Philosophy:Yuasa Phenomenon

From HandWiki
Short description: Theory on scientific activity

Template:Sociology of science The Yuasa Phenomenon, named after Japanese physicist and historian of science Mitsutomo Yuasa (sometimes rendered Mintomo Yuasa), is the observation that, in the modern era, the world center of scientific activity moves from one country to another approximately every 80 to 100 years.[1][2] Yuasa defined the center of scientific activity as a country that produces more than 25 percent of the world's scientific achievements in a given period, and called the period during which a country holds this position its "scientific prosperity".[3]

Because Yuasa's study built on J. D. Bernal's earlier discussion of shifting centers of scientific and technological activity, the phenomenon is also described by other names, including the "Bernal–Yuasa phenomenon".[4]

Background

The idea of a "world science centre" was raised by the British historian of science William Dampier in A History of Science and its Relations with Philosophy and Religion, and in 1954 J. D. Bernal introduced the concept of a "centre of technological and scientific activity" in Science in History, tracing how such centers had shifted over the course of history.[3][5] Influenced by Science in History, Yuasa undertook a statistical study of scientific achievements recorded in chronologies of the history of science and, in a 1962 paper, formulated the regularity of the shifting center of scientific activity that now bears his name.[1][3]

Analysis

Analyzed data indicate that the modern world science center has shifted from Italy (1504–1610) to England (1660–1750), then to France (1760–1840), to Germany (1875–1920), and to the United States (1920 to the present).[6][7] Under Yuasa's definition, each country's period of scientific prosperity has lasted roughly 80 years.[1][3]

The phenomenon and its study methodology have become a topic in scientometrics. In 1985, Zhao Hongzhou and Jiang Guohua of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported a similar regularity, using statistical methods to identify the optimum age at which scientists make discoveries and deriving an empirical formula relating the number of scientific achievements to the number of scientists and their "social ages", which they used to explain the Yuasa Phenomenon in part.[8] Liang Liming, Feng Yan and Wu Yishan later examined the spatial, temporal, and disciplinary characteristics of the shifts using more than 4,000 records drawn from two chronological tables of the history of science and technology.[9] Researchers have also applied Yuasa's 25 percent criterion to identify shifting centers of research within individual disciplines,[3] and have attempted to forecast the timing of the next shift of the world scientific center, with some indicators pointing to China's rise as a world center of scientific activity.[10]

Shigeo Minowa links Yuasa's finding to Joseph Ben-David's observations on the movements of centers of learning.[11] Ben-David's centers-of-learning migration observations are discussed in various works.[12][13][14]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Yuasa, Mitsutomo (1962). "Center of scientific activity: its shift from the 16th to the 20th century". Japanese Studies in the History of Science 1: 57–75. 
  2. ↑ Chen, Chaomei (2011). "The Gathering Storm". Turning Points. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. pp. 1–20. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-19160-2_1. ISBN 978-3-642-19159-6. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Hou, Jianhua; Yang, Xiucai (2018). "The spatial-temporal transfer of scientometrics research topics based on citation analysis". Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science 23 (3): 49–68. doi:10.22452/mjlis.vol23no3.4. 
  4. ↑ Huang, Xi (2016-10-04). Improve the innovation resources agglomeration capacity of Shanghai (Thesis) – via DIVA.
  5. ↑ Bernal, J. D. (1954). Science in History. London: Watts. 
  6. ↑ Wang, Chunfa (2018). "Scientific Culture and the Construction of a World Leader in Science and Technology". Cultures of Science 1 (1): 1–13. doi:10.1177/209660831800100102. ISSN 2096-6083. 
  7. ↑ Zeng, GP (2009). "The four changes of world science centers". Chinese Social Sciences Today 22 December (6). 
  8. ↑ Zhao, Hongzhou; Jiang, Guohua (1985). "Shifting of world's scientific center and scientists' social ages". Scientometrics 8 (1–2): 59–80. doi:10.1007/BF02025221. 
  9. ↑ Liang, Liming; Feng, Yan; Wu, Yishan (2000). "Shifts in the world science centre: space-time characteristics and disciplinary analysis". Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 25 (3): 227–232. 
  10. ↑ Zhang, Yunong; Chen, Canhui; Qi, Zhiyuan; Wang, Ruifeng; Ling, Yingbiao (2019). "Year Prediction of Next Shifting of World's Scientific Center Based on Yuasa Phenomenon and Data via ASF Method". IEEE. pp. 122–127. doi:10.1109/ICIST.2019.8836791. ISBN 978-1-7281-2106-2. 
  11. ↑ Minowa, Shigeo (1991). "The takeoff phenomenon: Is there a theory of book development?". Logos 2 (3): 140–144. doi:10.2959/logo.1991.2.3.140. ISSN 0957-9656. 
  12. ↑ Ben-David, Joseph (2017-07-05). Centers of Learning: Britain, France, Germany, United States. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315081625. ISBN 978-1-315-08162-5. 
  13. ↑ Greenfeld, L. (2012). The Ideals of Joseph Ben-David: The Scientist's Role and Centers of Learning Revisited. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4128-4682-0. 
  14. ↑ Ben-David, Joseph (1970). "The Rise and Decline of France as a Scientific Centre". Minerva (Springer) 8 (2): 160–179. doi:10.1007/BF01553210. ISSN 0026-4695. 



Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Philosophy:Yuasa_Phenomenon&oldid=4578953"