The wonderful things in which Japan is number one in the world.
In 1849 (Kaei 2), Benkichi Ohno, a Karakuri Master (an expert in mechanical devices,) invented a practical photographic method that allowed printing without reversing right and left. This technique was unknown in Europe at that time. Two years later in 1851, Frederic Scott Archer, one of the fathers of practical photography, invented glass negative photography. Read More »
The Shinkansen first operated at the time of the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964, and quickly smashed the world’s fastest recorded train speed of 160km/hr (held by France) at 210km/hr. This marked the beginning of the Superexpress Age. Read More »
In 1947, Hideo Uchida of the NHK Science & Technical Research Laboratories completed an amplifier circuit (tripolar crystal) that would be the base of the transistor. Read More »
Though some atom models were proposed in the world of physics in the early 20th century, it was Hantaro Nagaoka, then professor at the University of Tokyo, who was the first to presented a Saturnian atomic model close to the presently accepted model. Read More »
Tokuji Hayakawa, founder of Hayakawa Kinzoku Kougyou (the present Sharp Corporation) invented and patented in 1912 the “Tokubijo” belt buckle that could fasten a belt without perforating it. When he introduced it to the market, it led to such large orders that he started his own metallurgical processing, which then developed into the present Sharp Corporation. Read More »
Of the top 10 companies that acquired the most patents in the US in 2005, 5 were Japanese companies: IBM with 2941 patents, Canon with 1828 and Hewlett Packard with 1797. Fourth place goes to Matsushita Electric Industrial with 1688, fifth to Samsung Electronics with 1641, Micron Technology with 1561, Intel with 1549, Hitachi Ltd. with 1271, Toshiba with 1,258, and finally, Fujitsu with 1154. Read More »
The battleships Yamato and Musashi were completed in 1941, and measured 263m in length, 38.9m wide, with a full load displacement of 72,809t and 10.8m of draft. Both ships were fitted with the offensive power and defensive strength of 46cm guns.
Musashi sank on October 24, 1944 at Operation Sho-Go.
Yamato was sunk by over 100 U.S. attacking aircrafts on April 7, 1945 at Operation Ten-Go.
In July 1853, a Russian named Putyatin arrived in Nagasaki by ship to open Japan. There he demonstrated a model steam locomotive’s mechanism. Kisuke Nakamura and others, engineers in the smelter of the Saga domain, observed this model and then completed one themselves using reference documents and experimentation. Read More »
Zero-type fighters on warships(Reisen or Zerosen) were the mainstay fighters of the great Japanese navy. They drove away fighters of the Allies in the early stages of the Greater East Asia War, and brought fear to the U.S. Forces by mere mention of the name “Zero fighter”. Read More »
