Science and technology in Japan - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Presently, science and technology in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

is mostly focused and prominent in consumer electronics

Consumer electronics

Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...

, robotics

Robotics

Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots...

and the automotive industry

Automotive industry

The automotive industry designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells motor vehicles, and is one of the world's most important economic sectors by revenue....

Electronics

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

is well known for its automotive and electronics

Electronics

Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

industries throughout the world, and Japanese electronic products account for a large share in the world market, compared to a majority of other countries. Japan

Japan

is one of the leading nations in the fields of scientific research, technology, machinery and medical research with the world's third largest budget for research and development at $130 billion USD, and over 677,731 researchers. Japan has received the most science Nobel prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

s in Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

(see List of Nobel laureates by country)

Japan has large international corporate conglomerates such as Fuji

Fuji

-People:* Mr. Fuji, ring name of wrestling and manager Harry Fujiwara* Keiko Fuji, a Japanese singer of the 1960s and 1970s, and mother of Hikaru Utada* Sumiko Fuji, a Japanese actressFictional characters* Fuji , a character in the Stormwatch series...

(which developed the nation's first electronic computer, FUJIC

FUJIC

FUJIC was the first stored-program computer built in Japan. It was finished in March 1956, the project having been effectively started in 1949, and was essentially built almost entirely by one person – Dr. Okazaki Bunji...

, in 1956) and Sony

Sony

, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

. Sony, Panasonic

Panasonic

Panasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...

, anon (company)|Canon], Nikon

Nikon

, also known as just Nikon, is a multinational corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in optics and imaging. Its products include cameras, binoculars, microscopes, measurement instruments, and the steppers used in the photolithography steps of semiconductor fabrication, of which...

, Fujitsu

Fujitsu

is a Japanese multinational information technology equipment and services company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is the world's third-largest IT services provider measured by revenues....

, Hitachi

Hitachi

Hitachi is a multinational corporation specializing in high-technology.Hitachi may also refer to:*Hitachi, Ibaraki, Japan*Hitachi province, former province of Japan*Prince Hitachi and Princess Hitachi, members of the Japanese imperial family...

, Sharp

Sharp Corporation

is a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products. Headquartered in Abeno-ku, Osaka, Japan, Sharp employs more than 55,580 people worldwide as of June 2011. The company was founded in September 1912 and takes its name from one of its founder's first...

, NEC

NEC

, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....

, Epson and Toshiba

Toshiba

is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...

are among the best-known electronics companies in the world. Toyota, Honda

Honda

is a Japanese public multinational corporation primarily known as a manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles.Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, as well as the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume, producing more than...

, Nissan, Mazda

Mazda

is a Japanese automotive manufacturer based in Fuchū, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan.In 2007, Mazda produced almost 1.3 million vehicles for global sales...

, Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi

The Mitsubishi Group , Mitsubishi Group of Companies, or Mitsubishi Companies is a Japanese multinational conglomerate company that consists of a range of autonomous businesses which share the Mitsubishi brand, trademark and legacy...

, Nintendo

Nintendo

is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....

, Sony

Sony

, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

and Subaru

Subaru

; is the automobile manufacturing division of Japanese transportation conglomerate Fuji Heavy Industries .Subaru is internationally known for their use of the boxer engine layout popularized in cars by the Volkswagen Beetle and Porsche 911, in most of their vehicles above 1500 cc as well as...

are also very well known companies in the world.

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Aeronautics

Japan has also made headway into aerospace research and space exploration. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

The , or JAXA, is Japan's national aerospace agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on October 1, 2003, as an Independent Administrative Institution administered by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and the...

(JAXA) conducts space and planetary research, aviation research, and development of rockets and satellites. It has developed a series of rockets, the latest and the most powerful of which is H-IIB

H-IIB

H-IIB is an expendable launch system used to launch H-II Transfer Vehicles towards the International Space Station. H-IIB rockets are liquid-fuelled with solid-fuel strap-on boosters and are launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan...

. H-IIA

H-IIA

H-IIA is an active expendable launch system operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency . The liquid-fueled H-IIA rockets have been used to launch satellites into geostationary orbit, to launch a lunar orbiting spacecraft, and to launch an interplanetary...

/B rockets which have the capability of carrying 8-ton payload to the GTO

GTO

GTO is an abbreviation of:* A gate turn-off thyristor*Geographic targeting order, an order issued by the United States Secretary of Treasury* Geostationary transfer orbit, an intermediate orbit around the Earth...

at maximum are now managed by the private-own company Mitsubishi Heavy Industry. It also built the Japanese Experiment Module

Japanese Experiment Module

The Japanese Experiment Module , also known with the nickname , is a Japanese science module for the International Space Station developed by JAXA. It is the largest single ISS module. The first two pieces of the module were launched on space shuttle missions STS-123 and STS-124...

, which was launched and added to the International Space Station

International Space Station

The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...

during Space Shuttle assembly flights in 2007 and 2008 and the HTV

H-II Transfer Vehicle

The H-II Transfer Vehicle , called , is an unmanned resupply spacecraft used to resupply the Kibō Japanese Experiment Module and the International Space Station . The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has been working on the design since the early 1990s. The first mission, HTV-1, was originally...

to transfer payloads to the station in 2009.

Nuclear power

Since 1973, nuclear energy

Nuclear power

Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...

has been a national strategic priority in Japan

Japan

, as the nation is heavily dependent on imported fuel, with fuel imports accounting for 61% of energy production. In 2008, after the opening of 7 brand new nuclear reactors in Japan (3 on Honshū

Honshu

is the largest island of Japan. The nation's main island, it is south of Hokkaido across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyushu across the Kanmon Strait...

, and 1 each on Hokkaidō

Hokkaido

, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...

, Kyūshū

Kyushu

is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include , , and . The historical regional name is referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands....

, Shikoku

Shikoku

is the smallest and least populous of the four main islands of Japan, located south of Honshū and east of the island of Kyūshū. Its ancient names include Iyo-no-futana-shima , Iyo-shima , and Futana-shima...

, and Tanegashima

Tanegashima

is an island lying to the south of Kyushu, in southern Japan, and is part of Kagoshima Prefecture. The island is the second largest of the Ōsumi Islands....

) Japan became the third largest nuclear power user in the world with 55 nuclear reactor

Nuclear reactor

A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Most commonly they are used for generating electricity and for the propulsion of ships. Usually heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid , which runs through turbines that power either ship's...

s. These provide 34.5% of Japan's electricity.

Following an earthquake, tsunami

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami

The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, or the Great East Japan Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST on Friday, 11 March 2011, with the epicenter approximately east...

, and the failure of cooling systems at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant on March 11, 2011, a nuclear emergency was declared. This was the first time a nuclear emergency had been declared in Japan, and 140,000 residents within 20 km of the plant were evacuated. The amount of radiation released is unclear, and the crisis is still ongoing.

Nobel Laureates

Japanese researchers have won several Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

s. Hideki Yukawa

Hideki Yukawa

né , was a Japanese theoretical physicist and the first Japanese Nobel laureate.-Biography:Yukawa was born in Tokyo and grew up in Kyoto. In 1929, after receiving his degree from Kyoto Imperial University, he stayed on as a lecturer for four years. After graduation, he was interested in...

, educated at Kyoto University

Kyoto University

, or is a national university located in Kyoto, Japan. It is the second oldest Japanese university, and formerly one of Japan's Imperial Universities.- History :...

, was awarded the prize for physics in 1949. Sin-Itiro Tomonaga

Sin-Itiro Tomonaga

was a Japanese physicist, influential in the development of quantum electrodynamics, work for which he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 along with Richard Feynman and Julian Schwinger.-Biography:...

followed in 1965. Solid-state physicist Leo Esaki

Leo Esaki

Reona Esaki also known as Leo Esaki is a Japanese physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 with Ivar Giaever and Brian David Josephson for his discovery of the phenomenon of electron tunneling. He is known for his invention of the Esaki diode, which exploited that phenomenon...

, educated at the University of Tokyo

University of Tokyo

, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...

, received the prize in 1973. Kenichi Fukui

Kenichi Fukui

Kenichi Fukui was a Japanese chemist.Kenichi Fukui was co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1981 with Roald Hoffmann, for their independent investigations into the mechanisms of chemical reactions...

of Kyoto University shared the 1981 chemistry prize, and Susumu Tonegawa

Susumu Tonegawa

Susumu Tonegawa is a Japanese scientist who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1987 for his discovery of the genetic mechanism that produces antibody diversity. Although he won the Nobel Prize for his work in immunology, Tonegawa is a molecular biologist by training...

, also educated at Kyoto University, became Japan's first (and, as of 2007, only) laureate in physiology or medicine in 1987. Japanese chemists took prizes in 2000 and 2001: first Hideki Shirakawa

Hideki Shirakawa

Hideki Shirakawa is a Japanese chemist and winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of conductive polymers together with physics professor Alan J. Heeger and chemistry professor Alan G...

(Tokyo Institute of Technology

Tokyo Institute of Technology

The Tokyo Institute of Technology is a public research university located in Greater Tokyo Area, Japan. Tokyo Tech is the largest institution for higher education in Japan dedicated to science and technology. Tokyo Tech enrolled 4,850 undergaraduates and 5006 graduate students for 2009-2010...

) and then Ryōji Noyori

Ryoji Noyori

is a Japanese chemist. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2001. Noyori shared half of the prize with William S. Knowles for the study of chirally catalyzed hydrogenations; the second half of the Prize went to K. Barry Sharpless for his study in chirally catalyzed oxidation reactions...

(Kyoto University). Masatoshi Koshiba

Masatoshi Koshiba

is a Japanese physicist. He jointly won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002.He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1951 and received a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Rochester, New York, in 1955...

(University of Tokyo) and Koichi Tanaka

Koichi Tanaka

is a Japanese scientist who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2002 for developing a novel method for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules with John Bennett Fenn and Kurt Wuthrich ....

(Tohoku University

Tohoku University

, abbreviated to , located in the city of Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture in the Tōhoku Region, Japan, is a Japanese national university. It is the third oldest Imperial University in Japan and is a member of the National Seven Universities...

) won in physics and chemistry, respectively, in 2002. Makoto Kobayashi

Makoto Kobayashi

Makoto Kobayashi is a Japanese manga artist that is best known for his unusual drawing style. One of his most well known manga is What's Michael?, a manga about a curious orange cat and his many adventures that is often compared with Garfield. His earliest work is Grapple Three Brothers, which...

, Toshihide Masukawa, and Yoichiro Nambu

Yoichiro Nambu

is a Japanese-born American physicist, currently a professor at the University of Chicago. Known for his contributions to the field of theoretical physics, he was awarded a one-half share of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2008 for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in...

who is an American citizen when awarded, shared the physics prize and Osamu Shimomura also won the chemistry prize in 2008.

Electronics

Aeronautics

Nuclear power

Nobel Laureates

See also

Japanese scientists