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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN ANCIENT CHINA
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/History_of_science_and_technology_in_China
The history of science and technology in China is both long and rich with science and
technological contribution. In antiquity, independent 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. [1] 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, paper making, and printing, were among the most
important technological advances, only known in Europe by the end of the Middle Ages.
The Tang dynasty (618 - 906 C.E.) in particular was a time of great innovation. [3] A good
deal of exchange occurred between Western and Chinese
The Jesuit China missions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries introduced Western
science and astronomy, then undergoing its own revolution, to China, and knowledge of
Chinese technology was brought to Europe. [4][5] Much of the early Western work in the history of
science in China was done by Joseph Needham.
Early scientific and technological achievements
Remains of a Chinese crossbow, second century B.C.E.
One of the oldest longstanding contributions of the ancient Chinese are in Traditional
Chinese medicine, including acupuncture and herbal medicine, derived
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from Daoist philosophy. According to archaeological findings the first writings on
medicine appeared between the eleventh and the third centuries B.C.E., like the Wu Shi
Er Bing Fang, Prescriptions for Fifty-Two Diseases found in a tomb excavated in 1973
near Mawangdui. The Canon of Medicine was compiled in the third century B.C.E. and
summarized diagnostic knowledge like the knowledge of Bian Que, a great physician
who pioneered medical examination and pulse studies.
The practice of acupuncture can be traced as far back as the first millennium B.C.E. and
some scientists believe that there is evidence that practices similar to acupuncture were
used in Eurasia during the early Bronze Age. [6][7] According to the History of Later Han
Dynasty (25-220 C.E.), 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.
On June 13, 2005, Chinese seismologists announced that they had created a replica of
the instrument.
The mechanical engineer Ma Jun (c. 200-265 C.E.) was another impressive figure from
ancient China. Ma Jun improved the design of the silk loom,[8] designed mechanical
chain pumps to irrigate palatial gardens, [8] and created a large and intricate mechanical
puppet theatre for Emperor Ming of Wei, which was operated by a large hidden
waterwheel.[9] 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 is found in all modern automobiles.[10]
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, [11] while the abacus was invented
in China sometime between 1000 B.C.E. and 500 B.C.E.[12]
The most ancient of all astronomical instruments, at least in China, was the simple
vertical pole. With this one could measure the length of the sun’s shadow by day to
determine the solstices and the transits of stars by night to observe the revolution of the
sidereal year.”[13]
Already under the Shang dynasty (1765-1122 B.C.E.) the Chinese were casting shadows
with the help of a gnomon in relation to divination.
The sundial that was much used during the Han Dynasty is clearly mentioned in the first
century B.C.E. The Sundial Book which includes 34 chapters would have been compiled
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by Yin Hsien at that time. The use of water clock or clepsydra which was important in
astronomy would go back to the Warring States period around the sixth
century B.C.E. About 200 B.C.E. the outflow clepsydra was replaced by an inflow type.
Water clocks were used by Zhang Heng in 125 C.E. to drive mechanisms illustrating
astronomical phenomena. Later on astronomical towers were built like the tower of Su
Song in 1088 that comprehended an armillary sphere, a rotating celestial globe and
front panels with tablets indicating the time.
The Chinese were able to record observations, documenting the first solar eclipse in
2137 B.C.E., and making the first recording of any planetary grouping in 500 B.C.E.[1] The
Book of Silk was the first definitive atlas of comets, written c. 400 B.C.E. It listed 29
comets (referred to as broom stars) that appeared over a period of about 300 years, with
renderings of comets describing an event its appearance corresponded to. [1]
Replica of Zhang Heng's seismometer Houfeng Didong Yi
During the Spring and Autumn (77-476 B.C.E.) and the Warring States (475-221 B.C.E.)
periods, the development of technology in agriculture and handicraft enhanced the
economic activities and made crucial the means of calculation. It is then that the
counting-rods and rod arithmetic were invented. The counting-rods will be used even
after the invention of the abacus. The abacus or suanpan 算盤 was fits mentioned in the
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Supplementary Notes on the Art of Figures by Xu Yue, under the Han dynasty in
190 C.E., but it rose to prominence under the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) and became a
household instrument only during the Ming dynasty starting in 1368.
In architecture, the pinnacle of Chinese technology manifested itself in the Great Wall of
China, under the first Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang between 220 B.C.E. and
200 B.C.E. Typical Chinese architecture changed little from the succeeding Han
Dynasty until the nineteenth century. [14] The Great Wall as seen today is the result of
grand-scale reconstruction over a period of 100 years during the Ming dynasty.
The first bridge recorded in Chinese history is the boat bridge over the river Weishui
ordered by King Wen of the Zhou dynasty 3000 years ago. The first record of a stone
bridge goes back to the Han dynasty. Stone-arch bridges made their appearance
around 250 B.C.E. Famous bridges are the admired Anji bridge built with one arch under
the Sui dynasty (581-618), the Lugou Marco Polo bridge built during the Kin dynasty
(1038-1227), the jewel belt bridge, with 53 spans, built a Suzhou during the Tang
dynasty. “The beam bridge has the longest history in bridge engineering whether in
China or elsewhere.“ It can be mentioned for example the Luoyang bridge built during
the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127) with a total length of 834 meter and a seven-
meter-wide deck for traffic.[15]
The crossbow nǔ, 弩 was developed under the Warring States period. The followers of
the philosopher Mozi (544-496) mentioned it in the fourth-third centuries B.C.E. It is also
described by Sunzi in his Art of War. Several remains were found among the soldiers of
the Terracotta in the tomb of emperor Shu Juangdi who unified China in 221 B.C.E.[16]
The Eastern Han Dynasty scholar and astronomer Zhang Heng (78-139 C.E.) invented the
first water-powered rotating armillary sphere (the first armillary sphere however was
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").[17] According to the History of Later Han Dynasty (25-220 C.E.), 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. On June 13, 2005, Chinese seismologists
announced that they had created a replica of the instrument.
The mechanical engineer Ma Jun (c. 200-265 C.E.) was another impressive figure from
ancient China. Ma Jun improved the design of the silk loom, [8] designed mechanical
chain pumps to irrigate palatial gardens, [8] and created a large and intricate mechanical
ILOILO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY MODULE 2
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puppet theatre for Emperor Ming of Wei, which was operated by a large hidden
waterwheel.[9] 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 is found in all modern automobiles.[10]
Sliding calipers were invented in China almost 2000 years ago. [18] The Chinese civilization
was the first civilization to succeed in exploring with aviation, with the kite and
Kongming lantern (proto Hot air balloon) being the first flying machines.
The Four Great Inventions of ancient China
Mongols using Chinese gunpowder bombs during the Mongol Invasions of Japan, 1281.
The "Four Great Inventions of ancient China" (Traditional Chinese: 四大發明; Simplified
Chinese: 四 大 发 明 ; pinyin: Sì dà fā míng) are the compass, gunpowder, papermaking,
and printing. Paper and printing were developed first. Printing was recorded in China in
the Tang Dynasty, although the earliest surviving examples of printed cloth patterns
date to before 220.[19] Pinpointing the development of the compass can be difficult: the
magnetic attraction of a needle is attested by the Louen-heng, composed between 20
and 100 C.E.,[20] although the first undisputed magnetized needles in Chinese literature
appear in 1086.[21]
By 300 C.E., Ge Hong, an alchemist of the Jin Dynasty, conclusively recorded the
chemical reactions caused when saltpetre, pine resin and charcoal were heated together
in his Book of the Master of the Preservations of Solidarity. [22] Another early record of
gunpowder, a Chinese book from c. 850 C.E. Classified Essentials of the Mysterious Tao of
the True Origin of Things indicates that gunpowder was a byproduct of Daoist
alchemical efforts to develop an elixir of immortality: [23]
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An original diagram of Su Song's book printed in 1092, showing the inner workings of his
astronomical clocktower.
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.[24]
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 thirteenth century and thence to Europe. [25] According
to English philosopher Francis Bacon, writing in Novum Organum:
Printing, gunpowder and the compass: These three have changed the whole face and
state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, the second in warfare, the
third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, in so much that no
empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human
affairs than these mechanical discoveries. [26]
One of the most important military treatises of all Chinese history was the Huo Long
Jing written by Jiao Yu in the fourteenth 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 eleventh 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.
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The Middle Ages
The world's earliest paper money was from the Song Dynasty, seeing mass production under Mongol
rule.
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 C.E.) in particular was a time of great innovation.
In the seventh century, book-printing was developed in China and Japan, using delicate
hand-carved wooden blocks to print individual pages. The ninth century Diamond
Sutra is the earliest known printed document. Movable type was also used in China for a
time, but was abandoned because of the number of characters needed; it would not be
until Gutenberg (1400-1468) that the technique was reinvented in a suitable
environment.[27]
In addition to gunpowder, the Chinese also developed improved delivery systems for
the Byzantine weapon of Greek fire, Meng Huo You and Pen Huo Qi first used in
China c. 900.[28] Chinese illustrations were more realistic than in Byzantine manuscripts,
[28]
and detailed accounts from 1044 recommending its use on city walls and ramparts
show the brass container as fitted with a horizontal pump, and a nozzle of small
diameter.[28] The records of a battle on the Yangtze near Nanjing in 975 offer an insight
into the dangers of the weapon, as a change of wind direction blew the fire back onto
the Song forces.[28]
The Song Dynasty (960-1279) brought a new stability for China after a century of civil
war, and started a new area of modernization by encouraging examinations and
meritocracy. The first Song Emperor created political institutions that allowed a great
deal of freedom of discourse and thought, which facilitated the growth of scientific
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advance, economic reforms, and achievements in arts and literature. [29] Trade flourished
both within China and overseas, and the encouragement of technology allowed the
mints at Kaifeng and Hangzhou to gradually increase in production. In 1080, the mints
of Emperor Shenzong were produced five billion coins (roughly 50 per Chinese citizen),
and the first banknotes were produced in 1023. These coins were so durable that they
would still be in use 700 years later, in the eighteenth century.
Ships of the world in 1460 (Fra Mauro map). Chinese junks are described as very large, three or four-
masted ships.
There were many famous inventors and early scientists in the Song Dynasty period. The
statesman Shen Kuo is best known for his book known as the Dream Pool
Essays (1088 C.E.). In it, he wrote of use for a drydock to repair boats, the navigational
magnetic compass, and the discovery of the concept of true north (with magnetic
declination towards the North Pole). Shen Kuo also devised a geological theory for land
formation, or geomorphology, and theorized that there was climate change in
geological regions over an enormous span of time. The equally talented statesman Su
Song was best known for his engineering project of the Astronomical Clock Tower of
Kaifeng, by 1088 C.E. The clock tower was driven by a rotating waterwheel and
escapement mechanism, the latter of which did not appear in clockworks of Europe until
two centuries later. Crowning the top of the clock tower was the large bronze,
mechanically-driven, rotating armillary sphere. In 1070, Su Song also compiled the Ben
Cao Tu Jing (Illustrated Pharmacopoeia, original source material from 1058 – 1061 C.E.)
with a team of scholars. This pharmaceutical treatise covered a wide range of other
related subjects, including botany, zoology, mineralogy, and metallurgy.
Chinese astronomers were also among the first to record observations of a supernova,
in 1054, making the Crab Nebula the first astronomical object recognized as being
connected to a supernova explosion.[30] Arabic and Chinese astronomy intermingled
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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. [31] (Before this, in ancient times, Indian
astronomers had lent their expertise to the Chinese court.[3]) Mongol rule also saw
technological advances from an economic perspective, with the first mass production
of paper banknotes by Kublai Khan in the eleventh century. [32]
Jesuit activity in China
The Jesuit China missions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries introduced
Western science and astronomy, then undergoing its own revolution, to China.
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."[33] Another expert quoted by Woods said the scientific revolution
brought by the Jesuits coincided with a time when science was at a very low level in
China:
[The Jesuits] made efforts to translate western mathematical and astronomical works
into Chinese and aroused the interest of Chinese scholars in these sciences. They made
very extensive astronomical observation and carried out the first modern cartographic
work in China. They also learned to appreciate the scientific achievements of this ancient
culture and made them known in Europe. Through their correspondence European
scientists first learned about the Chinese science and culture. [34]
Scientific and technological stagnation
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The puddling process of smelting iron ore to make pig iron from wrought iron, the right half of the
illustration (not shown) displays men working a blast furnace, Tiangong
Kaiwu encyclopedia published in 1637, written by Song Yingxing (1587-1666).
One question that has been the subject of debate among historians has been why China
did not 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. Sinologist Nathan Sivin has argued that China indeed had a scientific
revolution in the seventeenth century and that we are still far from understanding the
scientific revolutions of the West and China in all their political, economic and social
ramifications.[35] 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". [36] It was the
religious and philosophical framework of the Chinese intellectuals which made them
unable to believe in the ideas of laws of nature:
It was not that there was no order in nature for the Chinese, but rather that it was not an
order ordained by a rational personal being, and hence there was no conviction that
rational personal beings would be able to spell out in their lesser earthly languages the
divine code of laws which he had decreed afore time. The Taoists, indeed, would have
scorned such an idea as being too naïve for the subtlety and complexity of the universe
as they intuited it.[37]
Similar grounds have been found for questioning much of the philosophy behind
traditional Chinese medicine, which, derived mainly from Daoist 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[38]), philosopher Robert Todd Carroll, a member of the
Skeptics Society, deemed acupuncture a pseudoscience because it "confuse(s)
metaphysical claims with empirical claims."
…no matter how it is 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. [39]
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More recent historians have questioned political and cultural explanations and have
focused more on economic causes. Mark Elvin's high level equilibrium trap is one well-
known example of this line of thought, as well as Kenneth Pomeranz' argument that
resources from the New World made the crucial difference between European and
Chinese development. Other events such as Haijin and Cultural Revolution have isolated
China during critical times.
Science and technology in the People's Republic of
China
Science and technology in the People's Republic of China is growing rapidly. As the
People's Republic of China has become 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.
