"The universal meaning of the quantum of action", by Jun Ishiwara

TL;DR

This paper discusses Jun Ishiwara's 1915 work on the universal significance of the quantum of action, highlighting his early proposal of phase-space-integral quantization alongside other pioneering physicists.

Contribution

It presents a translated and commented version of Ishiwara's original paper, emphasizing his independent development of phase-space quantization in early quantum theory.

Findings

Introduced phase-space-integral quantization rule

Aligned with contemporaries Sommerfeld, Wilson, and Bohr

Contributed to the foundation of old quantum mechanics

Abstract

Commented translation of the paper "Universelle Bedeutung des Wirkungsquantums", published by Jun Ishiwara in German in the Proceedings of Tokyo Mathematico-Physical Society 8 106-116 (1915). In his work, Ishiwara, tenured at Sendai University, Japan, proposed - simultaneously with Arnold Sommerfeld, William Wilson and Niels Bohr in Europe - the pase-space-integral quantization, a rule that would be incorporated into the old-quantum-mechanics formalism.