Akira Komiya

Terada Torahiko (1878-1935) was a physicist who played an important role in developing the study of physics in modern Japan. He published not only many scientific papers in the field of geophysics and experimental physics, but also many other essays both on scientific and literary subjects. He is today appreciated as a creater of the "scientific essay" genre in Japan. In the history of Japnanese literature, he is known as a younger friend of Natsume Soseki (1867-1916). In I Am a Cat, one of Soseki's earliest works, written in 19041906, there is a character called "Mizushima Kangetsu", a young physicist who studies such "peculiar" themes as "Mechanical Studies on Hanging" and "The Effects of Ultraviolet-rays on Electrical Conductivities of Frog's Eyeballs". It was said as soon as the work was published that the "model" for "Kangetsu" was Terada Torahiko. We can note some facts on this point. In the first place, both "Kangetsu" and Torahiko share the same birthplace and other biographical data. Secondly, a study of the theme "On Hanging" had really been published in The Philosophical Magazine in 1866 by a British physicist, Rev. Samuel Haughton. It was Terada Torahiko who told Soseki about this article. Finally, Torahiko received a doctorate in 1908 for "Acoustical Investigation of the Japanese Bamboo Pipe , Syakuhati", which one might regard as a "peculiar" theme. We are able to find in the correspondence of Torahiko and "Kangetsu" some important features of Terada Torahiko's works. One of those features, I think, is possibly that he had an intention to develop physics beyond the bounds of modern western thought.