Vol.2 No.1 2009

78/88

Round-table talk : One-year anniversary of Synthesiology−75−Synthesiology - English edition Vol.2 No.1 (2009) is the means to motivate the reader. By presenting the logical correctness of the synthesis procedure, readers may be moved to try it for themselves.Synthesis can be written up as a scientific paper(Yoshikawa)Logic that moves people is a fascinating subject. Reflecting upon historical precedent, synthesis is more old than new. It was in the 1960s that I transferred from a research institute to a university, where I was initially engaged in the teaching of design. At the time, I was surprised at the poor situation in the teaching of design. Although the university claimed, “Design was the most important component in the curriculum, and it formed the core of the engineering department,” the jist of the course involved simply bringing in things designed by companies and copying them. The act of manufacturing is concentrated in the development of the product, but the professors could not teach anything about that. That was my starting point. Although the words “analysis” and “synthesis” existed then, I started developing my design course by thinking about how I could teach the process of synthesis. Because I took upon the study of design as a theme I became isolated in academic society and couldn’t get my papers accepted for five years. I maintained my interest in synthesis, and worked hard on devising a way to write a paper on the study of design.When I first presented my studies on design at an international conference in 1985, I found that it was well accepted, unlike the situation in Japan. An academic society of dedicated to the study of design was subsequently started, and it became clear that synthesis was not compatible with the conventional style of writing papers.Of course, companies are engaged in synthesis, but the process and results are not published as documents. I said, “The results of the intellectual activities carried out in companies may remain in the form of products, but the processes leading to their development are ‘scattered like clouds and have disappeared like mist,’ and will not be handed down to the next generation. This is a great loss to humankind.” When I came to AIST, I found that there were people working on this issue! That was a great surprise and made a deep impression on me. I can write papers on synthesis here. On the other hand, I realized that I couldn’t do it alone, and it must be a collaborative effort. In the first year I came to, AIST, I became convinced that synthesis could be developed into a scientific papers through decisive action.One year later, I invented the word “Full Research.” The composition of the research units was indeed Full Research. Looking back, it was one of the actions that paved the way to Synthesiology.“Place” to logically express the passion of researchers(Ono)What are your impressions of reading the Synthesiology papers?(Yabe)In Synthesiology, we ask the authors, “Please emphasize why your research went well. That is the point that appeals to people, and leads to a common methodology.” The authors understood this point and wrote appropriately. For example, they decided to write about meetings with people because discussions with certain people can lead to an innovation. Inclusion of such details helps to systematize the ways to overcome the valley of death. It is wonderful that the authors can write enthusiastically with our encouragement.(Ono)As Dr. Akamatsu says, logic is important and one should write as logically as possible. However, as Dr. Yabe says, there are challenging aspects, and some aspects slightly differ fron logic. I call it “passion.” I think conventional scientific research only partially represents the intellectural activities of researchers. We engage in our research with “will,” “intent,” “passion,” and “hope,” but we remove all of these aspects from our research papers. I wanted to create a forum in which researchers are able to express and communicate the “whole picture” of their intellectual activities.(Akamatsu)I don’t think passion is necessarily removed from logic. Rather, the fun in the papers of Synthesiology is the fun of reading a story of how the logic is set up toward a certain goal, and I think that is the “importance of writing.”(Yoshikawa)Even the analytical papers are not entirely composed of logic. Sir Isaac Newton described the three laws - uniform motion, acceleration, and action-reaction - in the first three pages of Principia, but it doesn’t contain the description of how Newton arrived at the three laws. This is synthesis itself. One sets up a hypothesis, calls the hypothesis an axiom, Dr. Hiroyuki Yoshikawa

※このページを正しく表示するにはFlashPlayer9以上が必要です