His father died after he finished primary school, but Nakaya's first scientific paper, written in 1924 for the inaugural issue of the proceedings of the Physics Department of Tokyo Imperial University, was devoted to Japanese Kutani porcelain.

Nakaya was inspired to study physics in high school by the nebular hypotheses of Kant and Laplace and by the works of Hajime Tanabe.

In 1928 and 1929, he continued his graduate studies at King's College London under Owen Willans Richardson,[1] where he worked with long-wavelength X-rays.

From 1936 until 1938, Nakaya and his family lived at a hot springs resort on the Izu Peninsula while he recuperated from a bout of clonorchiasis.

After his recovery, he began his studies of frost heaving which eventually led to the founding of the Laboratory of Agricultural Physics at Hokkaido University in 1946.

In 1943, two years after the Pacific War began, Nakaya moved to a newly built atmospheric icing observatory at Mt.

After the war, he continued his research for the Laboratory of Agricultural Physics into flood and snowmelt in drainage basins.

His studies took him to locations ranging from the top of Mauna Loa, Hawaii to the ice island T-3 in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

Though long out of print, it still serves as a classic reference on crystal shapes, showing how a scientific investigation can proceed through systematic observation toward an accurate description of a natural phenomenon.

The Low Temperature Science Laboratory opened in 1935, and experiments continued with various materials for the ice nucleus.

On March 12, 1936, three years after the first attempt, he produced a snow crystal on the tip of a single hair of rabbit fur in his laboratory apparatus.

[11] Nakaya's achievement is commemorated today by a hexagonal stone monument at the site of his laboratory on the campus of Hokkaido University.

In 1950, he played a central role in the founding of Iwanami Productions, which went on to produce more than 4,000 documentary and educational films.