the basic scientists toward society and war. Our hope is that this report be considered as a case study of the science history whict reflects the relation between science and society.

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