6) The Workshops Bustling with Researchers Groping their Way
Photo A: Commemorative photograph of the transistor workshop in July, 1951
(Enlargeable)
Photo B: Kikuchi (front) and Nishizawa on a boat in Matsushima Bay
Several study meetings and workishops were started in Japan
soon after transistor information from US was spread in Japan. Researchers
all felt that some surprisingly important invention was done, but it was without
real understanding of what it was. And they held meetings and workshops aiming
at analyzing information in detail and studying the theory.
The earliest workshop was the one which was started by Prof. Watanabe of Tohoku
University and Komagata who was the head of Electrotechnical Laboratory in
October, 1948, right after the official announcement in USA. The meetings
were private gatherings in the General Manager’s office on the 2nd floor of
Electric Test Laboratory in Nagata-Cho, Tokyo. The meetings were held monthly
and continued for nearly 3 years. The members were mainly from universities
and research institutes at the initial stage, but the members from manufacturing
companies also joined later, and the workshops made important contribution
to form the basis of semiconductor research in Japan. Looking back to those
days, Makoto Kikuchi who had attended these meetings from the very first time
mentioned later, "The argument continued in trial and error ways, so
to speak, without even one literature. The activities of the meetings were
very active but not in well controlled manners under big and small bosses,
but they were all very eager with ambition of Genpaku Sugita at the time of
Rangaku-Kotohajime." (translator’s comment - Genpaku Sugita was a medical
scientist in Edo period and wrote a famous book, "Rangaku-Kotohajime,"
which means "taking up studies of Western science and culture in Dutch.")
Picture A is the commemorative photograph at the meeting held at Tohoku University
in July, 1951. The fourth person from right in the front row is Watanabe,
and you can find Kikuchi on the right end of back row, and Jun-ichi Nishizawa
to the left.
On the Photo B are Kikuchi (front) and Nishiizawa on a boat in Matsushima
Bay after the meeting.
(Photo: by courtesy of Jun-ichi Nishizawa)