ATOMIC PHYSICS.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Genshi sugoroku: Yukawa Hakushi Noberu-sho jusho kinen ("The Atomic Board Game: In Celebration of Professor Yukawa Winning the Nobel Prize"). An educational board game, similar to snakes and ladders, teaching the history of atomic physics. Four characters, named "Proton", "Neutron", "Electron", and "Meson", accompany the players from the discovery of the X-ray to the Bikini Atoll nuclear bomb tests. It was released to celebrate Yukawa Hideki winning the Nobel Prize, the first Japanese person to do so.Sugoroku board games were produced in Japan since the early modern period and were often used as educational tools for young children. This example is focused on nuclear physics, using bright colours and cartoon illustrations to explain complex concepts. The players start at the discovery of the X-ray, move to Marie Curie's radium experiments (one of the characters states "I suppose Marie Curie is like a mother to us"), learn about the invention of Wilson's cloud chamber, before being introduced to man-made radiation, the splitting of the atom, the invention of the cyclotron, and the idea of a nuclear chain reaction. The centre of the board advocates for nuclear energy being used for good, with the slogan "No more Hiroshimas!".Yukawa Hideki (1907-1987) received the Nobel Prize in 1949 for predicting the existence of mesons carrying the strong nuclear force.

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