112 | December 2021 www.facs.website References 1. To clarify each co-author’s responsibilities: Siderer contributed the sections “Udagawa Yōan: The Creator of Cchemical Nomenclature in Japanese” and “Kuroda Chika: Pioneer Woman Chemist in Twentieth Century Japan,” and Kikuchi contributed the other sections of the article. The two co-authors collaborated with each other in editing and proofreading the whole article. 2. In what follows (except in “Acknowledgments”), Japanese names are rendered in the original order, i.e., family names followed by persons’ names. It should also be noted that, from their second appearance, Japanese persons are referred to by their family names such as Udagawa, Kawamoto, and Sakurai (instead of Yōan, Kōmin and Jōji) unless full names are given. Macrons are used in Japanese long vowels except in some geographical names such as Tokyo (Tōkyō), Kyoto (Kyōto), Osaka (Ōsaka), Tohoku (Tōhoku), and Hokkaido (Hokkaidō). 3. The history of chemistry in Japan has also been briefly discussed in: Furukawa, Y. (2021). Exploring the History of Chemistry in Japan. Ambix, 68, 302-317, on 11-16. N. Koertge (ed.), New Dictionary of Scientific Biography (NDSB), 8 vols. (Detroit, Mich.: Charles Scribner’s Sons/ Thomas Gale, 2008) is an essential reference tool for anyone interested in the history of twentieth-century science. The NDSB includes the entries of the following four Japanese chemists: Fukui Ken-ichi (by James R Bartholomew, vol. 2, pp. 85-89), Mizushima San-ichirō (by Yoshiyuki Kikuchi, vol. 5, pp. 207-211), Nozoe Tetsuo (by Masanori Kaji, vol. 5, pp. 287-293), and Sakurada Ichirō (by Yasu Furukawa, vol. 6, pp. 330-335). This article discusses all of them in later sections. 4. The most up-to-date reference work for the history of chemistry (especially its Japanese component) is: Kagakushi Gakkai (ed.) (2017). Kagakushi jiten [Encyclopedic Dictionary of the History of Chemistry] (Kyoto: Kagaku Dōjin). Its entry on chemistry in Tokugawa Japan written by Yatsumimi Toshifumi (pp. 492-493), is an excellent guide to this topic. 5. Goodman, G. K. (1986). Japan: The Dutch Experience (London and Dover, N.H.: The Athlone Press). 6. Sugita, G. (1969). Dawn of Western Science in Japan: Rangaku kotohajime (Tokyo: Hokuseido Press). 7. Dōke, T. (1973). Yōan Udagawa—a pioneer scientist of early 19th century feudalistic Japan. Japanese Studies in the History of Science, 12, 99–120. 8. Osawa, M. (2019). The Evolution of the Research on Hot Springs in Japan from Siebold and Burger to Udagawa Yōan (in Japanese). Onsen, 87 (1), 35. 9. Siderer, Y. (2017). Udagawa Yōan ‘s (1798-1846) translation of light and heat reactions in his book Kouso Seimika. Foundations of Chemistry, 19, 224-240. 10. Siderer, Y. (2021). Udagawa Yōan (1798-1846), Pioneer of Chemistry Studies in Japan fromWestern Sources and his Successors. Substantia, 5, 99-117. 11. MacLean, J. (1974). The Introduction of Books and Scientific Instruments into Japan, 1712-1854. Japanese Studies in the History of Science, 3, 9-68. 12. Azuma, T. (2013). Udagawa Yōan ‘s Acceptance of Western Chemistry as seen through Kyō-U Library Collection in Osaka. Part 1: An Analysis of his manuscripts translated from Adolphus Ypey’s Chemical Books in Dutch (in Japanese). Kagakushi, 40, 189-209. 13. Tsukahara, Togo. (1993). Affinity and Shinwa Ryoku, Introduction of Western Chemical Concepts in Early Nineteenth-Century Japan (Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben). 14. Tanaka, M (1975). Seimi kaisō ni okeru Yōan no kagaku ninshiki [Yōan’s understanding of chemistry as shown in Seimi kaisō]. In Udagawa Yōan, Seimi kaisō fukkoku to gendai goyaku・chū [Reprint of Seimi kaisō and its translation into modern Japanese, with Explanatory notes] (Tokyo: Kōdansha), 99–114. 15. Endō, S., Kato, N, Kōda, M, and Matsuda, K. (2014). Studies on Udagawa Yōan ‘s Botanical works housed in the Kyō-U Library, Takeda Science Foundation (in Japanese) (Osaka, Takeda Science Foundation). 16. Yatsumimi, T. (2019). “Kagaku” no hajimari [The beginning of kagaku in Japan]. In Kagakushi Gakkai (ed.), Kagakushi eno shōtai [Introduction to the History of Chemistry] (Tokyo: Ohmsha), 232-239. 17. Historically and in current usage, the official translation of Tokyo Daigaku has been “The University of Tokyo,” even and assistant professor in 1945 at Kyoto’s Department of Fuel Chemistry while retaining his military affiliation and got back to his fulltime teaching position at Kyoto after the end of World War II. In spite of its strong military connotations, the Department of Fuel Chemistry at Kyoto was allowed to keep this name after the war due to the strenuous effort of Kodama, who redefined the mission of the department as the postwar economic reconstruction of the country by means of science-based technology (it was renamed the Department of Petroleum Chemistry in 1966).80 Fukui’s first postwar research project was for his doctorate, awarded in 1948, and supervised by Kodama. Titled “the theoretical investigation of temperature distributionwithin industrial research apparatuses,” his thesis was a highly mathematical treatment of the chemical engineering problem that Kodama had encountered while he was working at a chemical factory. Now with a doctorate, his own laboratory, and students, and being promoted to full professorship in 1951, Fukui was in a good position to start something new. It is much owing to the intense discussion with Shingū, and Shingū’s vocal critique of the then influential electronic theory of organic chemistry postulated by Robinson and Christopher Kelk Ingold (1893-1970), that Fukui formulated the “Frontier Orbital Theory” of organic reactions in 1951. He published its first paper in 1952 with his student Yonezawa Teijirō 米澤貞次郎 (1923-2008), and with Shingū as its authors in the Journal of Chemical Physics, followed by the second paper published in the same journal in 1954. Electrons occupying the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO), which play the essential role in Fukui’s theory together with the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) to explain the course of substitution reactions of hydrocarbons, was originally named “frontier electrons” at Shingū’s suggestion. Fukui’s frontier orbital theory was thus born at the intersection of pure science, quantum chemistry, on the one hand, and applied science, fuel chemistry, on the other. This is in stark contrast with the research trajectories of another pioneer in quantum chemistry in Japan, Mizushima San-ichirō (cf. the previous section on pure chemists from Tokyo’s Department of Chemistry), which were focused on molecular structures, not reactions. Fukui’s interests in chemical reactions likely came partly fromKyoto’s research traditions in chemical kinetics but mainly from industrial needs to elucidate and control reactions, which mattered less to Mizushima. Fukui succeeded because of, not in spite of, his training at and affiliation to an engineering faculty, albeit of a peculiar kind. Towards Postwar Japanese Chemistry The aim of this article was to outline the history of chemistry in Japan in the context of its modernization, industrialization, and other historical events such as two world wars. Our choice of historical actors and cases inevitably depended on our expertise as historians, meaning that we could only cover part of the postwar period of the twentieth century. That being said, it does suggest that many of the Japanese chemists we have discussed contributed to the development of Japanese chemistry whose level was approaching the international standard in the 1950s. A couple of indicators point to the coming-of-age of Japanese chemistry by the mid-1960s.81 One such indicator is the international conferences, symposia and seminars held in Japan: The IUPAC International Symposium on Molecular Structure and Spectroscopy held in Tokyo in 1962, in which Mizushima, Nagakura and the successor of Mizushima at Tokyo, Shimanouchi Takehiko 島内武彦 (1816-1980), were involved;82 The Third IUPAC Symposium on the Chemistry of Natural Products held in Kyoto in 1964;83,84 and the First Japan-US Science Seminar in physical organic chemistry co-organized by Nozoe and the American physical organic chemist, John D. Roberts (1918-2016) and held in 1965 in Kyoto.85 As we hope to have shown here, the dynamic balance between pure and applied chemistry and internal and external forces affected the historical development of chemistry in Japan that led to its prosperity in the latter half of the twentieth century, producing seven more Nobel laureates in chemistry following Fukui to this date, overcoming difficulties of scientists from East Asia in receiving this prize.86 ◆ Acknowledgments (Kikuchi) It is our pleasure to extend our gratitude to Prof. Yasu Furukawa (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies [Sokendai], Japan) for reading an entire earlier draft, removing mistakes there and giving advice to improve it. I was trained by Prof. Furukawa as a historian and am grateful to him for generously sharing his wisdoms and a vast range of expert knowledge for more than three decades. We are also grateful to our colleagues at the Japanese Society for the History of Chemistry for invaluable advice and suggestions, especially Ms. Mari Yamaguchi (Nihon University) who kindly shared her expertise in the history of physico-chemical instrumentation in Japan and gave us insight into postwar chemistry. Acknowledgments (Siderer) I cannot fully express my deep gratitude, appreciationand friendship toeachofmy teachers in Japan: Prof. Shin Sato, my first chemistry teacher at Tokyo Institute of Technology and since then advisor on Japanese chemistry and language; Prof. Masanori Kaji who has left us too early, for broadening my view on the hisory of science in Japan; and Prof. Frederik Cryns at Nichibunken, The International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, for sharing his knowledge of Japanese thought and advising me on my writing. Prof. Kuroda Kotaro is acknowledged for discussion on Kuroda Chika. During my short and long visits to Japan, I was lucky to be acquainted with colleagues and friends who helped me in many ways, I am very thankul to all of them.
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