博士論文「明治・大正時代の日本における数学の科学としての制度化」 : その成果と新たな問題提起 (数学史の研究)

Abstract

This paper presents three results that the author obtained in his doctoral thesis (Kümmerle, 2018a) where he investigated the topic from the viewpoints of institutionalization and the circulation of knowledge. These are: 1. While mathematical colloquia (danwakai) at the Imperial Universities in Kyōto and Tōhoku were born out of necessity, they stimulated research and helped create distinctive research traditions. In Tōkyō, where mathematicians could present at the regular meetings of the Mathematico-Physical Society, a colloquium relevant for mathematical research was created only in 1920. 2. With more than 90%, the ratio of non-high school graduates among all students at Tōhoku Imperial University specializing in mathematics was, at least in the 1910s, much higher than the literature has suggested. “Practical mathematics” was embedded in the curriculum, topics in the seminar classes went beyond pure mathematics, and many students of mathematics chose topics of applied mathematics when progressing to graduate school. The case of Iwatsuki Toranosuke, who became one of the founders of the school of “wave geometry”, can be seen as representative of this atmosphere. 3. An analysis of the chair system can explain why the focus on pure mathematics established by Fujisawa Rikitarō at Tōkyō Imperial University persisted. After the formal requirement to teach applied mathematics was passed on to the department of physics in the first years of the 20th century, Fujisawa and the other professors of mathematics, coherent with the principle of academic self-governance, did not follow other departments in establishing new chairs with clearer tasks. When they finally obtained one more chair in 1920, it was dedicated to mathematics in general. This provided the basis for continuing to ignore applications, with the exception of the lecture on probability and statistics. Moreover, based on experiences made during research on Tannaka Tadao’s paper on the duality of non-Abelian groups (Tannaka, 1938), this paper proposes three problems for further research: 1. Contextualize the economic and institutional situation of Japanese mathematicians. 2. Investigate both the reception of research results abroad and how Japanese mathematicians anticipated the reception before publication. 3. Pay close attention to Japanese-language papers and include them with translations into English in edited volumes.