Tokyo University of Science (東京理科大学 Tōkyō Rika Daigaku, formerly "Science University of Tokyo") is a private university of science and technology in Japan. Rikadai (理科大) and Ridai (理大) are its nicknames. The Tokyo Academy of Physics, the predecessor of TUS, appears in the foremost Japanese novelist Natsume Sōseki's work Botchan. It was founded in 1881 as The Tokyo Academy of Physics by 21 graduates of the Department of Physics in the Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo (then the Imperial University). In 1883, it was renamed the Tokyo University of Physics, and in 1949, it became the Tokyo University of Science.