The middle of the twentieth century was a period of significant scientific advancement, particularly in the realm of physics. Within this rapidly changing landscape, academic disciplines emerged and evolved to keep pace with scientific discoveries. The new subdiscipline of solid-state physics gained prominence in the United States, but it was later subsumed by the broader category of condensed matter physics. In Japan, however, physics research since the 1940s has included a unique branch called Busseiron—a discipline concerning the study of matter that has no direct English equivalent but that has remained in use nonetheless. A new article by Hiroto Kono in Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society explores the historical formation of Busseiron and how it was shaped by its specific national context.
The article presents a history of Busseiron as an evolving concept: the word Busseiron was initially used in a pedagogical context in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but by World War II, the landscape of Japanese physics had expanded greatly and Busseiron came to describe a cluster of research areas. These included magnetism, metal physics, and the emerging field of quantum theory. In a 1942 article, a physicist named Hidetosi Takahasi positioned Busseiron as a counterpart to Soryûshiron (the theory of elementary particles)—a distinction that would continue to shape discourse around the discipline and its boundaries.
Kono describes how Busseiron became more organized throughout the 1940s, with the establishment of several colloquia and a new journal (Busseiron Kenkyû). The field continued to broaden in scope, incorporating new topics such as polymers and low temperatures. This expansion, in part, reflected scientific advances related to wartime technologies. In contrast to the division between academia and engineering that characterized the physics landscape in the United States, Japanese physicists saw Busseiron as a field that bridged the gap between these two spheres.
In the article, Kono surveys various textbooks and other publications from this period that mention Busseiron and finds that a diversity of topics fell within the scope of the field. In fact, by the late 1940s the term Busseiron had become an "umbrella discipline" that incorporated a variety of new and existing topics related to matter. Despite a lack of consensus on what exactly should be included, the dichotomy between Busseiron and Soryûshiron (sometimes characterized as a rivalry) was widely referenced in attempts to classify the field. By the end of the 1940s, the founders of the original Busseiron discipline attempted to corral the expansion of the term by replacing it with the label "chemical physics"—a field growing in popularity overseas. This attempt was largely a failure, as Busseiron already had a foothold in the scientific community and the term was widely accepted. Its definition expanded even further by 1950, with a scope encompassing "almost any research that dealt with matter."
Kono describes various debates over Busseiron's structure that arose within the Japanese scientific community in the 1950s and argues that the lack of consistency in defining the term was partly what allowed it to endure into the present day. The name had firmly lodged itself in physicists' nomenclature and the contentious discussion around it only served to further legitimize its status. As Kono states in the article's conclusion, "names matter and deserve greater attention in the disciplinary and transnational histories of science." By tracing discourse around the name Busseiron, this article explores how the Japanese cultural context influenced the genesis of a unique field.
Since its inception in 1912, Isis has featured scholarly articles, research notes, and commentary on the history of science, medicine, and technology and their cultural influences. Review essays and book reviews on new contributions to the discipline are also included. An official publication of the History of Science Society, Isis is the oldest English-language journal in the field.
Founded in 1924, the History of Science Society is the world's largest society dedicated to understanding science, technology, medicine, and their interactions with society in historical context.
