Advanced materials and the future of Japan -- high temperature materials (1)---

摘要

It is of utmost importance for any country to develop new and superior materials. This is particularly true of Japan. This may be explained as follows. In the beginning of the 16th century, Japan and China, for that matter, were superior to western European countries in technology, for instance China and Japan were enjoying paper, printed matters, gun, big ocean going ships building, perspective, etc. prior to Western people, which were all transfered to the West in Renaissance period. For instance, Japanese Samurai groups were being equpped with more than 300,000 units of guns at begining of 16th century, which were larger in number than total guns being equipped for total of European countries. but when the west succeeded in catching up with Asia, Western science and technology begun original progress independently. Since then Japan fell behind in her race for industrialization, particularly after the Industrial Revolution. European people prepared fundamentals necessary for industrialization. In order to catch up with the West, Japan had to make an effort beyond 100 years. What the Japanese researchers realized was that in order to really compete with the West, it is absolutely necessary to develop new materials. This is based on the thinking that only when new technology were developed by using new materials created on their own, Japanese engineers would be able to feel, and those outside Japan would assert, that the Japanese have indeed created original technology. All the materials developed after the Industrial Revolution have been metal-based materials, which can be characterized by the fact that they have been used for manufacturing objects and that they have been monolithic materials composed, as composites, of grains with their crystals having a grain size of more than 10μm.