Everything about History Of Science And Technology In China totally explained
The
history of science and technology in China is both long and rich with many contributions to science and technology. In antiquity, independently of Greek philosophers and other
civilizations, ancient
Chinese philosophers made significant advances in
science,
technology,
mathematics, and
astronomy. The first recorded observations of
comets,
solar eclipses, and
supernovae were made in China.
Traditional Chinese medicine,
acupuncture and
herbal medicine were also practiced.
Among the earliest
inventions were the
abacus, the "shadow clock," and the first
flying machines such as
kites and
Kongming lanterns The
four Great Inventions of ancient China: the
compass,
gunpowder,
papermaking, and
printing, were among the most important technological advances, only known in Europe by the end of the
Middle Ages. The
Tang dynasty (AD 618 - 906) in particular, was a time of great innovation. Much of the early Western work in the history of science in China was done by
Joseph Needham.
Early technological achievements
Taoist philosophy, one of the oldest longstanding contributions of the ancient Chinese are in
Traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture and
herbal medicine. The practice of acupuncture can be traced back as far as the
1st millennium BC and some scientists believe that there's evidence that practices similar to acupuncture were used in
Eurasia during the early
Bronze Age.
The ancient Chinese also invented counting and time-keeping devices, which facilitated mathematical and astronomical observations. Shadow clocks, the forerunners of the sundial, first appeared in China about 4,000 years ago, while the
abacus was invented in
China sometime between 1000 BC and 500 BC. Using these the Chinese were able to record observations, documenting the first solar eclipse in 2137 BC, and making the first recording of any planetary grouping in 500 BC. The
Qin Dynasty also developed the crossbow, which later became the mainstream weapon in Europe. Several remains of crossbows have been found among the soldiers of the
Terracotta Army in the tomb of Qin Shi Huang.
The
Eastern Han Dynasty scholar and astronomer
Zhang Heng (78-139 AD) invented the first water-powered rotating
armillary sphere (the first armillary sphere having been invented by the
Greek Eratosthenes), and catalogued 2500 stars and over 100 constellations. In 132, he invented the
first seismological detector, called the "
Houfeng Didong Yi" ("Instrument for inquiring into the wind and the shaking of the earth"). According to the
History of Later Han Dynasty (25-220 AD), this seismograph was an urn-like instrument, which would drop one of eight balls to indicate when and in which direction an earthquake had occurred. designed mechanical
chain pumps to
irrigate palatial gardens, However, Ma Jun's most impressive invention was the
South Pointing Chariot, a complex mechanical device that acted as a mechanical
compass vehicle. It incorporated the use of a
differential gear in order to apply equal amount of
torque to wheels rotating at different speeds, a device that's found in all modern
automobiles.
Sliding calipers were invented in China almost 2,000 years ago. Pin-pointing the development of the compass can be difficult: the magnetic attraction of a needle is attested by the
Louen-heng, composed between AD 20 and 100, although the first undisputed magnetized needles in
Chinese literature appear in 1086.
By AD 300, Ge Hong, an
alchemist of the
Jin Dynasty, conclusively recorded the chemical reactions caused when saltpetre, pine resin and charcoal were heated together, in
Book of the Master of the Preservations of Solidarity. Another early record of gunpowder, a Chinese book from
c. 850 AD, indicates that gunpowder was a byproduct of
Taoist alchemical efforts to develop an
elixir of immortality:
"Some have heated together sulfur, realgar and saltpeter with honey; smoke and flames result, so that their hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house where they were working burned down."
These four discoveries had an enormous impact on the development of
Chinese civilization and a far-ranging global impact. Gunpowder, for example, spread to the Arabs in the 13th century and thence to Europe. According to
English philosopher Francis Bacon, writing in
Novum Organum:
Huo Long Jing written by
Jiao Yu in the 14th century. For gunpowder weapons, it outlined the use of
fire arrows and
rockets,
fire lances and
firearms,
land mines and
naval mines,
bombards and
cannons, along with different compositions of gunpowder, including 'magic gunpowder', 'poisonous gunpowder', and 'blinding and burning gunpowder' (refer to his article).
For the 11th century invention of ceramic
movable type printing by
Bi Sheng (990-1051), it was enhanced by the wooden movable type of
Wang Zhen in 1298 and the bronze metal movable type of
Hua Sui in 1490.
Middle Ages
Among the scientific accomplishments of early China were
matches,
dry docks, the double-action
piston pump,
cast iron, the
iron plough, the
horse collar, the multi-tube
seed drill, the
wheelbarrow, the
suspension bridge, the
parachute,
natural gas as fuel, the
raised-relief map, the
propeller, the
sluice gate, and the
pound lock. The
Tang Dynasty (618 - 906 AD) in particular was a time of great innovation. Chinese illustrations were more realistic than in Byzantine manuscripts, Trade flourished both within China and overseas, and the encouragement of technology allowed the mints at
Kaifeng and
Hangzhou to gradually increase in production.
Arabic and Chinese astronomy intermingled under the
Mongol rule of the
Yuan Dynasty.
Muslim astronomers worked in the Chinese astronomical bureau established by
Kublai Khan, while some Chinese astronomers also worked at the
Persian Maragha observatory. (Before this, in ancient times,
Indian astronomers had lent their expertise to the Chinese court.
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Mongol transmission
Mongol rule also saw technological advances from an economic perspective, with the first mass production of paper
banknotes by
Kublai Khan in the 13th century.
William of Rubruck, an ambassador to the Mongols in 1254-1255, a personal friend of
Roger Bacon, is also often designated as a possible intermediary in the transmission of
gunpowder know-how between the East and the West. The
compass is often said to have been introduced by the Master of the
Knights Templar Pierre de Montaigu between 1219 to 1223, from one of his travels to visit the Mongols in
Persia.
Jesuit activity in China
The
Jesuit China missions of the 16th and 17th centuries introduced Western science and astronomy, then undergoing its own revolution, to China. One modern historian writes that in late Ming courts, the Jesuits were "regarded as impressive especially for their knowledge of astronomy, calendar-making, mathematics, hydraulics, and geography." The
Society of Jesus introduced, according to
Thomas Woods, "a substantial body of scientific knowledge and a vast array of mental tools for understanding the physical universe, including the Euclidean geometry that made planetary motion comprehensible."}}
Conversely, the Jesuits were very active in transmitting Chinese knowledge to Europe.
Confucius's works were translated into European languages through the agency of Jesuit scholars stationned in China.
Matteo Ricci started to report on the thoughts of Confucius, and Father Prospero Intorcetta published the life and works of Confucius into
Latin in 1687. It is thought that such works had considerable importance on European thinkers of the period, particularly among the
Deists and other philosophical groups of the
Enlightenment who were interested by the integration of the system of morality of Confucius into
Christianity.
The French
physiocrat François Quesnay, founder of modern economics, and a forerunner of
Adam Smith was in his lifetime known as "the European Confucius". The doctrine and even the name of "
Laissez-faire" may have been inspired by the Chinese concept of
Wu wei.
Goethe, was known as "the Confucius of
Weimar".
Scientific and technological stagnation
One question that has been the subject of debate among historians has been why China didn't develop a
scientific revolution and why Chinese technology fell behind that of Europe. Many hypotheses have been proposed ranging from the cultural to the political and economic. Nathan Sivin has argued that China indeed had a scientific revolution in the 17th century and that we're still far from understanding the scientific revolutions of the West and China in all their political, economic and social ramifications.
John K. Fairbank argued that the Chinese political system was hostile to scientific progress.
Needham argued, and most scholars agreed, that cultural factors prevented these Chinese achievements from developing into what could be called "science". It was the religious and philosophical framework of the Chinese intellectuals which made them unable to believe in the ideas of laws of nature:
Similar grounds have been found for questioning much of the philosophy behind traditional Chinese medicine, which, derived mainly from Taoist philosophy, reflects the classical Chinese belief that individual human experiences express causative principles effective in the environment at all scales. Because its theory predates use of the
scientific method, it has received various criticisms based on scientific thinking. Even though there are physically verifiable
anatomical or
histological bases for the existence of
acupuncture points or
meridians, for instance skin conductance measurements show increases at the predicted points (see _The Body Electric_ by Robert O. Becker, M.D., pgs 233-236), philosopher
Robert Todd Carroll, a member of the Skeptics Society, deemed acupuncture a
pseudoscience because it "confuse(s) metaphysical claims with empirical claims".
(External Link):
» ...no matter how it's done, scientific research can never demonstrate that unblocking chi by acupuncture or any other means is effective against any disease. Chi is defined as being undetectable by the methods of empirical science.
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More recent historians have questioned political and cultural explanations and have put greater focus on economic causes. Mark Elvin's
high level equilibrium trap is one well-known example of this line of thought. It argues that the Chinese population was large enough, workers cheap enough, and agrarian productivity high enough to not require mechanization : thousands of Chinese workers were perfectly able to quickly perform any needed task. Other events such as
Haijin, the Opium Wars and the resulting hate of European influence prevented China from undergoing an Industrial Revolution; copying Europe's progress on a large scale would be impossible for a lengthy period of time. Political instability under
Cixi rule (opposition and frequent oscillation between modernists and conservatives), the Republican wars (1911-1933), the Sino-Japanese War (1933-1945), the Communist/Nationalist War (1945-1949) as well as the later
Cultural Revolution isolated China at the most critical times.
Kenneth Pomeranz has made the argument that the substantial resources taken from the
New World to Europe made the crucial difference between European and Chinese development.
In
Guns, Germs, and Steel,
Jared Diamond postulates that the lack of geographic barriers in much of China (essentially a wide plain with two large navigable rivers, and a relatively smooth coastline) led to a single government without competition. At the whim of a ruler who disliked new inventions, technology could be stifled for half a century or more. In contrast, Europe's barriers of the Pyrennes, the Alps, and the various defensible peninsulas (Denmark, Scandinavia, Italy, Greece, etc.) and islands (Britain, Ireland, Sicily, etc.) led to smaller countries in constant competition with each other. If a ruler chose to ignore a scientific advancement (especially a military or economic one), his more-advanced neighbors would soon usurp his throne.
People's Republic of China
After the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949, China reorganized its science establishment along
Soviet lines. Since 1975, science and technology was one of the
Four Modernizations, and its high-speed development was declared essential to all national economic development by
Deng Xiaoping. Major breakthroughs occurred in the 1980s in nuclear weapons, satellite launching and recovery, superconductivity, high-yield hybrid rice. Policy formulation at top levels had put emphasis on the application of science to industry and foreign
technology transfer.
Since the 21st century, science and technology in the
People's Republic of China has been growing rapidly. As the People's Republic of China becomes better connected to the
global economy, the government has placed more emphasis on science and technology. This has led to increases in funding, improved scientific structure, and more money for research. These factors have led to advancements in
agriculture,
medicine,
genetics, and
global change.
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