졸업 전 마지막 과제 「雪雑記」번역

원문: http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/001569/files/53211_49758.html

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Miscellaneous Notes on Snow

Ukichirō Nakaya

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Preface

Ukichirō Nakaya (中谷 宇吉郎, July 4, 1900 – April 11, 1962) was a Japanese physicist known for his contributions in the field of glaciology. He was born in Kaga, Ishikawa prefecture. Nakaya majored in experimental physics under Torahiko Terada (寺田 寅彦), who he mentions by his pen name Fuyuhiko (冬彦) in this essay, Miscellaneous Notes on Snow (雪雑記 Yuki zakki). He graduated the University of Tokyo with a Master of Science degree in 1925 and continued his studies in physics at King’s College, London under Owen Willans Richardson until 1929. Nakaya was appointed Professor of Physics at Hokkaidō University in 1930, where he remained associated for the rest of his life. In 1931, Nakaya was granted a Doctor of Science degree by Kyōto University. While he was in Hokkaidō, Nakaya borrowed a rugged hut on Mount Tokachi where he took over 3,000 photomicrographs of natural snow crystals, which he refers to in this essay. From these, he established a general classification of snow crystals, consisting of 41 morphological types. The Low Temperature Science Laboratory in Hokkaidō University where Nakaya conducted his artificial snow experiments opened in 1935, which later grew into the Institute of Low Temperature Science. In 1936, Nakaya succeeded in creating the world’s first artificial snow crystals by duplicating the natural conditions in which snow crystals form inside the laboratory. He discovered that the shape of a snow crystal can reveal the meteorological conditions in the atmosphere in which it was formed. In 1952, Nakaya was invited to conduct research at the U.S. Army Snow, Ice, and Permafrost Research Establishment, and after visiting Greenland for the first time in 1957 as a member of an expedition, returned there every summer for three years to conduct research. Later in life, Nakaya was appointed as the Vice-president of the Commission on Snow and Ice of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics. Nakaya was also a science essayist, a sumi-e artist, and a producer of number of documentary films and radio programs. His most famous quote that he often wrote in his books and paintings is “snow crystals are letters from heaven.”

Miscellaneous Notes on Snow, first published in 1937 in the literary magazine Chūōkōron (中央公論), is one of Nakaya Ukichirō’s many science essays that he wrote on the topic of snow. Just as the title suggests, in this essay, Nakaya writes about various topics ranging from how he observed snow on Mount Tokachi to how he experiments in the low temperature laboratory, namely, the Low Temperature Science Laboratory in Hokkaidō University. Miscellaneous Notes on Snow was written two years after the Low Temperature Science Laboratory was opened, so near the end of this essay, Nakaya writes about experiments that were still going on at the time he was writing. Nakaya’s writing is easy for the general audience to understand – Miscellaneous Notes on Snow is characteristic of Nakaya’s writing, which does not seem to be aimed at a scholarly audience. His description of his approaches to science is easily comprehensible, relatable, and at times, humorous. He makes it natural for his audience to see what he saw and feel what he felt as if they are there with him.

The problem with nomenclature comes up in the essay as well, but as for the translations, I mainly took into consideration Kenneth G. Libbrecht’s classification of snow crystals that he organized from the International Classification System, Nakaya’s classification, and Magono and Lee’s classification for the matching English names for snow crystal shapes. To better explain the author’s frustration with the proposed nomenclature, I have left the Japanese word for the crystal shape, tsuzumi (鼓), as it is, as I judged it to be a better description of the shape than the English equivalent “capped column”. Tsuzumi is a Japanese hand drum that has a wooden body shaped like an hourglass. To better explain the snow crystal shapes that appear in the essay, I have appended a section at the end of the preface for the readers.

All traditional units of measurements have been converted into the metric system. The traditional Japanese units of measurements used in the original are ri (里), shaku (尺), and sun (寸). The metric system was used in the original for temperature units, so they did not need to be converted. For the American readers who may be more familiar with the US customary system, I have also appended a section at the end of this preface. Additionally, tatami as a unit of measurement for the size of the laboratory was left as it is in the original. Tatami is a mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms. The standard size of a tatami mat in Nagoya is 0.91 meters by 1.82 meters, which, in traditional Japanese length units, is 6 shaku by 3 shaku. Using the standard Nagoya size tatami measurements, the laboratory size (8 tatami mats) would be around 3.64 meters by 3.64 meters (12 shaku by 12 shaku).

As the author frequently switches back and forth between the past tense and the present in the original, I have tried to keep to the original as long as it does not become a hindrance to the readability. The past tense is not restricted to just the sections where the author talks about the past events, and the present tense is not restricted to just the sections with the events going on at the present. Nakaya freely interrupts his past flashbacks or actions with his immediate thoughts and reflections, and I judged them to be natural as the reader follows the author’s train of thought.

Several scientists and organizations are mentioned in this essay, most of whom Nakaya had personal connections with. I have tried to use their official titles most of the time, unless I failed to find the official name. It should be noted that “Mr. Seligman” refers to the founder of the International Glaciological Society and the Journal of Glaciology, Gerald Seligman (March 26, 1886 – February 21, 1973). He was the first president of the Association for the study of Snow and Ice. “Dr. Simpson” refers to the British meteorologist, George Simpson (September 2, 1878 – January 1, 1965), who was the Director of the Meteorological Office in London. “Professor Wegener” refers to the German polar researcher, geophysicist, and meteorologist, Alfred Lothar Wegener (November 1, 1880 – November, 1930).

Some English words are used in the original source. These English words have been italicized. As it was mentioned before, some Japanese words were also italicized, which should be easy to differentiate from the originally English words by context.

Finally, the title, Miscellaneous Notes on Snow, was adopted from an existing translation of the title inside a citation of the original essay in an English article.

l  Table of Lengths

Unit	Shaku	Metric		US
		Exact value	Approximate value	Exact value	Approximate value
sun (寸)	1/10	1/33 m	3.03 cm	1250/37,719 yd	1.193 in
shaku (尺)	1	10/33 m	30.30 cm	12,500/37,719 yd	11.93 in
ri (里)	12,960	129,600/33 m	3.927 km	6,000,000/1397 yd	2.44 mi

l  Types of Snowflakes

Hexagonal plate
Stellar dendrite
Needle
Capped column
Multiply capped column
Cup

l  Tsuzumi

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Miscellaneous Notes on Snow

Ukichirō Nakaya

Nowadays, snow crystals can usually be made artificially in the laboratory, so I am keeping myself amused. Often I am asked what the objective of the research is, so I answer understanding the cause of snow will allow the weather conditions in the upper layer during the wintertime to be understood, which will become important to aviation weather. Then, most people nod their head and are impressed. To tell the truth, however, the most enjoyable part is to make various types of snow crystals as freely as I would like.

It has already been six years, but when I first thought of taking a microphotograph of a snow crystal, I did not even dream that it would be possible to make this beautiful crystal artificially. Just the year before, a book on snow by Bentley in America got published, which became an opportunity for me to think about snow in Japan. While thinking I would not at all be able to take beautiful pictures like Bentley in the beginning, I decided to try anyway. Most importantly, the experiment can only be run in a cold place where the snow would not melt, so I started in the corner of the corridor leading to an annex. Here, steam does not get through, and it gets very cold during winter, so people do not pass by – it is an appropriate place to start with. Carry a small laboratory bench and a microscope there and leave wide open the sliding doors that have not been opened even once the whole winter, and the preparation is done.

In January of Sapporo, the atmospheric temperature is generally about ‑8°C to ‑7°C. When I opened the frozen sliding doors by force, the snow piled up about 60.61 centimeters on the concrete road surface of the corridor spilled over and fell scattered on top of the concrete. I leave outside the glass plate wrapped with paper, take out the part that is completely chilled, catch the falling snow on top of it, and peep through the microscope. It is indeed the shape that I have seen so far from photographs. As a matter of fact, this is the first time that I have looked at real snow through a microscope. From photographs, I could only recognize black and white lines, but observing with my own eyes, I could see exquisite colors resembling crystal handicrafts from light being reflected off of the edges of the delicate figure due to its small, fine raggedness. But complete crystals are rare, and dirty crystals of various shapes are mixed, so it took some effort to isolate them. In the end, I snapped off the head of a matchstick, hung the snow crystal I wanted at the tip of the splintered fiber, and brought it onto a clean glass plate, but it was troublesome as it melted quite easily. As I did various things, however, I realized it was due to the radiant heat and the convection of the heated air from the warmth of the hands, so it was easily solved by putting on gloves. It is a bit interesting to use gloves to block the warmth coming from the hands, but after all, all protective clothing against the cold share the same purpose in the end. The work becomes more troublesome when gloves are put on. As I go on for a while, my body has become thoroughly chilled without me noticing even with many extra overcoats I had put on, and once I become aware and look, my legs are repeatedly tapping on the concrete. I hurriedly flee back into the cozy room and warm myself up by leaning my back on the steam radiator.

I was finally able to take microphotographs by making all this fuss, but when I take out the pictures that I took from those days and look at them now, they are quite poor pictures. Even so, I was very happy when I had them developed and the crystal images came out for the first time, that I went to my coworker friend’s house with the wet dry plate to show them – it was quite a funny story. The first year’s winter went by as I was doing such things, but once I worked on it myself, a sudden attachment to snow emerged, and after that, I started waiting impatiently for winter every year. And I began to look forward to encountering under the microscope the same shapes of snow crystal as the ones seen in the previous year.

During the following winter before New Year break, I came up with something clever. That is, there is a mountain hut halfway up Mount Tokachi built for the forest guard – the plan is to borrow this hut on an outing with everyone, take pictures of crystals on days when it snows, and go skiing on days when the weather is fine since it cannot be helped. It was a big job to carry microscopes, photography tools, and foodstuffs by a horse-drawn sleigh about 19.64 kilometers on the snow-covered road from the station, but the plan succeeded brilliantly. In the space where narrow branches of the old white birch tree covered in frost were interlacing one surface of the sky, there was but a small empty space, and the snow crystals that quietly fell down in that space were of a structure that was extremely delicate and elaborate beyond expectation. The snow that started falling quietly when it became a windless night with the temperature falling to around ‑15°C was especially beautiful. When I go out to the pitch-dark veranda and point the flashlight towards the sky, countless amount of white powder continues to fall down infinitely one after another from the depth of the bottomless, dark sky. They flutter down as they draw spiral shapes of a roughly fixed size. And most of them glitter in the electric light, informing me of the complete development of crystal faces. It is only about 1,100 meters above sea level, but halfway up Mount Tokachi in the backwoods of Hokkaido, far away from human habitation, windless nights are a world of complete silence and darkness. As I demarcate that darkness just above the head by the light from the flashlight and look up at the snow fluttering down inside indefinitely, before long, I start having an illusion that my body is quietly floating up to the sky. It is no wonder that such an illusion would occur since there is nothing visible outside that serves as a reference, but that sensation itself was truly unusual, not like any other experience I had known before.

Inside the mountain hut, there is a big stove in the center, and the old watchman generously burns for us splendid logs that are thicker than 90.91 centimeters one after another. After I warm myself up plenty in there, I put on cold-proof overcoats and take pictures out in the veranda. Microphotograph equipment are left fixed out on the veranda, so during the little while I am resting, several centimeters of snow lighter than the chest hair of a waterfowl are accumulating. Speaking of light, there is probably little that is as light as snow that falls down on Mount Tokachi in midwinter. Measuring the relative density, there are ones smaller than 0.01. It is as if there is nothing but air. Often among the congestion during temple festivals, they sell those things called cotton candy by turning the copper tubs round and round – it feels like that cotton candy. Snow like this flies right off with a quick brush and does not get in the way as I continue working. In this region, the temperature will rarely rise above ‑5°C during the six months of winter. So the normal state of water is solid, and liquid water can only be seen in exceptional cases. Thus, it can be said that my surroundings are entirely buried inside water, yet there is really no worry about getting my possessions wet, so I thought it was funny. Even if I toss the thousand-yen microscope into the open air snow bath and leave it there, there would be no damage as long as I pay some attention to wiping it with a dry cloth. If you cherish it too much and bring it into a warm room and clean it one by one, various malfunctions are more likely to occur due to the sudden temperature change and the snow melting. In such places, there should be some slovenliness; however, one thing to watch out for is spilling water. Liquid water is kind of a dangerous good here, that if you accidentally spill it on the floor of the veranda, it ends up freezing immediately – after that, it becomes dangerous even to walk on.

It should be easy to take good pictures since there is no worry about the crystal melting, but in reality, it did not go so well in the beginning. The most delicate pattern, which is the essential thing, disappearing due to the effect of sublimation while I dawdle, unintentionally blowing on the most precious, unusual crystal…it was not that simple. Nevertheless, as I repeatedly visited Mount Tokachi, twice that year and three times the next year, strangely enough, the snow crystals began to seem bigger and bigger, and I also became capable of tinkering with them freely as if doing glasswork or something. What quite seemed to be like twin crystals, when pulled from both sides, was properly divided into two. I am remembering that there was a passage in Professor Fuyuhiko’s essay meaning that you come to understand various phenomena when it starts seeming like that there is a ravine inside a hill as you peep through a microscope every day at the silk-thread-thin crevice made on the glass surface – it seems quite likely that there is such a thing. In Mount Tokachi, what often fall down are crystal-like snow crystals that are hexagonal prisms, shaped just like a tsuzumi with plate crystals attached on both sides of the base. For such crystals, I want to somehow take a picture of the side by making it stand vertically under the microscope. After various attempts, I found that it is best to use saliva. If I lick the tip of the matchstick and gently poke the glass plate, an extremely small drop of saliva sticks on top of the glass plate. However, saliva seems to have a low freezing point, and for a while, it remains as a miniscule droplet in a liquid state as it is in the state of supercooling. Then, as I break off a matchstick’s head and hang the crystal on it, I make one end of the crystal touch the saliva droplet so that it stands exactly vertical. Then the saliva droplet that was in the supercooling state until now freezes in that moment, and the crystal splendidly sticks on to the glass surface vertically. It was very amusing how things that could not be understood no matter what by looking just at flat surface pictures become almost ridiculously easy to understand by looking at pictures of various crystals taken sideways in this way.

A while after I released many of those pictures, I got a letter from a dignified title called the President of the International Glaciological Society, British Branch – Mr. Seligman. In dreadfully polite words, it is written, “Among the snow crystal pictures visible from your photography, large number of pictures taken sideways seen. If not a hindrance, would like disclosure in what way the snow crystals have been made to stand vertically.” So I promptly wrote a reply and sent it out: “For that, use of matchstick and saliva being optimum is the knowing.” The reply came without delay, but the content was once again stately. It was “For bestowing your preeminent instruction regarding photography of snow crystals, utmost gratitude in all sincerity.” I do not know at all whether they are being quite serious or jesting, but when I saw this reply, I unintentionally burst out laughing.

Speaking of Mr. Seligman, I was badly tortured after that. That is, he says let’s call snow crystals simple snow flake, large snowflakes compound snow flake, and put aside the term snow crystal for granular snow. Since I do not care for that, I left separated crystals as snow crystal, snowflakes with many crystals gathered such as large snowflakes as snow flake. However, he actively solicited for using his nomenclature, saying he wants to keep the naming consistent around the world. Although I agree with that as well, among snow crystals, there are tsuzumi-shaped capped columns or needle-shaped crystals. I could not help but think that calling capped columns and needles flake would be a bit strange, so I told him my reason. However, it is a disaster. In return came about five typewriter-pages worth of writing about the origin of his nomenclature in detail. When I manage to write a refutation with difficulty, it is another letter of about five pages. In some dictionary the meaning of flake is put like this. It said what kinds of meanings were used around what centuries, so I got fed up with it. It is a matter of chatting nonstop using a secretary and a typist for the other party while it takes me all day to write one letter, so I gave up, being no match. I thereupon simply gave in, saying “You are more accurate than I am when it comes to English and I also agree on the issue of keeping the nomenclature consistent, so hereafter let’s use your nomenclature.”

Recently, however, unexpected allies appeared. Moreover, they are very influential allies. The source of the incident was Mr. Seligman taking a great affection to my research on snow and writing a detailed introduction in a magazine called Nature. The word crystal, however, was all fixed to flake in it. As I had given in once about this issue, I thought whatever is fine, but the Director of the Meteorological Office in the UK, Dr. Simpson, who read it sent a line to the same magazine’s contribution column quickly, saying that ‘Nakaya’s nomenclature of snow is more proper, in the Oxford Dictionary, it is said that flake is…’ and thoroughly criticizing Mr. Seligman’s nomenclature in this way. Nature, when they have this kind of contributed article, has a custom of sending a copy to the other person in question and requesting an answer to publish at the same time. Mr. Seligman’s answer is that ‘I do not think my nomenclature is the best, but it cannot be helped since there are no other better terms – and the word flake is not too bad, according to the Webster Dictionary…’ and so on. Continuing to read while thinking ‘I myself have also seen Oxford, Webster, etc.’, I found myself wryly smiling at the last line written: “Besides, Nakaya also agrees with my nomenclature recently.” It is like when powerful supporters came, the main unit had already been flatly annihilated before that. Whatever the situation is, one should think more before giving up too fast. Most importantly, it is a given that I would be receiving another rapid-fire bullets of five typewriter-pages if I bring this back up again, so for the time being, it seems a better idea to secretly hide in the low temperature laboratory and come up with a scheme to make artificial snow that is about the size of the palm or something.

Memories of Mount Tokachi are all so dear. Even now, I recall time to time that there are probably few things as beautiful as cloudless, snowy mornings deep in the winter mountain. The reason I say this is because after that, there were my health problems and such, and Mount Tokachi trips naturally came to a halt. Although it is only about three years since I stopped, for some reason, I cannot help but feel like it was a long time ago. There are times when I feel that I will not have the vitality and stamina to stand exposed to the wind in ‑15°C and work straight for several hours once more, and I indulge in forlorn thoughts.

Research naturally went towards work done inside the laboratory, because I reached the state where outdoor work became forbidden. The subject is creating artificial snow crystals in the low temperature laboratory. The Low Temperature Science Laboratory was built just two years ago at the university I am at so that the temperature of the whole room of approximately eight tatami mats in size can be lowered to about ‑50°C throughout the year. The plan is to create artificial snow in this laboratory, but it goes without saying that in order to conduct experiments inside, you have to wear cold weather gear from head to toe. The work does not progress as well as you would like when you try to conduct an elaborate physics experiment in garments that would be worn by the sentry standing out in the intense cold fields of North Manchuria. I thought at first that there would be no harm to the body with this much preparation against the cold, but after a short while, I realized that this work is not so great for my health either. We rarely bring the temperature down to ‑50°C, so I usually work with the temperature around ‑30°C; still, the temperature difference between the laboratory and the outside world during the summer is about fifty degrees. This means that every time I go in and out of the laboratory, I will encounter abrupt changes in temperature of fifty degrees, and that, apparently, will not do. So these days, I have entrusted the experiment entirely to the lively students, but even so, when I reflect on the white artificial snow crystals, glittering at the ends of the rabbit hair inside the dark low temperature laboratory, there are times when I am enwrapped with the urge to go look at them.

Although I say “create snow artificially,” it is not the case that I particularly had a novel breakthrough. I have tried various things, but in the end, it was most clever to imitate nature altogether as it is. I mulled over how the wisdom of human beings is still quite useless when it comes down to these kinds of subjects. To imitate nature is to ultimately send warm water vapor to the cold sky via convection for it to solidify. All that we needed an apparatus for was to generate convection well and enable it to be controlled. The only thing is that in the natural case, the extent of development is dependent upon the several hours it takes to fall down, so there is a need to keep the crystals suspended in midair for that much time. Since that is a bit difficult to do inside the low temperature laboratory, for now, the crystals were attached to thin rabbit hairs to develop. The crystals form, just as it hangs on rabbit hair. Something like snow crystals hung on rabbit hair may seem a bit like bogus, but, well, for the time being, there is no choice but to put up with it. Anyway, then as you change the atmospheric temperature and the amount/temperature of the water vapor in various ways, crystals form in all different shapes. It seemed almost ridiculous how very simply I was able to make the most unusual shapes of crystals that I thought was impossible to make, such as the multiply capped columns or the pyramid. When Professor Wegener spent a winter in Greenland, he found a crystal shaped like a glass tumbler at the bottom of the crevice in the iceberg that covers that whole island. In addition, the cup had a part of the upper wall opened like the shape of a folding screen, so when you look at it from above, it made you think that you were being swallowed up in a hexagonal spiral shape. In other words, it is a shape of a cup that will spill the water when you pour water in it. It is a crystal of such a mysterious shape, that it was good that Professor Wegener took a picture - if it was just a sketch, you would not believe it. I was somewhat astonished to see that this crystal can still be made without difficulty. I thought of bringing down atmospheric temperature much lower to simulate Greenland, lowering the temperature of the water vapor and reducing the supply level to simulate the inside of the crevice in the iceberg, and lastly, keeping the changes in the conditions to a minimum to simulate the bottom of the crevice – it is a wonder how a cup shaped like a folding screen can properly be made when you try it just like this. Anyone would be fascinated by this. Young, energetic student legions are excessively amused with the study and come at me in succession with various crystals they have made, so the reports pile up on my desk in the blink of an eye. Now that it has become too unbearable, I tried calling for a ceasefire, but they would not slacken off even for a moment. As I let out a sigh of relief as everyone graduates and leaves sooner or later after making about a total of thousand sheets of photographs and reports that would measure to be about 45.45 centimeters tall when you stack all of them together, it turns out that the new third-year students also have to start their research experiments. If I am made to work in this manner for my whole life, research is also a tough business where one does not get one’s dues. It is quite troublesome, because I am at a point where I cannot stop being interested. To tell the truth, it is a little bit misleading to say that all types of snow crystals can be made by changing the atmospheric temperature and the amount of water vapor – it seems that the work of nature is not that simple. It is not that the previous conclusion is a lie – as a matter of fact, almost all types of snow crystals are among the 1,000 photographs taken so far of artificial snow. But it is not yet a science. What I mean is that it would be a bit tricky if someone inversely pointed to a certain crystal and asked me to make that one right now. Three or four times out of five, it can be done, but there are times when it goes wrong somewhere and you just cannot quite get the crystal shape in mind. Then it becomes somewhat difficult – in short, it means that there are still many hidden conditions among the conditions that determine the type of crystal. Conditions simply expressed by numerical values, such as the atmospheric temperature or the amount of water vapor, are rarely overlooked, because they are easy to understand, but there are times when conditions not easily represented as a single numerical value play an important role. Among them, what I first noticed in this case is the consistent uniformity of the conditions. The atmospheric temperature measured by the thermometer may say, for example, ‑20°C, but if you think of it in spatial terms, this measurement only refers to the average temperature of the space surrounding the mercury ball at any rate. Also, if you think of it in terms of time, the temperature at any certain moment is the average temperature during the short time before and after. When it comes down to problems such as mixing of warm water vapor and cold air, however, there should be a severe deviation in terms of both time and space when you become extremely attentive. Despite this, when you generally measure with a thermometer, such things do not appear, and the column of mercury is only indicative of the average value. And in many cases, it does its job without such a deviation becoming a big problem, but dealing with something small like a snow crystal, the deviation can start to show its impact very well.

After realizing this, I became unable to put out numbers for the atmospheric temperature and the water temperature and get them over with as I have done up to now. Even if the thermometer indicates the same ‑20°C, there is a great difference between the atmospheric temperature actually being ‑20°C and the average value coming out to be ‑20°C as the temperature fluctuates violently around ‑20°C. So it became necessary to see whether the distinction would appear in the shape of the snow crystals. The fastest way to do this is to try making snow while respectively keeping the atmospheric temperature and the water vapor temperature strictly constant. So I brought a wooden box installed with an automatic constant temperature device into the low temperature laboratory, kept the internal temperature constant so that it would not change more than two tenths of a degree at once, and stored the artificial snow making device inside. The temperature of the water tank for supplying water vapor was maintained constant at a precision of less than one tenth of a degree at any moment by using a constant temperature device as well. I just completed an attempt at making snow in this way, and the shapes of the crystals came out completely changed. It was truly surprising as a big, impressive hexagonal plate was formed this time in the conditions which stellar dendrites previously formed and such. It has not even been that long since I started, but there was a time when a hexagonal plate of the size of a human nail was formed. With this kind of momentum, you could no longer say that talking about making a snow crystal as big as the palm of one’s hand is nothing but a dream.

Incidentally, when the deviations of the conditions turned out to seriously affect the crystal shape formation like this, it became absolutely necessary make a thermocouple with a hair-like wire to record the atmospheric temperature change just before crystallization. Actually, I did already realize that it is necessary to bring midget machines into a midget island, but I have been trying to dodge the issue because it was bothersome – and I have been caught in the end. Trying to suddenly use this midget island’s machine in the low temperature laboratory does not go so well. More so than anything else, I am very much spared by the ceasefire state in the meantime. But what a pain it will be for the people who do it.

It is fine that we discovered things to do with the conditions that form the crystals for the time being, but at the same time, it is necessary to observe the crystal itself better. Things like the microstructure inside the crystal and what in the world are the thin stripes visible in the hexagonal plates are still unclear. It is a very bizarre story that we do not yet understand the real form of these patterns that appear so beautifully in more than 10,000 photographs of snow taken so far from all over the world, but the truth is that we still do not know well. It is because there have only been photographs taken from the top view so far. I considered dying the snow or reinforcing it with oil to study this microstructure and tried a little, but it did not go well. That is why I decided to tackle the problem in a very direct way. That is to cut the snow crystal in two where the pattern in question is and observe the slit with a high magnification microscope. I talk about cutting the snow crystal, but without any other idea at the moment, it ended up being that we will try cutting one with a blade of a safety razor. One of our young colleagues has taken over this role and every day in the corner of the low temperature laboratory since this summer, takes the artificial snow someone makes from the side and cuts it one after another. As I judged from the beginning, it is not something that should be possible. And in fact, it has been three months, but we still could not cut it. Even if we discuss about what we should do, nothing comes to mind except to reply vaguely that there is no choice but to cut it every day believing that it will be cut before long. It is really some undependable words.

Strangely, however, it became possible to make a splendid straight cut recently. It is not that there is an improvement in the method somewhere, and we are still cutting with safety razor blades in hand, but as long as it gets cut, I will not pry into such things. By the way, although this kind of research is nice and all, I have nothing to say if someone tells me it is a little worrisome that cutting snow is all that you teach at the university. That is why I want to cut it quickly and survey the slits with various precision instruments, but I was troubled because it was not easily getting cut. I feel a little relieved that it has now been cut, and there seems to be no need for me to receive such a scolding. Above all, if I take the liberty of making some grandiose statements, of course it is important to teach how to handle precision instruments, but surely it would also not be useless to have an experience that most things, even if it looks impossible at first, are usually possible if you go on believing that it definitely is possible.

Even though I go through harsh struggles in the cold and research something like snow, the truth is that I myself am unsure where it would be useful for something yet if asked. But I think it is extremely fascinating. Since there are so many things that are not even interesting in the world, I am consoling myself that it is okay to have at least one research like this one.

December 1st, 1937

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졸업 전 번역 수업의 마지막 과제로 번역해보았던 나카야 우키치로의 과학 에세이 '눈꽃/설잡기 (雪雑記)'. 영어번역을 한 차례 수정 후 한글로 번역을 해 볼 생각이다. 교수에게 제출한 위의 영어번역은 기말프로젝트에 치여서 밤을 새고 몽롱한 정신으로 끝낸 결과물이라 군데군데 번역을 제대로 했는지 확인할 수도 없었던지라;; 나카야 우키치로의 글이 의외로 읽기 쉽고 유머러스하다는 것에 놀랐다. 사실 과학을 좋아하는 편은 아니라 기말과제로 번역할 글을 정하기 전에는 나카야 우키치로가 누구인지, 과학 에세이가 무슨 장르인지 전혀 감도 안 잡혔다. (번역을 끝내고 난 지금도 사실 과학 에세이가 뭔지는 잘 모르겠다. 읽어본 게 이게 전부라.) 하지만 다른 수업 프로젝트하랴, 발표 준비하랴, 시간에 치이면서도 재미있게 읽으며 번역했던 기억 때문에 다른 누군가도 (동생이라든지) 서툴지만 내 번역으로 이 글을 읽어보았으면 했다. 이 글을 올리는 것도 수정본을 향한 내 자신의 다짐일지도.