Abstracts of the History of Science Society 2004 Austin Meeting 18 ...

Gender and Physics in Japan around WWII: Toshiko Yuasa and her Emigration to France
Both the physics community and Japanese society in the 20th century are not well-known for their gender sensitivity. One could expect
the worst when these two are combined. This paper examines how gender affected one’s career in physics in Japan by focusing on
Toshiko Yuasa. Yuasa’s case is of particular interest, because not only she was Japan’s first significant female physicist, but also her career
seems to require a historically informed way of understanding how gender functioned in physics in Japan. Yuasa was an atomic physicist
trained by Frédéric Joliot-Curie before World War II. Although she returned to Japan just before the war ended, she eventually
migrated to France in 1949 and died there. Yuasa’s case, therefore, does not disappoint our expectation: Physics in Japan was totally
unprepared to have a female constituent, and Yuasa had to go to France first for training and then to have a permanent job. Japan’s sexism
alone, however, does not do justice to the complexity of Yuasa’s case. Whereas repelled by rampant sexism in postwar Japan, she
was nevertheless curiously hostile to what she conceived as American feminism in the postwar era. Although she could not build a career
in Japan and to be naturalized in France would have been easy and advantageous to her, she never abandoned her Japanese nationality
or Japanese cultural practices like tradition poetry. I argue that Yuasa was not simply a refuge from gender discrimination. Yuasa’s decisions
to become a physicist and to leave for France twice owed much to her background and the kind of femininity encouraged then.
Her being a woman in a sexist society and ensuing circumstances shaped in her a particular set of values and a certain vision of physics.
These motivated her to become a physicist and encouraged to go to France. Upon her return to Japan, however, her vision of physics,
in addition to her being a woman, alienated her from other Japanese physicists and forced her to leave for France again. Thus, although
Japan’s gender bias caused Yuasa’s emigration to France, it occurred in a more complex and contextual way than it appears.
Konstantin Ivanov, Tula State Pedagogic University (Konstantine@yandex.ru)
Saturday, 20-Nov-04, 9:00 - 11:45 AM - Hill Country A
The First Steps of Astrophysics in the USSR: Revolutionary Policies in Science and Disciplinary Boundaries
At the beginning of the 20th century, “astrophysics” was a relatively new term in the discourse of science. The traditional discipline of
astronomy and its long established practices were closely linked to naval, geodesic and topographical needs of the military and the state.
Several technological inventions and new instruments at the end of the 19th century started challenging the existing astronomical practices,
creating internal tension within the professional community and its institutions. In Russia, the establishment of the new boundary
between traditional astronomy and astrophysics occurred in the context of radical revolutionary reforms in the country’s scientific
infrastructure during the 1920s. The paper analyzes this process of discipline creation and institutional building in the case of the proposed
Chief Russian Astrophysical Observatory, approved by the Commissariat of Enlightenment in 1919. The initiative came mostly
from astronomers such as V. G. Fesenkov, who were in opposition to the existing hierarchy and order in astronomy, represented by the
Pulkovo Observatory. After several reorganizations, failures and starts, the proposed disciplinary reform resulted in the establishment
of the Russian Astrophysical Institute, subsequently the Shternberg Institute of Astronomy. The history and transformations of the
new disciplinary field reflected the changing dynamics in the cultural climate for innovation and the relative authority of experts and
politicians in revolutionary Russia.
Anja Skaar Jacobsen, Department of Mathematics and Physics, Roskilde University, Denmark (skaar@ruc.dk)
Saturday, 20-Nov-04, 1:30 - 3:10 PM - Texas Ballroom II
The Role of Marxist Ideology in Léon Rosenfeld’s Defence of Complementarity in the 1950s
The Belgian born physicist Léon Rosenfeld (1904–1974) has been called “the clarifier” of Niels Bohr’s complementarity interpretation
of quantum mechanics. He had a unique connection to Bohr as his closest assistant from 1930 and took part in the development of the
so-called Copenhagen interpretation during its formative years. Rosenfeld has also been called “the square root of Trotsky times Bohr”
by his friend the physicist Wolfgang Pauli, referring to Rosenfeld’s loyalty to Bohr and the fact that he was a sworn Marxist. In the 1950s
a strife about the interpretation of quantum mechanics took place in the physics community in which the complementarity interpretation
was questioned from the perspective of Marxist philosophy among other things. In order to shed more light on the groupings
among Marxism-inspired physicists as well as on the philosophically heterogeneous group of adherents of the Copenhagen interpretation,
this paper investigates what role Marxist ideology and philosophy played in Rosenfeld’s fierce defence of complementarity in the
1950s.
Derek Jensen, Brigham Young University (derek_jensen@byu.edu)
Saturday, 20-Nov-04, 9:00 - 11:45 AM - Texas Ballroom V
The Idea of a Plurality of Worlds in Seventeenth-Danzig: Abraham von Franckenberg’s Oculus Sidereus
Karl Guthke has recently made the claim that “in Germany the wars of religion delayed the assimilation of the new science, and the
tendency to ignore the new worlds remained the norm in German literature and philosophy right up to the early eighteenth century.”
(The Last Frontier, 113). While this may have been the case for most of the German-speaking area of Europe, the existence of Abraham
von Franckenberg’s “Oculus Sidereus” printed in the Prussian port Danzig in 1644 provides a strong counterexample to Dr. Guthke’s
general claim. In this paper, I will address examples of engagement with the idea of plurality of worlds that existed in seventeenth-century
German literature and philosophy, and specifically, I will address the social and cultural conditions that existed in mid-century
Danzig that made it a place for the publication of Oculus Sidereus. Conditions included a healthy astronomical community that included
the activities of Johannes Hevelius, printers willing to publish Franckenberg’s ideas and an audience interested in the science of the