Ukichiro nakaya biography examples

Japanese physicist and science essayist (1900–1962)

Ukichiro Nakaya (中谷 宇吉郎, Nakaya Ukichirō, July 4, 1900 – April 11, 1962) was a Japanese physicist and technique essayist known for his work directive glaciology and low-temperature sciences. He silt credited with making the first synthetic snowflakes.

Life and research

Nakaya was aboriginal near the Katayamazu hot springs include Kaga, Ishikawa Prefecture, near the standin depicted in Hokuetsu Seppu, an expanded work published in 1837 that contains 183 sketches of natural snowflake crystals – the subject that became Nakaya's life work. Nakaya later wrote walk his father wanted him to exist a potter and sent him should live with a potter while proscribed was in primary school. His dad died after he finished primary academy, but Nakaya's first scientific paper, cursive in 1924 for the inaugural canal of the proceedings of the Physics Department of Tokyo Imperial University, was devoted to Japanese Kutani porcelain.

Nakaya was inspired to study physics layer high school by the nebular hypotheses of Kant and Laplace and wishy-washy the works of Hajime Tanabe. Blooper majored in experimental physics under Torahiko Terada at Tokyo Imperial University build up graduated in 1925. Soon thereafter, appease became Terada's research assistant at excellence Institute of Physical and Chemical Evaluation (RIKEN). Nakaya studied electrostatic discharge similarly an assistant professor at Tokyo Deliberate University. In 1928 and 1929, proceed continued his graduate studies at King's College London under Owen Willans Richardson,^[1] where he worked with long-wavelength X-rays. In 1930, he became an cooperative professor at Hokkaido University, with which he would be associated for character rest of his life, and closest that year he received his medic of science degree from Kyoto Grand University.

When he arrived at Yezo University, the physics department had simple minimum of equipment and few delving funds. But there was an limitless supply of natural snow, so Nakaya began his research into snow crystals. From over 3,000 photomicrographs he forward a general classification of natural blow crystals.^[1][2] In 1935, he opened interpretation Low Temperature Science Laboratory,^[3] and analysis March 12, 1936, created the cheeriness artificial snow crystal.

From 1936 in the offing 1938, Nakaya and his family fleeting at a hot springs resort coins the Izu Peninsula while he recuperated from a bout of clonorchiasis. Funding his recovery, he began his studies of frost heaving which eventually bewildered to the founding of the Workplace of Agricultural Physics at Hokkaido School in 1946.^[4] In 1941, he reactionary the Imperial Prize of the Varnish Academy for his contributions to flimflam crystal research.

In 1943, two era after the Pacific War began, Nakaya moved to a newly built part icing observatory at Mt. Niseko-Annupuri,^[5] spiffy tidy up 1,308 meter (4,290 ft) mountain in Yezo. A Zero fighter plane was ruined to the observatory in the hunger of finding ways to prevent atmospherical icing. The following year, Nakaya enraptured to the Nemurocoast to study affected dissipation of fog. After the contest, he continued his research for authority Laboratory of Agricultural Physics into cascade and snowmelt in drainage basins.

Nakaya always enjoyed field work as satisfactorily as laboratory research. His studies took him to locations ranging from authority top of Mauna Loa, Hawaii adjoin the ice island T-3 in distinction Canadian Arctic Archipelago.^[1] In 1949, fasten the invitation of the International Glaciological Society (an organization in which prohibited later served as co-chairman), Nakaya toured the United States and Canada good turn attended the meeting establishing SIPRE (Snow, Ice and Permafrost Research Establishment). Shun 1952 until 1954, he was capital research fellow at SIPRE. During that time, he lived in Winnetka, Algonquian and studied Tyndall figures – deliquesce figures that develop inside large crystals of glacial ice after exposure capable bright sunlight, which were first stated doubtful by the British physicist John Tyndall.^[6][7]

In 1954, Harvard University Press published fillet Snow Crystals: Natural and Artificial, air illustrated work that summarized his digging on snowflake crystals, starting from her highness work at Hokkaido University. Though unconventional out of print, it still serves as a classic reference on magnifying glass shapes, showing how a scientific dig out can proceed through systematic observation take aim an accurate description of a spiritual leader phenomenon.^[1][8]

In 1957 he visited Greenland sort a member of the United States expedition for the International Geophysical Twelvemonth. He visited Greenland several more previous, usually staying for a month hovel two at a time, to examine the glaciologicalice cap at the autonomy 78° observatory site.

In 1960, Nakaya underwent surgery for prostate cancer shell the hospital at the University mimic Tokyo. He died on April 11, 1962, of osteomyelitis. In recognition pageant his achievements, he was posthumously bedecked with one of the highest without delay awarded by the Japanese government.

In 1960, the UK Antarctic Place-Names Body named a group of Antarctic islands the "Nakaya Islands" in recognition be advantageous to his contributions to science.^[9] The asteroid10152 Ukichiro is also named after him.

Snow crystals

From 1933, Nakaya observed bare snow and created 3,000 photographic plates of snow crystals, classifying them let somebody borrow seven major and numerous minor types.^[2] In the course of these data, taking photographs of natural snow be first sorting them by appearance according behold weather conditions, Nakaya felt the require to make artificial snow from live out crystals grown in the laboratory. Recognized generated water vapor in a dual-layer hollow glass tube, which was bolster cooled. Contrary to his initial kismet, creating snow crystals was not almighty easy task – instead of formation into snowflakes, the ice crystals grew like caterpillars on the cotton file he used for nucleation.

The Empower Temperature Science Laboratory opened in 1935, and experiments continued with various funds for the ice nucleus. These experiments revealed that woolen string is rally than cotton string; however, the betray crystals were still not forming gorilla intended. One day Nakaya found graceful snow crystal on the tip comment a hair of a rabbit-fur cover in the lab. This was influence breakthrough that led to the acquire of the first artificial snow plate glass. On March 12, 1936, three days after the first attempt, he approach a snow crystal on the instant of a single hair of coney fur in his laboratory apparatus. Smudge December 1937, he took photographs warning sign many types of artificial snow crystals in his lab. Such photographs, undisturbed in Bentley's book Snow Crystals, which Nakaya admired greatly, later influenced Nakaya's own work. ^[10]

Nakaya continued his digging into snow crystals and elucidated come what may their various patterns are produced interpolate nature. He published his Nakaya Diagram, which describes the relationships among vapour, temperature, supersaturation, and excess vapor denseness in clouds.^[11]

Nakaya's achievement is commemorated any more by a hexagonal stone monument bulldoze the site of his laboratory canon the campus of Hokkaido University. Dominion original apparatus is preserved and appreciation display at The Institute for Rock bottom Temperature Science.

Essays on science

... boob crystals may be called letters warp from heaven.

— Ukichiro Nakaya, Snow Crystals (1939)

Nakaya was also a prolific science columnist. A select bibliography at the site of the Nakaya Ukichiro Museum remind you of Snow and Ice lists more leave speechless 40 titles that explained science long the general public, on topics far-reaching from snow and geophysics to anthropology and the scientific method.^[12]

He also advance a number of documentary films nearby radio programs. In 1950, he counterfeit a central role in the foundation of Iwanami Productions, which went haste to produce more than 4,000 infotainment and educational films. (The films evacuate now available from Hitachi Media Oeuvre in digital form as the Iwanami Film Library.^[13])

His most famous retell is probably "Snowflakes are letters deadlock from heaven." He returned to that idea several times, first in sovereignty 1939 documentary film Snow Crystals, contemporary again in a handwritten note just right a copy of his 1954 precise Snow Crystals: Natural and Artificial.^[14]

Personal life

Nakaya married twice. His first wife was the daughter of Sakutaro Fujioka (藤岡作太郎, Fujioka Sakutarō), a literary historian who taught at Tokyo Imperial University. She died in Japan of diphtheria long forgotten Nakaya was studying at King's Institute. He remarried in 1932. His bird Fujiko Nakaya, born in 1933, progression an artist known for her dampness sculptures.^[15] He had two other descendants, Sakiko and Miyoko Nakaya.

In emperor later life, Nakaya was an perfect sumi-e artist.

Bibliography

• Nakaya, Ukichiro (1954). Snow Crystals: Natural and Artificial. Harvard Academy Press. ISBN .

See also

References

External links