[No. 51] Hiroyuki Torikai

I was enrolled at Keio University for a total of 12 years: four as an undergraduate, two in the master's program, and six in the Doctoral Programs. My entire twenties were spent as a Keio University student. I am deeply honored to have this opportunity to share my thoughts in such a forum, especially as a student who was not the most outstanding. My experiences during my time at Keio have had a profound impact on my life today. I will write below as I recall those days.

Upon entering Keio University, I decided to take up a sport I had never tried before and joined the Athletic Association Equestrian Club. Since the equestrian club involves living creatures, we had club activities almost every day, including weekends. The only day off for the horses was Tuesday, but I had experimental classes in the Faculty of Science and Technology on that day, so I couldn't rest. I remember going to the university all year round. Unfortunately, due to my lack of perseverance, I left the equestrian club in the winter of my second year without any significant achievements.

At that time, Mr. Hiroaki Matsunaga, who ran the Asagiri Riding Farm in Shizuoka Prefecture where the equestrian club held its summer training camp, told me, "Once you run away from a difficult situation, you develop a habit of running away. You must remember that you might run away again the next time you face a difficult situation." At the time, I didn't readily accept his words. But later, whenever I hit a wall in my research or in various other things, I would remember his words. I resolved that having run away once before, I had no escape route left, and I just kept moving forward without giving up. The result of that is who I am today. I feel that the encounters I had in the Keio University Equestrian Club were crucial in shaping my way of life.

After leaving the club, I started attending university more seriously. In the second semester of my third year, I took a creative seminar class taught by Professor Masahiko Mizomoto, to whose lab I would later be assigned. In this class, each student was given a certain budget and was free to create something and write a report on it. Just around that time, in a thermodynamics lecture by Professor Haruki Sato that I was taking, it was mentioned that it was possible to build a Stirling engine using a glass syringe. Hearing this, I decided to build a Stirling engine for the creative seminar. I started the project with three other students who agreed with my idea.

We gathered at the university outside of class hours, discussed, and attempted to build a model of the engine. However, lacking both wisdom and knowledge, we couldn't get it to work at all. So, we went to ask Professor Sato for help, and he introduced us to Professor Shoichi Iwamoto, saying, "There's a lab at Saitama University that builds Stirling engine models, so you should ask them." When we contacted Professor Iwamoto, he invited us to come to Saitama University and build a Stirling engine if we were interested. We eagerly accepted, and with the permission of our professors at Keio, we began commuting to Saitama University while still being Keio students. The engine construction at Saitama University was successfully completed thanks to the careful guidance and cooperation of the professors and students in the lab. I remember returning to Keio, overjoyed, with our self-made engine spinning vigorously in hand. It was then that I truly felt the fun of making things and acquired machining skills using lathes and milling machines. These skills are still very useful today in building experimental equipment for my research.

The Stirling engine we built

From the spring of my fourth year, I was assigned to the Mizomoto-Ueda Laboratory and began the combustion research that I continue to this day. Since I was in the lab for nine years, I have a few seniors and a great many juniors. While I couldn't become friends with everyone, I spent long hours tirelessly and seriously discussing a wide range of topics with many people: research, the future, society, ideologies, hobbies, and even trivial gossip from talk shows and life itself.

Perhaps as expected of Keio, there were many knowledgeable people, and my ability for debate, or rather, verbal sparring, improved dramatically during my time in the lab. Through this process, I made friends with whom I still keep in touch even after graduating. It's a truly fond memory to have participated in the Faculty of Science and Technology's sports day with them and to have worked together to win the dodgeball tournament. Furthermore, it was extremely beneficial for honing my own abilities that many of my lab mates, who shared the value of approaching research with sincerity, went on to the Doctoral Programs and we walked the path of researchers together.

After leaving Keio University, I had more opportunities to learn about other universities. Through this, I came to understand that a culture of accepting diversity and respecting freedom and equality in education and research exists at Keio University. Of course, other universities also have their own excellent academic climates. However, I feel that the academic culture at Keio University, which is largely free from the atmosphere of conducting research under a strong hierarchy with professors at the top, is very unique. I was also impressed to learn that the university is sincere about academics and that the examinations for graduation theses, master's theses, and doctoral dissertations are conducted more carefully and rigorously compared to others. In this way, it was only after leaving my alma mater that I came to know the charm of the university I had attended for 12 years.

The origin of this school culture that accepts diversity and values equality is, I believe, the philosophy of its founder, Yukichi Fukuzawa. It is a university culture that has been cultivated over a long period, starting from that point. Because it is a research and educational institution based on a strong philosophy, I feel that Keio University has formed a university culture that is different from other universities, especially national ones. And I suppose that many of the alumni who value this Keio culture want their own children to enroll at Keio as well.

I believe that the culture of Keio University, which originated from its principles, has a unique value that cannot be ranked by numbers such as the number of journal publications, the amount of research funding acquired, or entrance exam scores, which are often highlighted these days. I consider myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn and grow in such an environment.

Currently, I also feel happy to be able to conduct research and education at Hirosaki University, where there are many wonderful professors and excellent students who, while not as boisterous as Keio students, have the perseverance to come to school and study hard in the falling snow.

Finally, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude here to Professor Masahiko Mizomoto, Professor Toshihisa Ueda, and Associate Professor Akiko Matsuo for their guidance during my student days. I am also indebted to Associate Professor Naochika Tokuoka for his various pieces of advice during my time as a student. I also extend my deep appreciation to my lab mates with whom I studied.