Akira Haraguchi (原口 證, Haraguchi Akira; born 1946, Miyagi Prefecture) is a retired Japanese engineer known for…Akira Haraguchi (原口 證, Haraguchi Akira; born 1946, Miyagi Prefecture) is a retired Japanese engineer known for memorizing and reciting digits of pi. He is known to have recited more than 80,000 decimal places of pi in 12 hours.
Yanosuke Hirai (平井 弥之助, Hirai Yanosuke; May 16, 1902 – February 21, 1986) was a Japanese civil engineer and corporate…Yanosuke Hirai (平井 弥之助, Hirai Yanosuke; May 16, 1902 – February 21, 1986) was a Japanese civil engineer and corporate executive in the electric power industry. He developed electric power generation in the Tohoku region during the Shōwa era with unusual foresight and a deep sense of responsibility. 25 years after his death, Hirai’s foresight protected lives and environment from the March 11, 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. The Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant (Miyagi Prefecture), designed and built under his watch, was the sole plant in the region that fully resisted the disaster of March 11, 2011: all of its three reactors successfully withstood the seismic event and subsequent tsunami, shutting down safely as designed and virtually without any incident. The site of the plant even ended up providing a refuge for three months to more than 300 neighboring people who had lost their homes.
Takuji Iwasaki (岩崎 卓爾, Iwasaki Takuji; November 17, 1869 – May 2, 1937) was a Japanese meteorologist, biologist…Takuji Iwasaki (岩崎 卓爾, Iwasaki Takuji; November 17, 1869 – May 2, 1937) was a Japanese meteorologist, biologist, ethnologist historian. He was a meteorologist at the Ishigaki Weather Station, Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture. Initially, when weather forecasting was in its infancy, he had been badly criticized by local people when his forecast of a typhoon was incorrect. Nevertheless, his work as a meteorologist was better understood by locals later in his career, which endeared him to people.
