Takamine and Saha: Contacts with Western Astrophysics

Abstract

In the fall of 1920 two young scholars happened to meet in London and found they had many interests in common in laboratory spectroscopy and astrophysics. One was an Indian and the other a Japanese, and their paths crossed as they visited American and European centers to learn the tools and techniques of the quantum theory. The young Japanese scholar, T. Takamine, whose home base was then the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research in Tokyo, was delighted to have met Meghnad Saha, from Calcutta, who was just putting the finishing touches on his fourth paper on ionization equilibrium in the atmospheres of the sun and stars. When they met, Takamine and Saha spoke of Sommerfeld’s theories, and pledged to keep in touch. Thus began a correspondence that lasted for some twenty years, as Takamine returned to Japan from his long visits to American and European observatories and spectroscopic laboratories, and Saha returned to India. Of the two, Takamine had stayed the longer time in the West, mainly at Mount Wilson where he was in residence through much of 1919 working with John Anderson and A. S. King, and published on the “The Stark Effect for Metals.” Takamine also returned to Mount Wilson in 1924, and toured many spectroscopic laboratories in the United States continuing to hone his interests and technique. Elsewhere I have examined Saha’s contacts with western astrophysics. Here I examine briefly how Takamine established and maintained contacts in the West and why he did so.