Tabibito

Front Cover
World Scientific, 1982 - Biography & Autobiography - 218 pages
This is Yukawa's autobiography of his early years, written in Japanese when he was fifty years old. It describes his family background and the education and experience, both social and intellectual, that helped to form his character and direct his career. Especially valuable to the historian of science are his discussions of scientific relationships with his colleague Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, with his teacher Yoshio Nishina, and with his students (who later became his collaborators): Sakata, Taketani, and Kobayashi. The Story ends with the writing of his first scientific paper in English, being the birth of the meson theory of nuclear forces.Also included are the original paper of the meson theory by Prof H Yukawa and an introduction by Prof L M Brown.
 

Contents

Chronological Table
1
Hideki Yukawa and the Meson
9
The Home of Knowledge
35
My Father
49
Iwan I wont say
63
Somedono
73
A Voyage
89
The Wave and the Wind
103
Youth
125
The Narrow Gate
137
Crystal
151
A Turning Point
169
Kurakuen
187
Epiloque
207
On the Interaction of Elementary Particles I By Hideki YUKAWA
209
Copyright

Episode
117

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About the author (1982)

Hideki Yukawa, the son of a Kyoto University geology professor, has done important theoretical work on elementary particles and nuclear forces. In particular, he predicted the existence of the pi-meson(pion) and the short-range nuclear force associated with this particle. For his contribution, he received the 1949 Nobel Prize in physics, the first Japanese to receive this honor. In the early 1930s, Yukawa searched for the force that holds the atomic nucleus together. He eventually proposed an explanation in terms of an exchange between nucleons of a similar intermediate mass observed in studies of cosmic rays. However, this particle, later named the muon, did not interact strongly with nuclei as required by the theory. In 1947 the pion was discovered, possessing Yukawa's predicted properties. The pion was additionally observed to undergo rapid decay to the muon, which clarified the issue. Yukawa was a professor at Kyoto and Osaka universities, as well as at Columbia and Princeton universities.

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