[No. 138] Shin Nakamura

I am currently a professor at the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Chuo University, where I conduct research in theoretical physics. The path to get here was not a simple one, but I have come to realize that experiences that once seemed pointless can later prove to be unexpectedly useful. I would like to briefly introduce the path I have taken so far.

I was quite a unique child. My daily routine was to collect Jomon-period pottery from a nearby field and shell fossils from a local fault line, conducting my own independent research. I also decided to dress lightly, and I was so committed that I spent my elementary school years in a tank top and shorts, even in the dead of winter. From the upper grades of elementary school, I became absorbed in electronics projects like building radios, and it was around this time that I began to want to become a physicist. I started playing baseball in my second year of junior high to overcome my weakness in it and continued after entering high school. My high school had just competed in the Koshien tournament four years earlier. Through practice under the scorching midsummer sun and an 18-kilometer marathon in the winter, I certainly developed a lot of grit. I believe the athletic spirit and perseverance I cultivated during my three years of high school have been a great help in my life since.

At the Keio University Faculty of Science and Technology, I was a member of both the hardball baseball team and the mountaineering club of the Athletic Association. I even managed to improve enough at baseball, which I was not good at, to be able to play in games. In the mountaineering club, I also did rock climbing and winter mountaineering, traveling to remote areas of Japan such as the Northern Alps, Mount Zao in winter, and the Shiretoko Peninsula in Hokkaido. I advanced to the Department of Physics, and for my graduation research, I conducted a Monte Carlo simulation on alloy growth under the guidance of Professor Yukio Saito in the theoretical research lab.

For graduate school, I went to Kyoto University and joined an experimental nuclear physics laboratory. I engaged in research different from my undergraduate days, including experiments at CERN (an accelerator facility near Geneva). I continued mountaineering after graduation, and in June of my first year as a master's student, I had the opportunity to summit Mount McKinley (6,194 m) in Alaska. This was part of a project to install meteorological observation equipment to investigate the cause of the accident that befell Naomi Uemura and others on McKinley, and I was also involved in building the observation system. I remember borrowing a small factory in Nakameguro and shaping aluminum plates late into the night. In June of my first year in the doctoral program, another chance to go to McKinley arose. This time, I was the expedition leader. We were plagued by bad weather, but everyone managed to reach the summit. The experience of this success has been a major driving force in my life ever since. For this series of activities, I received the Yagami Prize from the Faculty of Science and Technology Alumni Association. After that, my mountaineering activities escalated further, with challenges like the north face of the Grandes Jorasses, a solo ascent of Mont Blanc, and, in Japan, winter climbs in the Kurobe Gorge and on the rock faces around Mount Tsurugi. Perhaps unable to watch this continue, in the winter of my second year in the doctoral program, I was effectively dismissed by my research supervisor.

This turned out to be a great opportunity for me. I was 27 at the time, and it gave me a chance to reconsider what I truly wanted to do. Did I want to master physics, or did I want to pursue mountaineering? As a result, I began to hope to start studying particle theory in the theory division at KEK (High Energy Accelerator Research Organization). However, I was also hesitant and ended up joining the Kyoto University Alpine Club's expedition to Meili Xue Shan (6,740 m, the highest peak in Yunnan, China, and unclimbed).

After returning from the expedition, I interviewed for the theory division at KEK (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI). Contrary to my expectation that I had no chance of passing under such circumstances, I was accepted. I was already 28 years old. I made a fresh start, re-enrolling as a first-year doctoral student to begin my study of theoretical physics. It was effectively a start from scratch, at the level of a first-year master's student.

In theoretical physics, I majored in superstring theory under Professor Hikaru Kawai, a leading figure in the field. Later, when Professor Kawai was appointed as a professor at Kyoto University, I also moved to the particle theory laboratory at Kyoto University. In this way, I obtained my doctorate four years after switching to theory. After obtaining my doctorate, I worked as a researcher at the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, KEK, RIKEN, and Kyoto University, and also spent a total of five years as a research fellow abroad at institutions like the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark and research centers in South Korea. After that, I served as a Designated Associate Professor at Nagoya University before becoming a professor at the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Chuo University in 2014, where I research particle theory.

As you can see, my path to becoming a theoretical physicist was by no means a straight one, but I feel that I have always lived my life by being completely absorbed in something, always finding something to be passionate about at any given time. My current "passion" is research, but I feel that in my work of running a laboratory and bringing people together, all of my seemingly unrelated past experiences have become a source of strength. To everyone reading this article, especially university students, I hope you will immerse yourselves in experiences you can only have now and accumulate valuable knowledge.