Biographical Sketch of DR.OKA Kiyoshi

1901 OKA Kiyoshi was born in Osaka city on April 19, his father was Kanji and mother Yae. His family had been influential in Kimi village (Hashimoto city at present), Wakayama Prefecture.

1904 He went back to Kimi village because his father Kanji went to the front. He passed much time with his grandfather Bun-ichiro.

1907 He entered Hashiramoto primary school. He changed to Kan-nan primary school in the second grade and changed to Hashiramoto again in the fifth grade. He was fond of collecting insects, and it gave him a great pleasure to find a rare one.

1913 He failed the entrance examination of a junior high school and went on to the upper primary school. In those days he read a lot of books.

1914 He entered Kokawa junior high school. Then he read Clifford's book, Common Sence of the Exact Science. This was his first experience to the deep mysteries of mathematics.
His grandfather Bun-ichiro died.

1919 He entered Kyoto Emperial University. He began to be interested in discoveries in mathematics when he read Poincaré book, Science et Méthode.

1922 He went on to the Department of Physics. The next year he changed to the Department of Mathematics.

1925 He graduated and was appointed lecturer of the university. In those days Hideki YUKAWA(Physicist), Shin-ichiro TOMONAGA(Physicist) and Akira KOBORI(Mathematician, theory of functions) were in the university as students.
He married KOYAMA Michi.
He began to study iterations of functions since he read Julia's papers, and he made several discoveries about them.

1929 He went to France. He visited frequently the library of Paris University and he decided to study the theory of analytic functions of several variables as the theme of his research. He discovered two mathematical results in France.

1932 In March he transferred to Hiroshima University. In May he came back to Japan.

1933 He wrote his results in France in a paper over 100 pages, which was not published. In the next year he published only the summary of this paper.

1935 He read Behnke and Thullen's book, Theorie der Funktionen mehrerer komplexen Veränderlichen. In this book they precisely described the progress of the field. He understood the importance of three unsolved problems mentioned there, and in January he began to study them. He discovered the first key Lifting Principle on August 29.

1936 In May he published the first paper
Domaines convexes par rapport aux fonctions rationnelles.
In December he published the second paper
Domaines d'holomorphie.
In these papers he solved the Cousin I problems and the development problems in the domain of holomorphy.

1938 In January he published the third paper
Deuxième problème de Cousin.
In this paper he treated Cousin II problem.
He went back to Kimi village bacause of a disease.

1939 His father Kanji died.

1940 He published the fourth and the fifth paper
Domaines d'holomorphie et domaines rationnellement convexes,
L'intègrale de Cauchy,
which had been already completed in 1937.
He presented his results, from first to fifth paper, and he was granted the doctor's degree of Science in October.

1941 In October he published the sixth paper
Domaines pseudoconvexes.
In this paper he solved the inverse problem of Hartogs.

1942 He devoted himself to study in Kimi village during the shortage of World War II. He continued his research with the aid of Huju-kai and he published his results in the research reports of Huju-kai, which is contained in the collections of posthumous works.

1948 He asked Yukawa to hand his seventh paper
Sur quelques notions arithmètiques
to Cartan, on his way to be awarded the Nobel prize. The paper was published in Bulletin de la Societe Mathematique de France in 1950. In this paper he established the theory of the ideal of indeterminate domains.

1949 He was appointed as a professor of Nara Women's University.

1951 He published the eighth paper
Lemme fondamental.
He moved to Nara city.
In May he was awarded the Japan Academy Prize.

1953 He published the ninth paper
Domaines finis sans point critique intèrieur.
This was the compilation of his works, which had been already written in the research report of Huju-kai.

1954 In January he was awarded the Asahi Culture Prize.

1960 In November he was conferred the Cultural Medal.

1961 He received the title of honorary citizen of Hashimoto city.
He was afraid of the present and the future of Japan in his later days, and he made lots of remarks about culture and education through his books and speeches.

1962 He published the tenth paper
Une mode nouvelle engendrant les domaines pseudoconvexes,
which was related to his research during his stay in France.

1964 In March he retired from Nara Women's University and was appointed Professor Emeritus of the university.

1968 He received the title of honorary citizen of Nara City.

1969 He was appointed professor of Kyoto Sangyo University.

1978 On March 1, he died. He was buried in Byakugo-ji temple, Nara city. On May 26 his wife Michi died.