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{{Short description|Japanese physicist (1865–1950)}}
[[Image:HantaroNagaoka.jpg|thumb|Relief of Nagaoka in Science Museum in Tokyo]]
{{Infobox scientist
{{Nihongo|'''Nagaoka Hantaro'''|長岡 半太郎|Nagaoka Hantarō|[[August 15]] [[1865]] – [[December 11]] [[1950]]}} was a Japanese [[physicist]] and a pioneer of Japanese [[physics]] in the early [[Meiji period]].
|name = Hantaro Nagaoka
|image = Hantaro Nagaoka.jpg
|image_size = 200px
|caption =
|birth_date = {{Birth date|1865|08|19}}
|death_date = {{Death date and age|1950|12|11|1865|08|19}}
|birth_place = [[Ōmura, Nagasaki]]
|death_place = [[Tokyo]]
|nationality = Japanese
|field = Physics
|known_for =
| notable_students = [[Kotaro Honda]]<br>[[Hideki Yukawa]]<br>[[Suekichi Kinoshita]]
|relatives = [[Nagaoka Nobuko]] (granddaughter)
|prizes =
}}
[[File:HantaroNagaoka.jpg|thumb|Relief of Nagaoka in Science Museum in Tokyo|alt=]]
{{Nihongo|'''Hantaro Nagaoka'''|長岡 半太郎|Nagaoka Hantarō|August 19, 1865 – December 11, 1950}} was a Japanese [[physicist]] and a pioneer of Japanese [[physics]] during the [[Meiji period]].


==Life==
== Life ==
Nagaoka was born in [[Omura, Nagasaki|Omura]], [[Nagasaki Prefecture]]. After receiving his Bachelors degree in physics from the [[University of Tokyo]] in 1887, Nagaoka pursued graduate studies in Japan, working on [[magnetostriction]] with visiting British physicist [[Cargill Gilston Knott|C. G. Knott]], later delivering an address on the subject before the first International Congress of Physics held by the Curies in Paris in 1900.


Nagaoka was born in Nagasaki, Japan on August 19, 1865 and educated at the [[University of Tokyo]].<ref name=Gillispie/>{{rp|633}} After graduating with a degree in physics in 1887, Nagaoka worked with a visiting Scottish physicist, [[Cargill Gilston Knott]], on early problems in magnetism, namely [[magnetostriction]] in liquid nickel. In 1893, Nagaoka traveled to Europe, where he continued his education at the universities of Berlin, Munich, and Vienna, including courses on Saturn's rings and a course with [[Ludwig Boltzmann]] on his Kinetic Theory of Gases, two influences which would be reflected in Nagaoka's later work. Nagaoka also attended, in 1900, the First International Congress of Physicists in Paris, where he heard [[Marie Curie]] lecture on radioactivity, an event that aroused Nagaoka's interest in atomic physics. Nagaoka returned to Japan in 1901 and served as professor of physics at [[Tokyo University]] until 1925.<ref name=Gillispie/> After his retirement from Tokyo University, Nagaoka was appointed a head scientist at [[RIKEN]], and also served as the first president of [[Osaka University]], from 1931 to 1934.
Between 1892 and 1896, Nagaoka studied abroad in Vienna, Berlin, and Munich, where he was particularly fascinated by Ludwig Boltzmann's course in the Kinetic Theory of Gases and Maxwell's work on the stability of Saturn's rings, two influences that would lead to the development of the (incorrect) [[Saturnian model]] of the atom in 1904.


His granddaughter was pianist [[Nagaoka Nobuko]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Yamamoto |first=Takashi |title=Leo Sirota: The Pianist Who Loved Japan |publisher=First Servant Books |year=2019 |isbn=978-4-9910037-1-4 |location=Kashiwa |pages=182 |translator-last=Bantock |translator-first=Gavin |translator-last2=Inukai |translator-first2=Takao}}</ref>
From 1901 to 1925, Nagaoka was a professor of physics at the University of Tokyo, where his pupils include [[Kotaro Honda]] and 1949 [[Nobel Prize in Physics|Nobel Prize]] winner [[Hideki Yukawa]].


==Saturnian model==
==Saturnian model of the atom==


By 1900 physicists had begun to consider new models for the structure of the atom. The recent discovery by [[J. J. Thomson]] of the negatively charged [[electron]] implied that a neutral atom must also contain an opposite positive charge. In 1904, Thomson suggested that the atom was a sphere of uniform positive electrification, with electrons scattered through it like plums in a pudding, giving rise to the term [[plum pudding model]].
In 1904, Nagaoka developed an early, incorrect "planetary model" of the [[atom]].<ref>

Nagaoka rejected Thomson's model on the grounds that opposite charges are impenetrable. In 1904, Nagaoka proposed an alternative [[planetary model]] of the [[atom]] in which a positively charged center is surrounded by a number of revolving electrons, in the manner of Saturn and its rings.<ref>
{{cite book
{{cite book
|author=[[Bill Bryson|B. Bryson]]
|author=B. Bryson
|title=[[A Short History of Nearly Everything]]
|title=A Short History of Nearly Everything
|title-link=A Short History of Nearly Everything
|publisher=[[Broadway Books]]
|publisher=[[Broadway Books]]
|year=2003
|year=2003
|isbn=0767908171
|isbn=0-7679-0817-1
|author-link=Bill Bryson
}}</ref> The model was based around an analogy to the explanation of the stability of the [[Saturn]] rings (the rings are stable because the planet they orbit is very, very massive). So, the model made two predictions:
}}</ref>
* a very massive nucleus (in analogy to a very massive planet)

* electrons revolving around the nucleus, bound by electrostatic forces (in analogy to the rings revolving around Saturn, bound by gravitational forces).
Nagaoka's model featured:
Both predictions were successfully confirmed by [[Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson|Rutherford]] and others. However, other details of the model were incorrect and Nagaoka himself abandoned it in 1908.
* a very massive atomic center (in analogy to a very massive planet)
* thousands of electrons revolving around the nucleus, bound by electrostatic forces (in analogy to the rings revolving around Saturn, bound by gravitational forces).
For his model to be stable, Nagaoka showed that the central charge had to be 10,000 times the charge on the electron.<ref name=Kragh2010>Helge Kragh (Oct. 2010). [https://css.au.dk/fileadmin/reposs/reposs-010.pdf Before Bohr: Theories of atomic structure 1850-1913]. RePoSS: Research Publications on Science Studies 10. Aarhus: Centre for Science Studies, University of Aarhus.</ref>{{rp|38}}

Based on his model, Nagaoka suggested that radioactive [[beta decay]] resulted from instability in the electron orbits. However this explanation did not account for important aspects of radioactivity such as its random nature and the high energy of alpha particle emission.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kragh |first=Helge |date=1997 |title=The Origin of Radioactivity: From Solvable Problem to Unsolved Non-Problem |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41134112 |journal=Archive for History of Exact Sciences |volume=50 |issue=3/4 |pages=331–358 |issn=0003-9519}}</ref>{{rp|343}} He also suggested that he model would explain atomic spectra and chemical properties.<ref name=Kragh2010/>{{rp|38}}

[[Ernest Rutherford]] mentions Nagaoka's model in his 1911 paper in which the [[atomic nucleus]] is proposed.<ref name="Rutherford 1911">{{cite journal | last=Rutherford | first=E. |author-link=Ernest Rutherford | title=LXXIX. The scattering of α and β particles by matter and the structure of the atom | journal=The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science | volume=21 | issue=125 | year=1911 | issn=1941-5982 | url=https://web.mit.edu/8.13/8.13c/references-fall/rutherford/rutherford-scattering-of-alpha-and-beta-particles.pdf |doi=10.1080/14786440508637080 | pages=669–688}}</ref> However Nagaoka's work probably did not influence Rutherford's proposal.<ref name=Heilbron1968>{{cite journal |author=John L. Heilbron |date=January 1968 |title=The Scattering of α and β Particles and Rutherford's Atom |journal=Archive for History of Exact Sciences |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=247-307 |doi=10.1007/BF00411591 |ref=refHeilbron1968}}</ref>


Nagaoka's model was widely discussed by prominent scientists of the day, but a detailed study by [[George Adolphus Schott| George Schott]] showed the model could not correctly predict atomic spectra.<ref name=Kragh2010/>{{rp|38}}
Nagaoka himself abandoned his proposed model in 1908.
Rutherford and [[Niels Bohr]] would present the more viable [[Bohr model]] in 1913.


==Other works==
==Other works==


He later did research in [[spectroscopy]] and other fields. In March 1924, he described studies in which he claimed to have successfully formed a milligram of gold and some platinum from mercury. He was president of [[Osaka University]] from May 1931 to June 1934.<ref>
Nagaoka later did research in [[spectroscopy]] and other fields. In 1909, he published a paper on the [[Inductor|inductance]] of [[solenoid]]s.<ref>{{Cite journal
|last=Nagaoka
{{cite web
|first=Hantaro
|author=
|title=The Inductance Coefficients of Solenoids
|url=http://www.osaka-u.ac.jp/eng/about/history.html
|url= http://www.g3ynh.info/zdocs/refs/Nagaoka1909.pdf
|title=History of the University
|journal=Journal of the College of Science
|publisher=[[Osaka University]]
|publisher= Imperial University
|accessdate=2007-10-17
|location= Tokyo, Japan
}}</ref>
|page=18
|volume=27
|issue=6 <!-- map article into issue -->
|date=1909-05-06
}}</ref> In 1924, he achieved the first successful [[Gold#Synthesis|synthesis of gold]], produced from [[Mercury (element)|mercury]] by neutron bombardment.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Miethe |first1=A. |year=1924 |title=Der Zerfall des Quecksilberatoms |journal=Die Naturwissenschaften |volume=12 |issue=29 |pages=597–598 |bibcode=1924NW.....12..597M |doi=10.1007/BF01505547 |s2cid=35613814}}</ref> In 1929, Nagaoka became the first person to describe [[meteor burst communications]].<ref>{{cite journal |author=Hantaro Nagaoka |title=Possibility of the radio transmission being disturbed by meteoric showers |journal= Proceedings of the Imperial Academy|volume=5 |issue=6 |pages=233–236 |year=1929|doi=10.2183/pjab1912.5.233 |doi-access=free }} Cited in {{cite book |author=Wilhelm Nupen |title=Bibliography on meteoric radio wave propagation |url=https://archive.org/details/bibliographyonme94nupe |year=1961 |publisher=U.S. National Bureau of Standards |location=Washington |pages=[https://archive.org/details/bibliographyonme94nupe/page/76 76] |access-date=17 August 2014}}</ref>


Nagoka also did early research on earthquakes, from the 1900s to the 1920s, building upon works published Europe; "One used the principle of elasticity studies against the background of the current that succeeded in France in the first half of the 19th century. The other defined potential functions and explained phenomena from continuous equations of the nature of waves against the background of new currents that emerged in Britain or Germany from the mid-19th century onwards."<ref>{{cite journal|language=Japanese |last1=HISHIKI |first1=Fuuka |date=December 23, 2022 |title=物理学者長岡半太郎の1900年代～1920年代における 地震研究の理論的手法の再検討 |url=https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bnmnsscieng/45/0/45_1/_article/-char/en |journal=Bulletin of the National Museum of Nature and Science, Series E |volume=45 |issue= |pages=1–11 |doi=10.50826/bnmnsscieng.45.0.1 |access-date=December 29, 2023}}</ref>
==Awards and recognition ==

==Awards and recognition==


*For his lifetime of scientific work, Nagaoka was granted the [[Order of Culture]] by the Japanese government in 1937.
*For his lifetime of scientific work, Nagaoka was granted the [[Order of Culture]] by the Japanese government in 1937.
Line 40: Line 78:


==References==
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{reflist|refs=
*{{cite book
<ref name=Gillispie>{{cite book
|editor=[[Charles Coulston Gillispie|C.C. Gillispie]]
|editor=C.C. Gillispie
|title=Concise Dictionary of Scientific Biography
|title=Concise Dictionary of Scientific Biography
|edition=2nd
|edition=2nd
|pages=[https://archive.org/details/concisedictionar00/page/633 633]
|pages=606-607
|publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]]
|publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]]
|year=2000
|year=2000
|isbn=0684806312
|isbn=0-684-80631-2
|editor-link=Charles Coulston Gillispie
}}
|url=https://archive.org/details/concisedictionar00/page/606
*{{cite book
}}</ref>
|editor=[[Charles Coulston Gillispie|C.C. Gillispie]]
}}
|title=Dictionary of Scientific Biography

|volume=IX: A.T. Macrobious – K.F. Naumann |page=648
==External links==
|publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]]
* [http://www.answers.com/topic/hantaro-nagaoka#ixzz1lukPUrvL H. Nagaoka]
|year=1974
* [http://www.riken.jp/en/about/history/figures/ Historical Figures of RIKEN]
|id={{ASIN|B000QA98QQ}}

}}
{{Atomic models}}
{{Presidents of Osaka University}}

{{Authority control}}


{{DEFAULTSORT:Nagaoka, Hantaro}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nagaoka, Hantaro}}
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[[Category:Japanese physicists]]
[[Category:Japanese physicists]]
[[Category:People from Nagasaki Prefecture]]
[[Category:People from Nagasaki Prefecture]]
[[Category:Theoretical physicists]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Order of Culture]]
[[Category:Academic staff of Osaka University]]

[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Tokyo]]
[[de:Nagaoka Hantarō]]
[[Category:University of Tokyo alumni]]
[[es:Hantarō Nagaoka]]
[[Category:Kaisei Academy alumni]]
[[ja:長岡半太郎]]
[[Category:Japanese theoretical physicists]]
[[ru:Нагаока, Хантаро]]
[[Category:Honorary members of the USSR Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Riken personnel]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Physical Society]]
[[Category:Members of the Japan Academy]]

Latest revision as of 08:08, 20 November 2024

Hantaro Nagaoka
Born(1865-08-19)August 19, 1865
Ōmura, Nagasaki
DiedDecember 11, 1950(1950-12-11) (aged 85)
Tokyo
NationalityJapanese
RelativesNagaoka Nobuko (granddaughter)
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
Notable studentsKotaro Honda
Hideki Yukawa
Suekichi Kinoshita
Relief of Nagaoka in Science Museum in Tokyo

Hantaro Nagaoka (長岡 半太郎, Nagaoka Hantarō, August 19, 1865 – December 11, 1950) was a Japanese physicist and a pioneer of Japanese physics during the Meiji period.

Life

[edit]

Nagaoka was born in Nagasaki, Japan on August 19, 1865 and educated at the University of Tokyo.[1]: 633  After graduating with a degree in physics in 1887, Nagaoka worked with a visiting Scottish physicist, Cargill Gilston Knott, on early problems in magnetism, namely magnetostriction in liquid nickel. In 1893, Nagaoka traveled to Europe, where he continued his education at the universities of Berlin, Munich, and Vienna, including courses on Saturn's rings and a course with Ludwig Boltzmann on his Kinetic Theory of Gases, two influences which would be reflected in Nagaoka's later work. Nagaoka also attended, in 1900, the First International Congress of Physicists in Paris, where he heard Marie Curie lecture on radioactivity, an event that aroused Nagaoka's interest in atomic physics. Nagaoka returned to Japan in 1901 and served as professor of physics at Tokyo University until 1925.[1] After his retirement from Tokyo University, Nagaoka was appointed a head scientist at RIKEN, and also served as the first president of Osaka University, from 1931 to 1934.

His granddaughter was pianist Nagaoka Nobuko.[2]

Saturnian model of the atom

[edit]

By 1900 physicists had begun to consider new models for the structure of the atom. The recent discovery by J. J. Thomson of the negatively charged electron implied that a neutral atom must also contain an opposite positive charge. In 1904, Thomson suggested that the atom was a sphere of uniform positive electrification, with electrons scattered through it like plums in a pudding, giving rise to the term plum pudding model.

Nagaoka rejected Thomson's model on the grounds that opposite charges are impenetrable. In 1904, Nagaoka proposed an alternative planetary model of the atom in which a positively charged center is surrounded by a number of revolving electrons, in the manner of Saturn and its rings.[3]

Nagaoka's model featured:

  • a very massive atomic center (in analogy to a very massive planet)
  • thousands of electrons revolving around the nucleus, bound by electrostatic forces (in analogy to the rings revolving around Saturn, bound by gravitational forces).

For his model to be stable, Nagaoka showed that the central charge had to be 10,000 times the charge on the electron.[4]: 38 

Based on his model, Nagaoka suggested that radioactive beta decay resulted from instability in the electron orbits. However this explanation did not account for important aspects of radioactivity such as its random nature and the high energy of alpha particle emission.[5]: 343  He also suggested that he model would explain atomic spectra and chemical properties.[4]: 38 

Ernest Rutherford mentions Nagaoka's model in his 1911 paper in which the atomic nucleus is proposed.[6] However Nagaoka's work probably did not influence Rutherford's proposal.[7]


Nagaoka's model was widely discussed by prominent scientists of the day, but a detailed study by George Schott showed the model could not correctly predict atomic spectra.[4]: 38  Nagaoka himself abandoned his proposed model in 1908. Rutherford and Niels Bohr would present the more viable Bohr model in 1913.

Other works

[edit]

Nagaoka later did research in spectroscopy and other fields. In 1909, he published a paper on the inductance of solenoids.[8] In 1924, he achieved the first successful synthesis of gold, produced from mercury by neutron bombardment.[9] In 1929, Nagaoka became the first person to describe meteor burst communications.[10]

Nagoka also did early research on earthquakes, from the 1900s to the 1920s, building upon works published Europe; "One used the principle of elasticity studies against the background of the current that succeeded in France in the first half of the 19th century. The other defined potential functions and explained phenomena from continuous equations of the nature of waves against the background of new currents that emerged in Britain or Germany from the mid-19th century onwards."[11]

Awards and recognition

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b C.C. Gillispie, ed. (2000). Concise Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2nd ed.). Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 633. ISBN 0-684-80631-2.
  2. ^ Yamamoto, Takashi (2019). Leo Sirota: The Pianist Who Loved Japan. Translated by Bantock, Gavin; Inukai, Takao. Kashiwa: First Servant Books. p. 182. ISBN 978-4-9910037-1-4.
  3. ^ B. Bryson (2003). A Short History of Nearly Everything. Broadway Books. ISBN 0-7679-0817-1.
  4. ^ a b c Helge Kragh (Oct. 2010). Before Bohr: Theories of atomic structure 1850-1913. RePoSS: Research Publications on Science Studies 10. Aarhus: Centre for Science Studies, University of Aarhus.
  5. ^ Kragh, Helge (1997). "The Origin of Radioactivity: From Solvable Problem to Unsolved Non-Problem". Archive for History of Exact Sciences. 50 (3/4): 331–358. ISSN 0003-9519.
  6. ^ Rutherford, E. (1911). "LXXIX. The scattering of α and β particles by matter and the structure of the atom" (PDF). The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science. 21 (125): 669–688. doi:10.1080/14786440508637080. ISSN 1941-5982.
  7. ^ John L. Heilbron (January 1968). "The Scattering of α and β Particles and Rutherford's Atom". Archive for History of Exact Sciences. 4 (4): 247–307. doi:10.1007/BF00411591.
  8. ^ Nagaoka, Hantaro (1909-05-06). "The Inductance Coefficients of Solenoids" (PDF). Journal of the College of Science. 27 (6). Tokyo, Japan: Imperial University: 18.
  9. ^ Miethe, A. (1924). "Der Zerfall des Quecksilberatoms". Die Naturwissenschaften. 12 (29): 597–598. Bibcode:1924NW.....12..597M. doi:10.1007/BF01505547. S2CID 35613814.
  10. ^ Hantaro Nagaoka (1929). "Possibility of the radio transmission being disturbed by meteoric showers". Proceedings of the Imperial Academy. 5 (6): 233–236. doi:10.2183/pjab1912.5.233. Cited in Wilhelm Nupen (1961). Bibliography on meteoric radio wave propagation. Washington: U.S. National Bureau of Standards. pp. 76. Retrieved 17 August 2014.
  11. ^ HISHIKI, Fuuka (December 23, 2022). "物理学者長岡半太郎の1900年代～1920年代における 地震研究の理論的手法の再検討". Bulletin of the National Museum of Nature and Science, Series E (in Japanese). 45: 1–11. doi:10.50826/bnmnsscieng.45.0.1. Retrieved December 29, 2023.
[edit]
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