astronomy

Shinobu Ishihara

Shinobu Ishihara is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Shinobu Ishihara rather than just read about it. In short: Shinobu Ishihara (石原忍, Ishihara Shinobu; September 25, 1879 – January 3, 1963) was a Japanese ophthalmologist who created the Ishihara color test to detect colour blindness. He was an army surgeon.

Key takeaways

Shinobu Ishihara belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Shinobu Ishihara to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Shinobu Ishihara from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Shinobu Ishihara (石原忍, Ishihara Shinobu; September 25, 1879 – January 3, 1963) was a Japanese ophthalmologist who created the Ishihara color test to detect colour blindness. He was an army surgeon.

Early life and career Ishihara graduated from medicine in 1905 on a military scholarship and immediately joined the Imperial Japanese Army as a doctor, serving mainly as a surgeon. He later changed specialties to ophthalmology. In 1908 he returned to the University of Tokyo where he dedicated himself to ophthalmic research. In 1910 he became an instructor at the Army Medical College. There, in addition to seeing patients, he conducted research on "battlefield ophthalmology" and how to select superior soldiers. While working at the Military Medical School he was asked to devise a test to screen military recruits for abnormalities of color vision. His assistant was a color blind physician who helped him test the plates. The first charts were hand painted by Ishihara in watercolor and depicted hiragana characters.

Ishihara color vision test

The name Ishihara is known worldwide because of the color vision test he published in 1917, where a subject is shown a coloured pattern and asked what numerals they see there. Subjects with different forms of color blindness give different answers to those without. Ishihara also developed a Japanese visual acuity chart and an apparatus for determining the near point, both currently in wide use in Japan. He also made significant contributions to the study of trachoma and myopia. In 1908, Ishihara entered the postgraduate course in ophthalmology at the Imperial University of Tokyo, studying under Jujiro Komoto. Subsequently, he studied in Germany under Professors Wolfgang Stock, Theodor Axenfeld and Carl von Hess. Ishihara was appointed the professor and chairman, to succeed Komoto, at the Ophthalmology Department of the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1922 and served until March 1940.

Personal life Ishihara led a very modest life, with no interest in material possessions. He was greatly revered by his students who, after his retirement, built a cottage for him near a hot spring on the Izu Peninsula. There he served as a country doctor, conducting clinics for his neighbors, asking no payment. As was the custom in those days, patients left tokens of their gratitude in home-grown produce and small sums of money. After covering his expenses, Ishihara returned all remaining money to the villagers. These funds were used to build a library and a study room for the village children.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Shinobu Ishihara

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Shinobu Ishihara claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Shinobu Ishihara before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Shinobu Ishihara ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Shinobu Ishihara

In research: Shinobu Ishihara appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Shinobu Ishihara in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Shinobu Ishihara is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1879 births, 1963 deaths, Academic staff of the University of Tokyo, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Shinobu Ishihara outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Shinobu Ishihara in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Shinobu Ishihara means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Shinobu Ishihara out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Shinobu Ishihara in simple terms?

Why does Shinobu Ishihara matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Shinobu Ishihara?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Shinobu Ishihara.