Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Nakaya Ukichiro

I first came to know the name Terada Torahiko, I believe, during my second year of high school.

That era—speaking of the mid-Taisho period—was the burgeoning age of social movements in our country.
Dr. Kawakami’s *Tales of Poverty* was eagerly read among high school students.
It was an era when, alongside *Chuo Koron* and *Kaizo*, a new magazine called *Kaiho* emerged—these publications, each packed to the brim with essays in that domain, collectively raising the beacon of social movements across the land.

However, these essays invariably employed highly abstruse terminology, and their prose often reached extremes of impenetrability.
Moreover, a certain feverish aura pervaded every magazine, and regardless of their content, these writings often left someone like me with an extremely bitter aftertaste.
It was at such a time that Professor’s *Maruzen and Mitsukoshi* and *Self-Portrait* appeared in *Chuo Koron* as interstitial articles.
It was not merely astonishing; for me at least, it imparted something akin to salvation.
When sweat-dampened, feverish skin clung with dust, it felt like drinking a glass of cool, clear water in such moments.
I can still recall the impression from that time to this day.
These essays were written under pseudonyms, but I soon learned they were in fact penned by a physicist named Terada Torahiko.
However, that name held little relevance to me at the time.
In later years, I never could have dreamed that I would come to assist the professor with his experiments as his research assistant.

Starting with "Maruzen and Mitsukoshi," it was in Taisho 9 that Professor Terada’s essays began appearing one after another in Chuo Koron.
It was something I learned later, but at the end of the previous year, the professor had been suddenly stricken with a hemorrhage in his university laboratory.
The three-year-long stomach ulcer had finally reached a state nearing catastrophe.
He was immediately admitted to the university hospital and received treatment from Dr. Manabe, thereby overcoming the crisis; however, the subsequent two years were spent convalescing at home.
During that convalescence, the professor’s creative drive—which had lain dormant since the Yabukoji period—suddenly gushed forth like a clear stream finding its outlet, flowing abundantly once more.

At first he used various pen names, but these eventually settled upon Yoshimura Fuyuhiko, and before we knew it, a clear image of Professor Fuyuhiko had formed in our minds.
Among high school students of that era, a particular fervor for philosophy ran high.
It must have been one manifestation of that surging storm of ideological issues arising then.
In late Taisho 10 (1921), when Iwanami’s *Shiso* first appeared and its inaugural issue came into our hands, our excitement felt palpably youthful.
And there in its second issue lay one of the Professor’s masterpieces—*The Rat and the Cat*.

Around that very time, *Kaizo* took up Einstein’s theory of relativity as a journalistic topic, and riding the zeitgeist, the theory of relativity began gaining traction.
That a cutting-edge theory in theoretical physics—one comprehensible to and necessary for only a handful of physicists—spread not merely through Ginza and Shinjuku but to every corner of provincial cities was a truth stranger than fiction.
I may have been somewhat swayed by such trends, but upon graduating high school that following spring, I chose to enter the university’s physics department.

Professor Terada began occasionally coming to the university from the spring of Taisho 11. He took charge of meteorology lectures and practical exercises; however, as his health had not yet fully recovered, it seems he could only come for the actual lecture and exercise sessions. And so we newcomers, still unfamiliar with how the university worked, rarely caught even a glimpse of him.

We began noticing him occasionally on university grounds starting the following year, around when we became second-year students. Even when spring had passed its midpoint and everyone else wore light clothing, he would walk across campus wearing a long overcoat with an air of detachment. He often left it unbuttoned, letting its hem flutter in the wind—a figure matching what might have been Mr. Tatsuno’s description of “Bergson in a crowd.” With *The Fuyuhiko Collection* already published earlier that year followed by *The Yabukoji Collection*, his sporadic campus appearances began drawing attention from certain students.

When I became a second-year student, I received experimental guidance from the Professor for the first time.
The subject was the calibration of a sextant's scales—an extremely unassuming undertaking.
The experiment took place in a bare, dim room within the main physics building's basement where a single sextant had been placed; one would rotate its disk sequentially while calibrating each scale in turn.
As it was a darkroom, we read the vernier scale while illuminating it with a small handheld bulb.
The Professor gave various cautions about measurement, and finally—while shifting the lamp right and left—he even provided meticulous guidance such as: "When reading lines engraved on a metal plate, the lighting direction can cause significant discrepancies in perception."
At the time I thought it rather a tedious experiment, but upon later reflection came to realize that whatever semblance of personal insight I gained regarding measurement owed much to those two months spent conducting such work in this chill-pierced stone basement.

The second-year experiments were designed to be completed in a month or two per topic before rotating to another professor’s assignment.
Therefore, my experimental work under Professor Terada’s guidance concluded here.
Since Professor Terada’s meteorology lectures and practical exercises were meant for third-year students, this should naturally have ended my academic association with him for the foreseeable future.
However, my role as organizer of that year’s Newton Festival unexpectedly became the reason I started visiting Professor Terada’s home in Akeobocho from time to time.
This opportunity originated from the sort of account I later described in *Talks Surrounding the Professor*.
That year—Taisho 12—the Great Kanto Earthquake struck on September 1, and in the fires that followed the disaster, my home was completely destroyed.
Only one furoshiki-wrapped bundle I had desperately carried out remained as my sole possession.
My reference books were naturally lost to the flames, and even my school notebooks were almost entirely consumed.

I had intended to leave university and returned to my hometown, but after resting for about two months, I regained my resolve and came back to Tokyo.
The university had finally reopened in November and settled into a semblance of normalcy, but the combined psychological and material blows left my mind unsettled, and I spent many days wrestling with doubts.
At such a time, being granted personal contact with the Professor was an extraordinarily fortunate turn of fate for me.
At that time, I had certain circumstances beyond the earthquake disaster and would sometimes be overcome by a sense of desperation I could do nothing about.
In such times, I would go out to the reception room in Akeobocho.
And I would listen to talks about dinosaur eggs and Pavlova’s dancing until past midnight.
Doing so would refresh my spirits entirely, and I felt my passion for physics rekindling.
Looking back now, it must have been quite a nuisance for the Professor.
Now that I look back, whenever I encounter entries in the Professor’s diary like “Nakaya-kun came late at night and ended up talking past midnight again,” I feel deeply remorseful for having caused such trouble.

In the aftermath of this seismic disaster, the Professor—still not fully recovered—walked through various burnt-out areas across Tokyo to investigate the fire whirlwinds that had accompanied the great conflagration.
But more than that physical survey, what cemented the association between the Great Kanto Earthquake and Terada Torahiko in my mind was an account of his direct experience during the catastrophe—a story I would hear much later.
At the precise moment of the quake, Professor Terada had been visiting the Nika Exhibition.
He was resting at a café with Mr. Seihō Tsuda when the tremors struck.
"It was so violent I knew immediately this was catastrophic," he recounted.
"Watching the ceiling beams at the corner of the room pull apart and snap back together, I realized how inadequate wooden structures were for such forces."
"When the shaking finally stopped, I looked around to find all the other customers gone—everyone had fled with remarkable swiftness."
"With no waiter in sight, I had to call him back from wherever he'd taken shelter to settle our bill before leaving. That young man must have thought me a doddering fool," he added wryly.
For the Professor, the vibrational behavior of buildings held greater fascination than any personal peril.
While earthquake fear operates on primal instinct, his fascination with natural phenomena seemed to engage both intellect and raw sensation.

The main physics building was left half-destroyed by the earthquake disaster.
In a small laboratory within it, two seniors one year above me were conducting a peculiar experiment.
It was an experiment where they filled a slender U-shaped tube with a mixture of air and hydrogen, then ignited it to cause an explosion.
To call it an explosion was somewhat of an overstatement—since the mixture ratio approached the ignition limit, it should have been termed combustion.
One of them was Senior Yumoto, a high school upperclassman I had long been acquainted with, so I began occasionally visiting under the guise of "sightseeing."
According to Senior Yumoto, this formed part of Professor Terada's research and served as their graduation experiment.
Professor Terada had been commissioned by the Navy the previous year to investigate airship accident prevention; to obtain foundational data for this purpose, he was examining patterns of hydrogen's incomplete combustion.

Globally speaking, this was an era when no one had even dreamed airplanes might develop as they have today, making airships appear quite promising indeed.
This made accident prevention a matter of critical importance.
Observing the experiment—this single slender glass U-tube apparatus—I simply couldn’t reconcile it with research addressing such monumental problems.
Yet it seemed an utterly fascinating experiment nonetheless.
Ultimately this became my impetus to select hydrogen combustion for my third-year graduation experiment—marking my first proper tutelage under Professor Terada.
Senior Yumoto would remain at university post-graduation to continue this research, while I was to assist him as part of my own experimental work.
During this period occurred those incidents later recounted in *Laboratory Memories*.

This year of laboratory life as a third-year student was not only extremely enjoyable but also left an influence that has defined my research career to this day. When summer vacation arrived and lectures ceased, I spent entire days in the laboratory with a liberated feeling of ease. Wearing nothing but a white lab coat over my bare skin, I delighted in boiling tea in a beaker and drinking it.

When the temperature reached around thirty degrees, the Professor would suddenly become energetic and appear at the laboratory every day. He would drink tea, share *Tora-hiko’s Summer Tales*, and then take his leave. For lunch, we would make do with delivered Western-style lunch boxes, but the Professor would usually go to the university’s “palace” or head out somewhere. By mid-August, both the deliveries and the “palace” had ceased operations, so we all decided to go to the hospital staff cafeteria. This place alone remained open year-round. We had settled on ordering the 25-sen set meal, but even by the standards of that time, it wasn’t particularly good. The professor would order the higher-grade options like “Pine” or “Plum,” but each time he did so, he would say, “I’m afraid my stomach still isn’t quite right,” with an awkward grin. One time, our set meals came with simmered small sea bream. At that moment, the Professor slightly peered into the meal and grinned, saying, “This is quite a feast.” Such extremely trivial matters have oddly remained etched in my memory.

The hydrogen combustion experiments had become quite fascinating, and the faintly glowing propagation state of combustion could now be photographed on rotating film.

That was in the late autumn of that year.
Then suddenly, the “Balloon Fabric Incident” occurred.
What I had previously written about this incident in essays was merely the surface; behind it lay various underlying issues.
The incident began when the Navy’s SS non-rigid airship exploded, crashed, and burned in the skies over Lake Kasumigaura on a certain day in November.
The cause was naturally unknown; all crew members had perished.
The Navy promptly convened an inquiry committee to investigate the cause; they appointed naval engineers and distinguished university professors as committee members.
The Professor was also selected as one of them.

Committees of this sort generally consider it proper protocol to settle matters by attributing them to "force majeure"—a convenient way to obscure the truth. The Professor undertook this duty with utmost seriousness, applying the formidable insight seen in his *Balloon Fabric Incident* essay to draw the inference that sparks from wireless transmissions posed a danger. This was then submitted as the inquiry committee’s official report. “Those Navy guys are frantically examining the airship’s burnt machinery and ropes,” he would say, “making a fuss over whether some valve had a cord or not—but such things will never reveal the true cause.” “Rather,” he continued, “one must first determine the minimum spark required to ignite hydrogen, then ascertain what could generate sparks of that magnitude.” Through this method was the resolution of the Balloon Fabric Incident ultimately achieved. The path that seemed most circuitous proved in fact to be the most direct.

However, it was said that for the Navy side, once the cause was determined to be electrical in nature, they would have to identify those responsible, and the treatment of the deceased personnel would also drastically change.
As a result, this report by the Professor became a major issue.
Of course, the Navy side was unanimously opposed, and in the end, it was decided they would conduct a joint verification experiment on an actual airship by transmitting wireless signals to test whether sparks would occur.

Given these circumstances, from the very beginning there had been an air of storm clouds brewing over this incident.
Then, just before the joint experiment was to take place, a bizarre event occurred—the contents of this inquiry committee’s proceedings were published in sensational three-column spreads in both the *To* and *Kokumin* newspapers.
And among these articles appeared statements like: “If sending wireless waves makes the airship explode—good. If not, Dr. Terada and his colleagues will be utterly discredited.”
Classified military information had been published in such detail in the newspapers with no consequences whatsoever—so we were furious.

The joint verification experiment was conducted at Kasumigaura on December 23, and Professor Terada naturally took part.
The Professor’s diary records the following entry.

December 23, Tuesday, Clear

December 23, Tuesday, Clear
Departed Ueno at 7:45 AM for Kasumigaura. Moored the SS airship within the grounds and conducted current distribution tests on suspension cables via wireless control—repeating experiments we had been performing since yesterday using hangar air expansion. After lunch, convened the inquiry committee in the airship squadron’s mess hall. It seemed the Navy personnel had concluded there was no danger from wireless transmissions, but with their approach, the crucial issue remained entirely unresolved—that day…

The diary’s content paled in comparison to the more compelling account from the following day when the Professor visited the laboratory.

“Yesterday was a complete and utter disgrace,” he began. “After conducting that preposterous experiment—utterly devoid of scientific merit—they’re likely out there right now proclaiming, ‘See? These scholars just spout nonsense!’”

“They had that balloon suspended thirty meters up, with a sailor down below peering through horn-rimmed glasses and declaring, ‘Ammeter readings normal’ or some such nonsense.”
“We couldn’t see a thing through the glass glare, yet those sailors claimed they observed it perfectly—utterly baffling!”
“They keep saying things like ‘No sparks occur,’ but even a one-shaku spark would be one thing—how could anyone see a spark thirty meters up in broad daylight?”
“It’s all just utterly absurd.”
“So here’s the thing.”
“I want you to conduct this experiment.”
“Jet hydrogen from Z and determine how small a spark can ignite it.”

This was the beginning of the "Balloon Fabric Incident."

Both Yumoto-kun and I were at that hot-blooded age of youth.
“We’ll avenge the Professor!” we declared, and from that night onward began studying frantically every night until midnight, creating quite a commotion.
Moreover, the day of the Professor’s trip to Kasumigaura had been bitterly cold—having been made to stand for hours in that windswept airfield’s freezing gusts, his body, still barely on the path to recovery, could not possibly endure it.
“I think I’ve caught a cold,” he had remarked, but when his fever spiked to around thirty-nine degrees Celsius the following day, he was compelled to take leave from school for some time.
The notion of “avenging the Professor” grew increasingly tangible in our minds.
In fact, when I later revisited the Professor’s diary from around this time, I found an entry stating that on the very night his fever developed, “the problem of conducting experiments to generate sparks on balloon fabric clung persistently to my mind—I kept turning it over and over throughout the night.” This suggested he had been profoundly affected by the matter.

The year Taisho 13 marked Professor Terada’s long-awaited recovery of health—a year when in May he assumed the role of chief researcher at RIKEN, played a pivotal role in establishing the Earthquake Research Institute, and laid the foundation for his subsequent brilliant multidisciplinary research.
At the end of this year’s diary he wrote: “In short, this year feels like one in which a vitality that had lain dormant for several years finally awakened.
I was always energetic and cheerful; even in the school cafeteria, I could converse pleasantly with others; I stopped being bothered by people’s gossip—and this self-awareness further strengthened those tendencies...” wrote the Professor himself.
It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I had the good fortune to establish close contact with the Professor.

The airship explosion experiments suddenly surged into vigorous activity with the arrival of January 1925, the new year.
This was because samples of balloon fabric—the material for the airship’s gas cells—had arrived from the Navy.
When Yumoto-kun went to the Navy Ministry to meet Lieutenant T and request the balloon fabric, it turned out that some of the naval technical officers were attempting to frame the incident as force majeure—since attributing the cause to wireless communications would expose their own blunders.
Lieutenant T himself was also indignant, deeming it utterly deplorable.
Therefore, they would provide as much balloon fabric as needed, and they wanted us to proceed vigorously with the experiments—or so the story went.
Yumoto-kun and I made impertinent remarks like "If this is how things are, the Navy’s future is plain to see," and worked ourselves into a fervor.
It is a story from twenty-five years ago, but in truth, the root cause lay far deeper.

The experiments proceeded smoothly: it was confirmed that numerous small sparks occurred on the balloon fabric and that these small sparks could sufficiently ignite hydrogen at Z, reaching a provisional conclusion.
However, what we truly desired was to transmit using the actual wireless transmitter employed on the SS airship and ignite the hydrogen with those very sparks.
Professor Terada had also been asked on January 13 to request that the Navy Ministry send balloon fabric and that they borrow the SS airship’s wireless transmitter—but the transmitter simply would not arrive.
Yumoto-kun, having lost patience, headed out to Tokyo Denki, the supplier of the transmitter.
He met with Mr. S, a chief engineer-level figure, explained the situation in detail, and requested to borrow a transmitter, but they were refused.
It was said that Tokyo Denki refused outright, stating that if it became known they had conducted such experiments there, they would no longer be able to sell them machinery—which would spell trouble.
Then we said we would bring the balloon fabric ourselves and asked to use it just briefly, but even that was refused.
It sounds like a fabricated tale, yet it is true.

The transmitter was delivered to the university on January 20, the day before the scheduled inquiry committee meeting, but crucial components were missing.
At the same time, a special delivery arrived stating that tomorrow’s inquiry committee meeting had been canceled.
We had been working hard every night until midnight, day after day, in an effort to meet the inquiry committee’s schedule, so we were utterly disappointed.
Professor Terada also said, “I was planning to skip tonight’s discussion meeting to wrap this up, but what a disappointment,” and left with the report nonetheless.
In a fit of pique, we cut out the articles titled “Airship Explosion Experiment” from *Kokumin* and *To*, marked them with red annotations, and pasted them on the laboratory wall.
The Professor remarked, “You should frame this and display it alongside the spark photographs.”
“You two are quite the troublemakers.”
“But thanks to this, the experiments have progressed smoothly, haven’t they?” he said with a laugh.
Whether it was the balloon fabric materials or the wireless transmitter, under normal circumstances, they should have been diligently delivered by the other party, with urgent demands to expedite the experiments—that’s how it should have been.
It was truly perplexing that things had developed in the exact opposite manner.
If viewed through a malicious lens, one might consider that they were intentionally prolonging matters to conduct experiments themselves in secret.
Around this time, navy engineers had come to observe our experiments twice, and with such rumors circulating, both Yumoto-kun and I felt quite upset.

The long-awaited parts for the wireless transmitter arrived on February 6.
The engineer who delivered them kindly explained various usage methods.
As soon as we tried it, sufficient sparks were produced by the antenna current.
We threw ourselves into studying, thinking that if we could just examine the earth current, this research would reach its grand culmination—but that very aspect proved uncooperative.
As soon as we inserted the balloon fabric, the transmission would cease, so of course no spark occurred.

Just as we were beginning to feel somewhat uneasy, a second call came from the Navy Ministry: “When will you show us the SS airship explosion experiment?”
“We’re pulling an all-nighter!” Yumoto-kun and I declared to each other, making a resolute decision with great solemnity.
However, when night fell, we realized that the gondola-equivalent electrical capacitance had not been included.
Realizing what was missing, we promptly added an appropriate capacitance and tested it—sparks flew vigorously.
And with those sparks, hydrogen at Z ignited continuously.
We wrote “Hydrogen ignition, hooray! February 9th” in the experiment log and returned home triumphantly.
What made this auspicious start even better was that we had heard from the Professor that very morning how a certain Navy vice admiral had come to observe our experiments, recognized the research’s importance, and decided to provide annual funding of 1,000 yen—our courage was thus boosted a hundredfold.
A scholar of Professor Terada’s caliber had to go through all this commotion just to finally receive an annual research fund of 1,000 yen.
This, too, was a truth that seemed like fiction.

The repeatedly postponed inquiry committee meeting was convened on February 21.
Professors Tanakadate and Tamaru, along with major generals, colonel-level officers, and other distinguished individuals—nineteen people in total—were crammed into the narrow laboratory.
By generating sparks through various power sources and ultimately demonstrating hydrogen ignition using the wireless transmitter’s spark, they achieved resounding effectiveness.
“With this, I’d be too scared to ride an airship,” “It’s a major issue for morale,” they whispered to each other.
Before long, someone’s eyes fell upon the newspaper clippings on the wall, leading to exclamations of “Hey, look at this!”
The Professor said in high spirits, “I’m rather troubled by this cramped storage room of a space.”

While sending wireless transmissions and demonstrating hydrogen ignition, Professor Tanakadate remarked, “You should try varying the capacitors more.”
When I said, “Actually, the university doesn’t have any left,” the elderly professor declared bluntly in a booming voice: “Then there’s nothing for it—these things are scattered everywhere at the Navy.”
Professor Terada was smirking quietly to himself.

The inquiry committee to draft the final decision was convened in the First Conference Room of the Navy Ministry on March 4.
A car from the Navy came to pick us up, but as I was still a student, I modestly rode in the front passenger seat.
It was my first time at the Navy Ministry, and I was taken aback by the height of the dome ceiling and the stained glass.
At the conference table, naval flag officers sat at the center, across from them were seated Professors Tanakadate, Nagaoka, Tamaru, Okada, and Terada, while the Navy’s technical committee members occupied the near side—a formation as imposing as it was ceremonious.
Professor Terada stood before the blackboard and offered his explanation in a small, mumbling voice, concluding with a subtle provocation that none could quite grasp: "This balloon fabric possesses such complex electrical properties that they cannot be explained by what's merely written in textbooks."

In response, Lieutenant Commander F—who had been involved since the Kasumigaura joint experiment—stood to explain various aspects of the wireless transmitter’s performance, but the lack of reaction felt disheartening.
After all committee members had spoken, they finally moved to draft the assessment document.
The proposed text was written on the blackboard, abandoning the previous conductor-based principle in favor of an insulator-oriented approach.
Then suddenly Lieutenant Commander F rose to request the floor.
“To discard an elite weapon like the SS based solely on desk experiments is intolerable for the Navy and nation.”
“Let us actually launch the airship, transmit wireless signals, have someone dangle from the suspension rope’s end, and verify whether sparks manifest.”
“Should the airship explode in consequence, such sacrifice remains unavoidable for our country.”
“As for who shall hang from that rope—it will be me.”
By his final words, not just his voice but his entire frame quaked violently.
The room plunged into silence as though pierced by an icy phantom wind.
For moments, no one uttered a word.
Then Professor Tamaru interjected with his customary gravity: “Admirable as that may be, even absent sparks, safety could scarcely be assured.”

Lieutenant Commander F’s statement was perfectly reasonable coming from someone directly involved; in fact, one might very well want to conduct such an experiment. However, Professor Terada lost his nerve at this juncture and later reflected: “I truly felt dreadful then—as if cursed somehow, it made me shudder. Though of course Lieutenant Commander F’s words held truth.”

Finally, the committee chairman posed a question to the president of F Electric Wire Company—which had manufactured this balloon fabric—asking whether he had any opinions.
This president had been attending in the capacity of an observer.
The balding president said, “Well now, this balloon fabric has merits incomparable to others, but with such terrifying properties, there’s simply nothing to be done.”
“It had taken twenty years for Japan to finally develop this aluminum-doped balloon fabric,” he explained. “Halting production now would deal a severe blow to the company—truly regrettable.”
“In durability against wind and rain or sunlight reflectivity, the aluminum-doped fabric possesses exceptional properties. If only we could improve its electrical characteristics as-is—but for now, nothing can be done.”
“In Britain years before this incident, a similar airship explosion occurred. C.T.R. Wilson, their inquiry committee member, abolished this balloon fabric.”
This story I later heard when meeting Professor Wilson at Cambridge. He remarked, “You must have investigated this too,”
adding with a laugh: “That won’t do.”

With the 'Balloon Fabric Incident' safely resolved, I soon graduated from university and became the Professor's assistant at RIKEN in accordance with our prior agreement.

To be sure, Professor Terada’s laboratory at RIKEN remained in a state of bare construction—a room without gas lines, water supply, or experimental wiring installed.
On paper, a new Terada Laboratory had been established alongside preexisting physics-oriented laboratories such as those of Nagaoka, Nishikawa, Takamine, and others—but in reality, when it came to personnel, it was a small research unit consisting of just three people: the Professor myself, and a young man named Yamamoto-kun who had only recently graduated elementary school.
The older laboratories were housed in Building No. 3 dedicated to physics research, but the Terada Laboratory alone found itself situated within Building No. 2—a new concrete structure accommodating both administrative offices and engineering-focused research facilities.
The space contained only the Professor’s study on the second floor and a ground-level laboratory where Yamamoto-kun and I worked.
With no functional equipment yet available—rendering immediate experimentation impossible—we continued working in the university’s old laboratory until summer break while gradually procuring instruments and outfitting our new workspace.

The balloon fabric experiments fulfilled their mission in investigating the cause of airship explosions, but their unique electrical properties—apart from that problem—were also profoundly intriguing as an issue in pure physics. To explain, this aluminum-doped material consisted of aluminum powder mixed into paint—a special composite where highly conductive particles were densely interspersed within an insulating medium. The problem of spark discharge within such heterogeneous media and along their surfaces was a field that conventional physics had largely overlooked. Therefore, the Professor decided to continue these balloon fabric experiments from this perspective, and I was put in sole charge of conducting this work in the university laboratory.

This research, as published in the report titled *Some Experiment on Spark Discharge in Heterogeneous Media ― A Hint on the Mechanism of Lightning Discharge*, developed in unexpected directions and ultimately came to provide a new theory regarding lightning discharge mechanisms.
Professor Okada and others appeared to take considerable interest in this theory, as it is discussed in detail within *Meteorology*.
Not only that—upon closer consideration—we realized even ordinary electric sparks in air required consideration of heterogeneous media.
When sparks grew slightly longer, they assumed various curved shapes; upon taking precise photographs, we found they were by no means single cords of light but revealed within them a fine structure of light and dark resembling braided rope.
To explain such phenomena, it was necessary to introduce some form of heterogeneity into the air.

The problem of electric sparks' shapes and structures was one that the Professor had begun to address over a dozen years prior. This problem had been left abandoned, but through the balloon fabric experiments, it came to be taken up again from the perspective of spark discharge in heterogeneous media.

During the August summer vacation, despite my repeated urging, the equipping of RIKEN’s laboratory made little progress.
As recorded in Professor Terada’s diary—"August 17, Monday: Morning—Went to RIKEN with Nakaya-kun to determine water pipe layout"—even the installation of plumbing ultimately required Professor Terada’s personal involvement.
In the end, on Sunday, September 13—with RIKEN still lacking electrical wiring, desks and cabinets unfinished, and only the water supply becoming fully operational that day—we had no choice but to forcibly relocate the experimental apparatus.

And so it was decided to begin research on electric sparks here on a fairly large scale.

Around this time, while Professor Terada had been attending the Aeronautical Research Institute every Friday as a member for several years, he otherwise would only appear at the university laboratory for inspections or when necessary, spending most of his remaining hours quietly engaged in his studies in the second-floor room at RIKEN.
“The vitality that had lain dormant for several years had begun to awaken,” and the professor’s mind was about to embark on extraordinary activity.
The groundwork for what would become an astonishing progression—five papers published this year, seven in Taisho 15, eleven in Showa 2, then twenty-six in Showa 3—was being steadily laid during this period, of course without even the Professor being aware of it.

External conditions too began to align in a direction that provided ample support for the expansion of this research team.
For the twenty years at the university leading up to this era, the Professor’s research life had not been in a particularly favorable state.
As I had written in *The Etymology of Fuyuhiko*, the Professor remained perpetually mindful of his surroundings, conducting research that involved hauling out dilapidated instruments to “perform peculiar experiments and attach outlandish theories to them.”
"It was that 'when the professors now at RIKEN were conducting experiments at the university, attempting new, trendy experiments with electricity would immediately deplete the storage batteries' power; obtaining new equipment proved tremendously difficult; and through persistent restraint, even physics ultimately became Yoshimura Fuyuhiko.'"
However, that was not what the Professor had truly hoped for.
In fact, the research for which the Professor received the Imperial Prize—“Experimental Methods and Explanatory Research on Laue Films”—was conducted almost simultaneously with, or rather slightly preceded, Bragg’s research that has since formed the foundation of studies in this field.
Even research such as that had been conducted using X-ray tubes obtained from the medical department—equipment in a state nearing discarded, worn-out items.

In Taisho 14, once preparations for the RIKEN laboratory had finally reached operational status, January of Taisho 15 saw the completion of the Earthquake Research Institute—where Professor Terada too would come to maintain a laboratory as a member researcher.
When new graduates emerged that April, from among them Mr. Tsuboi Chuji was assigned to the Earthquake Research Institute, Mr. Tsutsui Toshimasa to RIKEN, and Mr. Tamano Mitsuo to the Aeronautical Research Institute—thus completing the Terada laboratory’s research contingent.
At the university beyond these appointments, Yumoto-kun continued his hydrogen combustion research under naval contract, while Momotani-kun conducted studies on the Liesegang phenomenon as a graduate student—preparatory work for frost column research.
Moreover, even for second-year students’ experiments requiring no specialized equipment, he assigned properly formulated research topics.

In February of Taisho 15’s diary, there was a list of research topics and responsible personnel, with the note: “With this, we’re at full capacity now.”

┌Nakaya  Spark

RIKEN ┤

└Tsutsui  Thermoelectricity

┌Tamano  Fluid motion, Wind, Powder

Aeronautics ┤

└Hattori  〃   〃

┌Tsuboi  Elastic waves

Earthquake ┤

└Yamaguchi  Tide

Navy {Yumoto  Hydrogen explosion

┌――― Fluid motion

Physics │
┤――― Fire
Students │
└――― Thermoelectricity

Graduate School {Momotani  Liesegang's phenomena

In addition to these, he served as a consultant for the Meteorological Observatory personnel.

Around this time, discussion meetings gradually increased in number.
Monday: Aeronautics; Tuesday afternoon: Physics students; Tuesday night: Physics graduates; Wednesday: Earthquake [Research]; Thursday night: RIKEN (but from March); Additionally: Earthquake Research Institute discussion meeting once monthly on Tuesdays; Other: Friday night - Hirota violin; Thursday cello (changed to Wednesdays from mid-March)...

He engaged in linked verse with Komiya and Mr. Matsune...

As Professor Terada’s diary more vividly than anything illustrated, his superhuman intellectual activity had finally commenced.
Yet when I recall that period, he would always appear at the laboratory with an air of detachment, invariably go out to Ginza for lunch at either Chikuyō or Mitsukoshi, then leisurely drink coffee at Fūgetsu before returning.
And he would smirk while declaring himself an advocate of the three-hour labor theory.
Through concrete example, Professor Terada demonstrated just how formidable it was to perform three hours of genuine intellectual work daily and sustain this throughout the year—and how such discipline could yield such extraordinary accomplishments.
Among university professors who dash about proclaiming their busyness from dawn till dusk, there appear surprisingly many who, when averaged out, scarcely devote even one hour a day to true scholarship.

As the Professor’s mental activity reached its peak in this manner, his duties as a university bureaucrat—particularly the constant mindfulness required among colleagues—gradually became an unbearable burden for him.
Over the past two or three years, Dr. Sano had passed away, Dr. Nagaoka had been retired due to age limits, Dr. Tamaru had stepped down from the front lines, and the university had to relaunch with a new organizational structure.
However, this new university atmosphere also did not seem to suit the Professor’s tastes.
The desire to leave the university had been expressed two or three times.
I had initially taken it as a joke when listening, but eventually he declared, "I’ve finally resolved to leave the university this time. If I stay in a place like that, I’ll die."
“There may be circumstances at the university, but life isn’t worth trading,” he said with a serious expression, startling me.
And after various developments, in March of Showa 2 (1927), Professor Terada finally resigned as a professor in the Faculty of Science and became a professor at the Earthquake Research Institute.
It seems he had initially intended to leave the university entirely, but for the university this posed a major problem; from the Dean of the Faculty of Science up through the President, they intervened with desperate retention measures until he ultimately remained as a professor at the Earthquake Research Institute.

The February Showa 2 (1927) diary entry states: “Since last year’s end I had submitted my resignation, but while the department approved it and brought it before the faculty council, the President, having heard from Fujiwara-kun, earnestly urged me to remain; thus I decided to stay temporarily as a professor at the Earthquake Research Institute and await the opportune moment to become fully dedicated to RIKEN.”
It remains unclear why the Professor came to dislike the university so intensely.
However, it is a fact that he had convinced himself to the extent of declaring, “Life isn’t something to be exchanged.”
What was astonishing was that prior to this, the Professor had even gone so far as to conduct a “job-hunting campaign” to leave Tokyo University and secure a position at Hosei University.
Professor Terada’s job-hunting campaign must have surely been a most extraordinary incident in all the land.

I had been completely unaware of this extraordinary incident until Mr. Nogami Toyoichiro wrote about it in Shiso’s “Terada Torahiko Memorial Issue”. Since this occurred before Professor Terada joined RIKEN, it would have been around New Year’s through early spring of Taisho 13 (1924). Professor Terada called Mr. Nogami of Hosei University saying, “I have a request,” then went to visit him. Without preamble he declared: “Would you consider employing me at your school?” He explained that due to unpleasant circumstances he wished to leave his university and reportedly asked whether physics wasn’t taught in Hosei’s preparatory department. When informed physics wasn’t offered there but that natural science or mathematics would suffice instead, Mr. Nogami was astounded. For Hosei University this proved an exceptionally advantageous proposition; after consultations spanning from the president to accounting directors, they prepared employment terms which Mr. Nogami brought to Professor Terada. At this meeting Professor Terada adopted an apologetic expression and said, “To be frank, I must apologize—might we postpone that matter for now?” creating a situation like having one’s fried tofu snatched midair by a kite*. In truth during this interval an opportunity arose for him to join RIKEN, so Mr. Nogami—judging this better for Professor Terada—neatly retracted the proposal he had brought.

*Translator’s note: Japanese idiom 鳶に油揚げをさらわれる literally describes a kite bird stealing fried tofu, implying sudden unexpected loss of something nearly attained.

It was on April 18, 1924 (Taisho 13), that Dr. Ōkōchi visited Professor Terada at the university and consulted him about becoming a RIKEN researcher.
It appears Professor Terada had promptly given his consent, for by May he had already officially become a chief researcher at RIKEN.
The formal resignation to the university had been submitted at the end of Taisho 15 (1926), meaning he had resolved to do so two and a half years prior.

As for the unpleasant circumstances surrounding Professor Terada’s visit to Mr. Nogami, it seems that even Mr. Nogami did not press for details.
However, this must have been something he had been driven to consider even becoming a mathematics teacher in Hosei University’s preparatory department—something that “could not be exchanged for life.”
It was some time after Professor Terada had left the university that, on a certain clear autumn day, we walked together from RIKEN to the university.
As we passed through the university’s main gate, the Professor remarked, “What fine weather. I never imagined I’d pass through this gate with such a buoyant heart.
“Until now, every time I passed through this main gate, I’d end up feeling so wretched—” he remarked.
There was deep sincerity resonating in his voice.

After leaving the university and establishing himself at three research institutes—RIKEN, the Earthquake Research Institute, and the Aeronautical Research Institute—the Professor’s life of research began, likely realizing the ideal he had envisioned.
As I mentioned before, eleven papers were published in English during Showa 2 (1927), followed by twenty-two English-language papers and four Japanese-language papers printed in Showa 3 (1928).
This intellectual activity continued nearly unchanged in its intensity until the year of his passing.
Professor Terada’s English prose stood incomparably superior to that of typical university professors from that era.
When I met Dr. G.C. Simpson, Director of Britain’s Central Meteorological Office in London and discussion turned to the Professor’s papers on electrical discharges and sparks, Dr. Simpson praised them, remarking, “Terada’s English writing equals that of British university graduates.”
Later, during his period of fascination with film, he wrote an English essay titled “Image of Physical World in Cinematography” for the Italian journal Scientia.
It was a proper academic essay—when its review appeared in Nature’s columns, even the Professor appeared momentarily self-satisfied.
While writing this piece he had observed, “Somehow when composing essays in English, the standard elevates itself imperceptibly as I write.
Though I don’t consciously consider readers, it still ends up slightly more refined on that side,” he would say.

As for Professor Terada’s Japanese prose, there is no need to elaborate on it now. It was mystifying how such splendid essays could flow forth so effortlessly, at least in outward appearance, with almost no struggle whatsoever. His manuscripts were exceptionally neat. They showed only minor corrections here and there—a few characters deleted or altered—and often appeared as pristine as if they had been neatly copied out in a single draft. This becomes most clear when examining his letters, for Professor Terada’s correspondence stands alongside that of Mr. Natsume Soseki—indeed, in some cases surpassing it in intrigue. The letters addressed to Mr. Komiya and Fujioka-kun included in the Complete Works are not merely vivid manifestations of the professor’s character—they are extraordinary masterpieces of prose. Let me quote a passage from a letter I received in London.

However, I find winter’s nature truly beautiful. While spring and autumn’s beauties resemble the obi sashes and long undergarments promoted in Mitsukoshi and Matsuya sales, winter’s frost-bitten mountains and rivers may indeed compare to the muted, austere beauty of aged Gobelin tapestries in Roman palaces—or rather, I consider them akin to the beauty of ancient pottery and bronze vessels.

The Ueno Exposition is set to open around today; there should also be a French art exhibition besides that—amidst this bustling excitement, the season has arrived where yellow dust accumulates on the veranda no matter how much one sweeps in the southern winds…

P.S. The English countryside when apple blossoms bloom truly possesses an unforgettable beauty—I earnestly hope you will not neglect to view the great university towns of Cambridge and Oxford during that season.

I must add a word of well-meaning meddling: When you go boating on the upper Thames near Sonning, it is essential that you bring along two or three ladies—do keep this in mind. However, should you find yourself either loving or being loved, that would prove troublesome; I trust you will navigate such matters with due discretion.

Writing as if conversing with you made the train’s progress feel swift—soon the sunset hung upon a fire-watchtower at the village outskirts, and the station attendant’s calls of “Kogā—Kogā” (Note: Koga Station) carried an evening loneliness that stirred wandering travel sentiments.

I imagine where you might be now—perhaps bidding farewell to Lesseps’ statue at Portside? You, in your vibrant prime, embark on a voyage to academia’s global seas; I, in retirement’s work, pass these remaining years beneath the modest sign of my “Humble Research Atelier,” enduring worldly ways—a pitiable existence indeed.

The reason I have quoted this passage from the letter here is that I wished to note how it was composed aboard a train.

In March of Showa 3 (1928), as part of his work for the Geodetic Committee to prepare research for experimentally verifying the continental drift theory, Professor Terada traveled to Tobishima in Ugo Province.
This letter was composed during the return train journey, with approximately one-fourth of its full length being reproduced here.
I had departed for England that February of Showa 3 (1928).
The Professor was notoriously averse to travel, and train journeys would leave him thoroughly drained.
Even we in good health often find our writing becomes disjointed when composing in a train car.
This letter was likely dashed off without restraint—written in Professor Terada’s extremely fatigued state following a long journey, and being correspondence to his protégé.
That such prose could emerge under these circumstances remains truly astonishing.

In writing this account above， I have primarily chronicled those four or five transitional years during which Professor Terada， after his grave illness， regained his vitality—a resurgence that developed into extraordinary growth—and entered his splendid life of research.

In Showa 3 (1928), I went to England as a Ministry of Education exchange student, returned in Showa 5 (1930), and subsequently took up a position at a university in Sapporo. During the five years that followed—from my distant vantage beneath Hokkaido’s skies until I stood at Professor Terada’s deathbed—I watched with awe as his physics evolved into what might rightly be called Terada Physics, a new frontier of scholarship.

To attach a personal name like Terada Physics to a fundamental discipline within science such as physics—there would likely be many who objected to this. Especially when considering how the term "Japanese Science" had been recklessly misused by thoughtless individuals both before and during this great war, using a phrase that might be interpreted as "Japanese-style physics" carried substantial risk of misunderstanding.

The proponents of Japanese Science appeared to argue that because the nation faced an emergency, science awakened to such national consciousness was necessary. However, I held the opposite opinion. In November of Showa 13 (1938), I wrote a short essay titled "The Logic of Wordplay" in *Chuo Koron* magazine. The year following the outbreak of the China Incident—a time when the general populace had begun writhing in feverish delirium—was an era when Japanese Science too rode that wave to fan its flames. In that short essay, I quoted a passage from *Hokuetsu Seppu* and wrote the following.

"If a science proclaiming 'Heaven does not tilt northwestward; Earth does not lack southeastward' were to emerge, something truly fascinating would undoubtedly take shape."
To be sure, this contains an element of jest, but even setting that aside, it is often observed that modern natural science essentially developed from the Greeks' mode of thought.
In Eastern nations—particularly those like our own that have long maintained relative isolation while cultivating unique cultures—the potential cannot be entirely dismissed for a distinct science to arise.
However, should such an alternative science emerge, we must reasonably expect its applications to develop along separate trajectories; thus, it seems far more accurate to consider this would become something fundamentally different—something not immediately serviceable to modern mechanical industries or military supply sectors.
At any rate, given that our nation now faces an unprecedented crisis, we should have no leisure to devote attention to notions like science awakened to Japanese consciousness...

However, though they constituted an exceedingly small minority, among those attempting to establish a science awakened to Japanese consciousness were some who believed that precisely because we faced such an emergency, this very issue had become particularly necessary.
This would lead to a conclusion diametrically opposed to our earlier discussion.
It was truly a perplexing matter.

However, today the circumstances have completely changed. Science that forms the basis for military industries and new weapon production is now an unnecessary discipline in Japan’s future. Moreover, even if one wanted to do so, it would not be possible. Equipment, measuring instruments, and materials are utterly incomparable to those of the United States, Britain, and other Western nations; thus, the prospect of conducting scientific research on equal footing remains essentially hopeless for a considerably long period to come. No matter how hard one strives, it’s like chasing a Jeep in straw sandals—the more one pursues it, the farther the distance grows.

In the future, our nation’s science will likely have no choice but to become Japanese-style science, whether we like it or not.

However, the science promotion theories of key figures these days invariably invoke terms like "global science."
Thereby they aim to rebuild a cultural Japan, but to me it seems like nothing but empty debate.
In times of crisis when Japanese Science should not even be mentioned, they clamor for Japanese Science; in times when national conditions have fallen to where we cannot keep pace with world science, they debate world science—both are but wordplay.
Or perhaps they are materials for survival.

Ultimately, the true issue depends on whether Japanese physics in a new sense can be established.
Regarding that matter, I had actually been considering it for some time; however, I was merely sensing a dim dawn of its possibility and had not yet reached the point where I could definitively assert it.
Speaking of February 1935—a story already two years old from before the China Incident—I once wrote the following passage in the Tokyo Asahi newspaper of that time.

The November issue of *Shiso* magazine featured Mr. Watsuji’s “Pastoral,” which was quite intriguing.
In Europe, the umbrella-shaped pines of Rome were considered the natural form, while in Japan, the undulating pines of fusuma paintings were deemed natural.
The submissiveness of nature meant nature revealing itself in a rational form, and the notion that from this perspective one could comprehend the developmental path of European natural sciences was an opinion worthy of consideration.
In this sense, the development of Japanese-style physics was not impossible.
One such attempt could be seen in the achievements of Dr. Terada Torahiko’s laboratory at RIKEN.

Examples of this would include crack propagation physics and powder mechanics.
Whereas in the atomic world probability alone stands as natural law, crack propagation physics represents one manifestation of probabilistic physics within our experiential world.
A paper such as *Cracks and Life*, published in Japanese in RIKEN Iho, would likely interest some readers.

The Professor had once remarked to the effect that "If, as a physicist, one were to meet with the misfortune of writing essays, it would be better for others not to encounter such a person."
In physics as well, the most fortunate era is when one need not contemplate physics that bears such titles.
However, our homeland has fallen into such an unfortunate circumstance that we must now contemplate something called "Japanese physics."

While writing *Reminiscences of Terada Torahiko*, my pen ended up veering in that direction.
To utter the phrase "reappraisal of Terada Torahiko" under such lamentable circumstances is truly a lonely affair; yet as facing reality squarely counts among the Professor’s final teachings, there remains no alternative.

(September 1946)