午夜剧场

There were many twists and turns before this book was published. My family home was originally an inn in Izu, and I grew up there. However, I decided to pursue a career as a scholar rather than the family business, and I earned my degree in theoretical physics about 40 years ago. But at the same time, my father passed away, and I ended up working in the inn business to pay off the inn's debts... Later, I obtained a position at a newly established university, but I was far from having a smooth career as a scholar. The final blow was an inn fire 10 years ago. My collection of 30,000 books turned to ash and I lost everything, but in that same year, my first book on "thought experiments" was published by Kagaku-Dojin, and that book led to the creation of this one.

Unlike my previous work, in this book, I spent the first half explaining what it means to conduct a thought experiment, how to execute one, and what the characteristics of a good thought experiment are. One of the spirits of modern science is that there are laws in the world. This book is written from the perspective that thought experiments begin with the positioning and significance of actual experiments within scientific inquiry, organizing the act of verification through experiments using the concept of the hypothetico-deductive method, and accomplishing this solely through logical reasoning in the mind. By performing experiments in extreme conditions using operational procedures that look as if they are being seen with one's own eyes—excluding precise calculations—one examines the validity of laws, principles, and hypotheses. I also pay attention to the differences from similar methods such as simulations.

In the second half, I divided the chapters into classifications based on the purpose of the thought experiment, and explained actual examples, mainly regarding thought experiments in physics, by following the structure of the hypothetico-deductive method.

In this book, I was unable to handle the logic of discovery—how one thinks of a hypothesis in the first place—which precedes the hypothetico-deductive method (the logic of verification), so that remains a task for the future. Thought experiments in the natural sciences are typical of the ways of thinking, perspectives, and methods of persuasion in the various sciences that are descendants of modern science. I believe that "learning is one" across the humanities and sciences, and I think the subject of thought experiments is a direct manifestation of that. In this book, I also consider thought experiments in the humanities, so I would be grateful if you could take note of that.

Yutaka Shimba

Kodansha Blue Backs

248 pages, 1,100 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.