Shoichi Sakata is a physicist who studied elementary particles. He lived in the same era as Hideki Yukawa and Ichiro Tomonaga, exchanged discussions, and opened the Physical Society of Japan.
He is a graduate of Kyoto Imperial University and teaches at Nagoya Imperial University. In addition, Shoichi Sakata’s wife, Nobuko, is a cousin of science fiction writer Shinichi Hoshi.
Dr. Sakata of Sakata model
Shoichi Sakata’s achievements in theoretical physics are related to the quantization of electromagnetic fields. At that time, the problem was that the mass of the electron diverged when the field was quantized.
Shoichi Sakata tries to solve the problem by using the concept of mesons. Finally, this problem in quantum electrodynamics will be explained by Shinichiro Tomonaga using renormalization theory. Shoichi Sakata is also a co-author of a paper on Hideki Yukawa’s mesons.
It should be noted that Shoichi Sakata’s achievements are that he considered protons, neutrons, and lambda particles as elementary particles, and proposed a “Sakata model” for their composition. The Sakata model became the next theoretical foundation for Yoshiro Onuki, Toshihide Maskawa, and Makoto Kobayashi, and discussions proceeded. These are solid results that have led to discussions for the next generation.
As you can see from the name, Bogoliubov is a Russian physicist. In writing this article, I re-examined Bogoliubov’s “becoming a person”, but it has not been conveyed. If you search by that name, my blog will appear at the top.
Since Bogoryukov was born in the early 20th century, it should be considered that he was adolescent in the Soviet Union before and after the revolution and was conducting his research in a closed academic environment. By the way, he has received a Planck medal, so he uses images related to Germany.
Bogoliubov achievements
Above all, it can be said that he mathematically expresses the idea called Bogoliubov transformation by diagonalizing the state transitions expressed in the form of a matrix.
In other words, the steady state of observation It is created using mathematical methods. In other words, reduce it to the mathematical eigenvalue problem. It represents a steady state.
The result of doing mathematical work What kind of phenomenon is supported It can be explained physically. Twice
Using this steady state, Bogoliubov He actually represented the superfluid state of helium. Bogoliubov transformation shows the superfluidity of boson particles Superconductivity of fermions by Bogoliubov transformation It is a translation to show. It will be useful.
Koji Fushimi was born in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture. And he grows up in Tokyo. I somehow imagine that he was born and raised in an ordinary office worker family. Fushimi-sensei was born in the 20th century, so that makes sense.
However, there has been a lot of activity since then. After graduating from the University of Tokyo with a degree in physics and working as an assistant at the University of Tokyo, He joined the newly established Osaka University and in 1934 he became the Dean of the Faculty of Science.
In 1936, he assumed the post of Director of the newly established Nagoya University Plasma Research Institute. as a result He will serve as an emeritus professor at two old-system universities.
He also served as president of the Science Council of Japan from 1952. For six years from 1958, he was involved in policy as a member of the House of Councilors belonging to the New Komeito Party from the standpoint of a scientist.
Below, I would like to talk about Mr. Fushimi, who also served as a Diet member. It’s like, “Teacher, please!”
Consistent Scientist Insight
Professor Fushimi played a major role in promoting the “peaceful use of nuclear energy.” He recognizes that nuclear research in Japan is very important. He was thinking about peaceful uses from the unique perspective of Japan, a country that suffered atomic bombings. He specifically sums it up in the “Three Principles of Atomic Energy.”
He drafted the three principles of “independence, democracy, and openness”, and jointly with Seiji Kaya, he considered “three principles of nuclear power of Kaya and Fushimi”.
beauty of symmetry
Fushimi-sensei had an aesthetic for “symmetrical beauty.” In particular, he focuses on its mathematical expression and universal impression.
For example, if my child was interested in geometric patterns, I would delve into it and discuss things from various perspectives, such as “How much did you learn?” is. In the 1960s he summarized it as “The Science of Patterns”.
Promotion of hydrogen energy
When the Asahi Shimbun announced its full support for hydrogen energy development, Professor Fushimi became involved in nuclear power development.
In 1952, he was approached by the head of the Asahi Shimbun, Mr. Kimura (head of the science department).
In February, Prof. Fushimi gave a lecture titled “Current Status and Problems of Nuclear Fusion” at a public lecture held at the Asahi Auditorium.
At that time, Dr. Fushimi originally supported hydrogen energy, and he recommended hydrogen as a next-generation fuel. He was clean energy, he thought.
Its name is Nathan Rosen. Rosen was also active in Israel after the founding of Israel. He is a Jewish physicist from New York. He had studyied at MIT.
Rosen was also the inventor of the so-called wormhole, He is one of the three in the EPR paradox. Relativistically complete locality of quantum behavior It was pointed out that it could not be explained (it would be inconsistent), The description in the quantum mechanical model and the relativistic model It cannot be described at the same time. Quantum entanglement Is it necessary to correct the description? Is it possible to correct the description in relativity? It will be a clue to the end.
Various explanations (effects) for both quantum theory and relativity It’s possible, but it’s completely everything Can’t you say that you can describe it? If you make this description, The text will be crisp. There is a word “local realism”, Understanding the physical quantity is the ultimate difficulty. However, it is certain that it is a description of physics, It is a discussion that includes the possibility of development.
I would like to add this article many times. That’s because it’s about the low-temperature electronic characteristics that I’m interested in. This time, I would like to introduce Birdin, who has advanced the understanding of the phenomenon at extremely low temperatures.
Birdin has received two Nobel Prizes. The first is the invention of the transistor with his colleagues at Bell Labs, and the second is the BCS theory described below. Since the discovery of the superconducting phenomenon of Camery Ones mentioned above, various theories may have been tried to explain the phenomenon, but three people led by Birdin of the University of Illinois establish the BCS theory. Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and Robert Schrieffer are called BCS theory by arranging the initials of the three names.
The beginning of this duo begins with Birdin inviting Cooper. Schrieffer, a graduate student from the Badin laboratory, will join the group to advance the research.
What is BCS theory?
The content of BCS theory was the theory that as a result of pairing electrons via phonons (sounds) (the idea of Cooper pairs), the combinations cancel each other out and combine. The phase transition temperature is explained by the theory, and today it is the basis of the theory when considering superconductivity. The mystery of this BCS theory is that the fermion electrons take a condensed state. Originally, electrons that cannot take the same state are paired and bosonized, and the superconducting phenomenon observed as a macroscopic phenomenon is realized.
In the first place, considering the electrons moving in a metal as a simple mass model, it is impossible for a negative charge to move around freely and without resistance between nuclei with a positive charge. Some interaction occurs and leads to resistance. However, it can be said that the superconducting phenomenon is to create a state in which the wave function appears prominently by considering the wave function of electrons.
One of the important measures for that condition was temperature. At this time, the interest is to elucidate the temperature mechanism that causes the transition. At present, the transition temperature is less than minus 100 ° C even if it is called high-temperature superconductivity, so it is necessary to cool it with liquid helium or liquid nitrogen until the transition temperature is reached.
Application of superconducting phenomenon
Since the superconducting phenomenon is realized after cooling the applied technologies such as linear motor cars and quantum computers that have been put into practical use, cost and stability are issues. If the transition temperature changes and the phenomenon can occur at a temperature closer to room temperature, the merit is very great.
The hint given to Bardeen by Sadao Nakajima as a mechanism related to temperature was an application of renormalization theory. It can be said that the hint was a method, but “under what conditions” and “what role” the elements (elementary particles) involved in electrical conduction play are important. Some people think that one of the clues is the mechanism related to “fluctuation”. This is a big issue for the future.
The full name is Lev Davidovich Landau. Landau is a well-known Jewish-Russian scientist who may have seen textbooks in Japan. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1962 for his “Theoretical Study of Helium Near Absolute Zero”. Now, Landau is born of a father of oil engineers and a mother of educators.
He understood differential calculus at the age of 12, entered a national university at the age of 14, and he took both physical mathematics and chemistry at the same time. When he earned his bachelor’s degree at the age of 19, he studied quantum electrodynamics, which is an electronic property in an electromagnetic field, at the Leningrad Institute of Physical Engineering. And I was greatly influenced by Bohr’s laboratory in Copenhagen.
Landau’s main achievements
He then collaborated with Dirac Kapitsa in Cambridge to conclude his so-called “Landau diamagnetism” research. Landau then returned to Leningrad after collaborating with Pauli in Zurich.
I mainly described Landau’s happy times, but he was sentenced to jail for criticizing Stalin while he was in a key position at a research institute in Moscow. And he is also in a car accident. He is also reluctantly involved in the production of hydrogen bombs. And he died at the age of 60.
However, Landau’s performance remains unchanged. Quasiparticle-Fermi liquid theory and Ginzburg-Landau theory have made great strides in the world of low-temperature condensate systems.
This main person,Edward Teller, called the father of the hydrogen bomb, confronts Oppenheimer in his later years. Edward Teller was born in Budapest, Hungary, to a lawyer’s father and a four-language mother. Edward Teller’s father, who was of Jewish descent, was forced out of work and emigrated to Hungary, Germany, and the United States. However, I am blessed with good encounters in the academic world. He writes his dissertation under Heisenberg and spends a useful time in Copenhagen, where Bohr was. Under such circumstances, he made many achievements in nuclear physics and molecular physics. The Jahn-Teller effect and the adsorption isotherm of BET are the achievements of Edward Teller.
Manhattan Project and Teller
So,Edward Teller, along with Einstein, urged the US government to study the atomic bomb, and the plan actually goes on. In political terms, Teller, who witnessed the collapse of capitalism during the German era, seemed initially interested in communism. However, when his friend Landau was arrested by the Soviet government, he intensified his anti-communism. His anti-communist ideas and enthusiasm for the development of new weapons are linked. and again,
Teller and Oppenheimer
After that time, the feud between Edward Teller and Oppenheimer began. Edward Teller and Oppenheimer are at the other end of the spectrum, especially when it comes to the use of the atomic bomb as a weapon. Edward Teller was a proponent of atomic bomb development, and Oppenheimer was a denial.
In fact, Edward Teller was at the center of the development of atomic and hydrogen bombs and weapons. He is said to have called the hydrogen bomb “My Baby”. His position has not changed and it is said that he never regretted it throughout his life. Edward Teller went through such a research life.
The book “Traveler” introduced at the beginning is an autobiography of Hideki Yukawa. Hideki Yukawa lives in the same era as Shinichiro Tomonaga. We build relationships that inspire each other and work together on the themes of the times. As you read the biography, you can see that Hideki Yukawa was passionate about physics.
Although quoted in various places, Hideki Yukawa clearly states, “The secret of the idea is obsession.” At first glance, he has worked to unravel mysterious phenomena and extract simple and clear principles.
Hideki Yukawa’s interest
In the first place, Hideki Yukawa’s interest is in the interaction of matter, and the world is completely invisible. He assembles the story with passion.
He focused on the “strong force” that causes the interaction between fine particles other than gravitational and electromagnetic forces. In the days of Hideki Yukawa, Hideki Yukawa unraveled the interaction in atoms with the concept of mesons in the process of developing the idea of the field.
Hideki Yukawa’s idea is the idea of ”particles that carry the field.” In the first place, considering gravity (universal gravitational force), when two mass points exist, the mass points attract each other and the phenomenon is explained.
Contrary to this clear model, the “assuming of a meson with a mass several hundred times that of an electron” was set separately from the observations at that time, and it is said that Bohr and Heisenberg sought scrutiny of the content.
Eventually, Hideki Yukawa received the Nobel Prize, triggered by “Meson Observation” by British physicist C. Powell in 1947. It is a history that makes us feel “the danger of establishing a concept in physics”.
It can be said that it is a theoretical request, but the concept for Tsuji matching must be seriously discussed from various angles. In other words, when you can refine the concept and give a convincing explanation, you can say that you have done a big job.
Hideki Yukawa explained the strong force by assuming a meson as one of the bosons.
Hideki Yukawa Spill Story
Hideki Yukawa’s achievements have been handed down to Japanese physicists, including nuclear research at Kyoto University. As a personal connection, it seems that I was doing research in a branch office of RIKEN in Itabashi, Tokyo, where I spent my childhood. It’s a little out of date, but it’s strange to think he was active in my hometown.
Nobel laureate Shinichiro Tomonaga was also there. Until recently, RIKEN also had a base in Hon-Komagome, and it still has a base near Honda Asaka. If you continue to investigate why, there is a graveyard of Mr. Okochi, one of the founders, at Heirinji Temple in Saitama Prefecture. Knowing such a spiritual aspect of RIKEN, I somehow convinced myself.
Hideki Yukawa also participates in the Russell-Einstein Declaration. I’ve included this related story in my previous blog, but I think the reality of society making catastrophic weapons is a big problem, even if researchers disagree. Whether it’s Einstein, Hideki Yukawa or Asimov, I dream of society gathering wisdom and responding.
Bethe is of Jewish descent, so he has a hard time under the Nazi regime. He was driven out of the country and fled to England to get a job at the University of Manchester. He attends a special UCB (University of California, Berkeley) conference at the invitation of Oppenheimer during World War II. Bethe will oversee the theory department when the development of nuclear weapons begins there and the Los Alamos National Laboratory is established. After the war, Bethe continued to play an important role in the development of the hydrogen bomb as President Truman decided to develop it.
Bethe’s advocated evolution of stars
In addition, I think there are two major achievements of Bethe. One is to point out that a fusion reaction can occur inside a star, and to consider the internal force that balances gravity. When he considered the evolution of stars, he foresaw possible phenomena under ultra-high pressure. Bethe’s thinking is indispensable in the evolutionary process currently being considered. Roughly thinking about the evolution of stars,
“(1) gas and dust gather with universal gravitation, and gradually” cohesion “is formed toward the center, and (2) the mass of the cohesiveness increases steadily. At this time, (3) a nuclear fusion reaction occurs inside the star and the force that spreads outward works, and (4) the force that gathers by universal gravitation and the force that spreads from the inside to the outside by the nuclear reaction are balanced. “
Then, as the weight increases and the evolution of the star progresses, it will emit light as a star, and I think that it will go through the stages of white dwarfs and black holes. Non-shining stars such as Earth and Jupiter are currently in a state where the expansion of nuclear fusion from the inside and the attractive force to the inside are in balance. In addition to the story of stars, Bethe theoretically explained the decay state of atomic nuclei that can occur under ultra-high pressure and ultra-high temperature while explaining various phenomena realized by accelerators, and made new knowledge. bottom.
Bethe and Lamb shift
In addition, Bethe’s other achievement was to rigorously and non-relativistically scrutinize the Lamb shift that leads to quantum electrodynamics, and to perform extremely accurate calculations. Feynman is his disciple in this respect.
Bethe was a great theorist who lived in difficult times. He has received the Nobel Prize for his “his contributions to his theory of nuclear reactions, especially his discoveries of energy generation inside the stars.”
Shinichiro Tomonaga was the translator of the textbook I was using [Dirac’s “Quantum Mechanics”]. Its ancestors follow the flow of the Omura domain (currently in Nagasaki prefecture).
And Shinichiro Tomonaga’s father was a professor of philosophy at Kyoto University. With such a background, Shinichiro Tomonaga teaches at Tokyo University of Education, the predecessor of the current University of Tsukuba, and eventually becomes the president. He was born in Tokyo, raised in Kyoto, and discussed around the world.
Achievements of Shinichiro Tomonaga
The greatest research achievement of Shinichiro Tomonaga is the renormalization theory. There is a reaction of elementary particles that is also expressed in a mysterious schematic diagram called the Feynman diagram, but it explains the mathematical contradiction in the process. Feynman’s path integral also has a mathematical beauty, but Shinichiro Tomonaga’s theory is more intuitive and convincing.
Speaking of taste, it is a matter of taste, but when the Lamb shift is correctly examined for the big problem of divergence and ∞ and the calculation can be done relativistically, the story is connected in an instant and it seems that it was “correct” sensuously. is.
With the understanding of Shinichiro Tomonaga, quantum electrodynamics was organized and particle physics made great progress. Shinichiro Tomonaga also promoted scientific enlightenment for young people before entering university in his later years.
Finally, Shinichiro Tomonaga was in sync with Hideki Yukawa at Kyoto University. Each form was completed by the physics of the time.