Science and Technology in China up to the 19 th Century Patri K. Venuvinod Professor (Chair) of...

Science and Technology in China up to the 19th Century

Patri K. VenuvinodProfessor (Chair) of Manufacturing Engineering

Department of Manufacturing Eng. and Eng. Management

City University of Hong Kong

S&T in Ancient China, KV Patri

2

Some classical Western views about China

• Jonas Hanway: “the most effeminate people on earth.”

• Goethe and Lord Shaftesbury: Greek and Roman empires had more to teach than ancient China.

• The hero in Defoe’s The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719): “contemptible herd or crowd of ignorant and sordid slaves, subjected to a government qualified only to rule such people.”


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But, until the Renaissance, the West barely equaled the Chinese in S&T

China The West

Civil Service examinations

Tang era,

A.D. 618-906

19th

century

Paper T’sai Lun, Han era, A.D. 105

1000 years later

Molded

clay types

11th century Gutenberg, Germany,

A.D. 1450


4

Sun spots

discovered

28 B.C. A.D. 7

Inoculation against smallpox

Sung Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279).

Edward Jenner, England, the second half of 18th century

First census A.D. 2

Steel production

~150 B.C. by heating and working together irons with different carbon components

~550 A.D., the first description of open hearth process (the ancestor of Siemens-Martin process)


5

Some Chinese Firsts in the World

• First treatise on trigonometry (221 B.C.)• Publication of the first news paper, the so-called Beijing

Gazette in the reign of Tang (618-907) emperor Ming Huang.

• Oldest mechanism for astronomical studies providing continuous rotation (~8th century).

• First printing of paper money (Tang: 618-907).• Gunpowder, already being used in firecrackers, was first

tried out in warfare in 1161. The Mongols learned from the Chinese and used it against Hungarians in 1241.

• Using calculating rods to solve equations with several unknown quantities (~13th century).


6

Chronology

~500,000B.C. ‘Peking Man’~25,000B.C. Cave man5000-3000 Yangshao culture3000-2700 3 Emperors2700-2200 5 Kings2205-180 Xia1783-1134 Shang1134-356 Xi Zhu770-221 Dong Zhu246-206 Qin206B.C.-220. Han220-265 3 Kingdoms265-316 Xi Jin

317-420 Dong Jin420-589 Nan Bei581-618 Sui618-907 Tang907-960 5 dynasties960-1126 Bei Song1127-1279 Nan Song1279-1368 Yuan1368-1644 Ming1644-1911 Qing1911-1949 Kuomintong, etc.1949-present P.R.C.


7

Artisans at work

A late Qing representation

Caption says: ‘Preparations for all eventualities

will avert misfortune.’


8

Paper-block print icon of the patron saint of artisans and

engineers.

In black on yellow paper, with decorative bands of color in pink, green, mauve and red.

Like other tutelary deities, Kungshu Phan is enthroned as a

magistrate or governor.

The inscription at the top says, ‘Master Kungshu of Lu, our

teacher from of old.’


9

Shang Period (1783-1134)• Agriculture, hunting, animal husbandry.• A writing system as evident from engraved

inscriptions on tortoise shells.• Bronze metallurgy of highest workmanship.• King was the head of the ancestor- and spirit-

worship cult.• Royal personages were buried with articles of

value, presumably for use in the afterlife. Hundreds of commoners, who may have been slaves, were buried alive with the royal corpse.


10

Shang Bronzes, etc.

• Found at excavations at An-Yang, Honan, etc.: Weapons, vessels for worship, chariot fittings, harnesses.

• Complex and refined decorations with repeated motifs of animals (first time), family coats of arms, etc.

• Varying proportions of copper and tin (5 to 30%) with 2 to 3% lead according to needed properties.

• Chariots similar to those in western parts of Asia (Anatolia and Syria had domesticated horses and used chariots around 1700B.C.).


11

Different types of Vessels connected with worship

Shang (or Yin) Dynasty (1384-1025)

[Gernet 1982, p.43]


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Ritual implements

Shang (or Yin) Dynasty (1384-1025)

[Gernet 1982, p.48]


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Dept. of Collection, Processing, Storage andDistribution of Raw andSemi-finished Materials.

Dept. of Manufacture of Finished Products

Dept. of Storage and Distribution of Finished Products

Dept. of Establishment of Standards for Quality, Productivity, etc.

Dept. of Inspection, Testing and Administration of Standards

Western Zhou (11th to 8th century B.C.)According to the Records of Etiquette of the Zhou dynasty, there existed a

system consisting of five departments to control the production of handicrafts in state organizations. [Juran 1990]


14

~Qin and Han (200B.C. to 300A.D.)

• Invention of the wheelbarrow.• The central plain and parts of Szechuan:

continuously cultivated.• Skilled husbandry: use of manure, distinctions

between different types of soils, attention to the date of ploughing and sowing, drying out of marshy regions, drainage of salty terrains. Several recorded hydraulic engineers.


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• First great increase in population.

• First census known to history in 2 A.D.: 57,671,400 taxable individuals.

• Lack of copper and tin caused a shift to cast iron.

• Cast iron axes, spades, knives, swords,…

• Cast iron is more breakable and takes on a sharper edge than bronze.

• Forging of steel.

• China had a lead of several centuries over the West in terms of iron and steel technologies.


16

• Double-action piston bellows appeared in the Han period. The device uses valves to obtain continuous current of air.

• Palace economy with its bodies of craftsmen controlled by palace nobles.

• State monopoly of iron and salt industries in 117 B.C.

• Mass production using the same cast iron mold. Molds with up to 3 identical cavities.

• Development of modern industry akin to the factory system that appeared in Europe only at the beginning of the industrial revolution. Some workshops had thousands of workers.


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• Carts redesigned. 1 shaft to 2 shafts. Neck yoke to breast yoke. Thus one horse could replace 2 to 4 horses.

• Measures of length and capacity, and gage of cartwheels unified (standardization).

• First ever fixing of spokes at a slight outward angle.

• New class of merchant entrepreneurs (private enterprise) using fleets of riverboats and large number of carts. Economy grew beyond palace economy.

• Trade with Manchuria, northern India, etc. The silks of ‘Ch’in (Qin)’ led to the name C’ina (the land of silk).


18

Economic and

industrial centers under

the first Han dynasty(200 B.C. to 9 A.D.)


19

Han Terracota Warriors: 3000 figures excavated in Shansi.


20

Geared water-power mill

Jin Dynasty (265-420)

[ACTS 1983]


21

A military mapof Qangsha area

Unearthed from a tomb of Early Han period.

The locations of the rivers Roughly coincide with those on modern maps.

[ACTS 1983]


22

Diagram of a chariot from the site of An-yang

(end of 2nd millenium B.C.)

[Gernet 1982, p.68]


23

Diagram of a chariot from the site of Hui-hsien (Honan province) (5th century B.C.)

[Gernet 1982, p.68]


24

Cast-iron hoes, ploughshare, sickles, axe, and knife from the fourth-third centuries B.C.

[Gernet 1982, p.71]


25

Calipers made in 9 A.D. They are graduated in ts’un (tenth part of a ch’ih) and in fen (tenths of a ts’un).

The face shown on the right side bears the inscription” ‘Made on kuei-yu day, on the new

moon of the fifth month, first year of Shih-chien-kuo’

[Gernet 1982, p.110]


26

Pre-Tang and Tang Periods• Aristocracy.

• Maturing of administration and codification of regulations.

• Wet rice-growing. Early ripening varieties. Chain with paddles o lift water.

• New commercial routes for trading tea and salt, and supplying food to armies in the north.

• New commercial techniques: the negotiable certificate, and the banknote.

• Reproduction of texts and drawings by wood engraving led to sudden diffusion of knowledge.


27

Calculation of =355/113

As written in Sui Shu

(History of the Sui Dynasty)by Zu Qonzi (430-510)

[ACTS 1983]


28

Diamond Sutra:The earliest

printed literature in existence.

Bearing the date of the 9th year of

the reign of Xian tong (968),Tang Dynasty[ACTS 1983]


29

~Song Period (~900-1300)• Sundial and water clock. One year has 365 385/1539 days.• First ever printing of paper money [Callis 1959, p. 91]. • Chinese renaissance.• Growth in military technologies. Soldiers selected through

running, jumping, … tests. Tallest chosen for crack units.• Troops equipped with incendiary weapons, catapults, …

multiplied.• Invention of ballistae, repeating crossbows, a sort of tank.• Development o a substantial navy from 1127.• Boats with paddles (first references ~800) actuated by a

crank or by a system of connecting rods. The fist paddle boats were used in Europe only in 1543.


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• First mention of gunpowder (coal, saltpeter and sulfur) in China in 1044 (in 1287, by Roger bacon in Europe).

• Daoist alchemists discovered it.• Initially used for ‘flying fire’. Later exploited the burst capacity.

Propellant in a guided tube. • Fists discovery of principle of rocket using thick bamboo.• Iron or bronze tubes around 1280. • New society. A class living on unearned income. Urban bourgeoisie

with land income.• Growth in food production. New varieties of grain imported and

adapted from Champa (Vietnam), etc.• Expansion of manufacture. Growth in mining (iron, copper, lead, tin)• Pit coal replaced by charcoal. Hydraulic machinery to drive bellows.

Use of explosives in mining.• Cast iron production in China exceeded 114,000 tonnes in 1078. It

reached only 68,000 tonnes in England in 1788.


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• Ceramics: Kilns all over.

• Regional specialization: Southern Hopei for iron; Szechwan for paper; Hangzhou for printed books, …

• Gradual development of printing. Paper had become an ordinary material by the end of Han age. “Use of stelae bearing texts or drawings as stamps of blocks (with a coat of damp paper, drying, inking, and reproduction on paper with the help of a pad) [Gernet 1982, p. 333]” enabled cheap and faithful reproductions.Seals made possible impressions of written characters, drawings, or religious pictures.

• The first important document reproduced by wood-block printing was the ‘Diamond Sutra’ dated 868.


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• First movable types in 1086.• 1313: The first turning case with characters classified in

rhymes.• 1403: 100,000 Chinese characters cast.• ~1600: blocks with up to five colors.• Great progress in Chinese cartography, treatises on natural

sciences (on mushrooms, bamboos, chrysanthemums, peonies, fruit-trees, birds).

• 1027: Vehicle for measuring distance traveled by road.• 1090: Astronomical machine actuated by an escapement

system and by cogs and transmission chains.• ~1100: Astronomical machine worked by a wheel turned

by successive filling of pivoting cups fed by a tanks with a constant level.


33

The water-driven astronomical clock tower

As shown in the book,Xin Yi Xiang Fu Yao

(New Design for an Armillary Clock),

written by Su Song (1020-1101)

[ACTS 1983]


34

Printed text of the Sung period

The first page of the first chapter of the geography of

China and foreign countriescompleted in 979 A.D.

[Gernet 1982, p.334]


35

Astronomical chart of the south-polar projection of the sky by Hsin-I-hsiang Fa-yao (1092, Western Hsia) [Gernet 1982, p.340]


36

Sung and Yitan Mathematics: Notation for

equation +2x3+15x2+166x1-4460=0 as given by Li Yeh (or Li

Chih) 1192-1279

[Gernet 1982, p.381]


37

Pascal’s triangle (around 1640) as given in

An algebraic treatise by Chu Shi-chieh (1303)

[Gernet 1982, p.381]


38

Illustration of horizontal-wheel hydraulic bellowsin Wang Zhen Nong Shu

(Agricultural Treatise of Wang Zhen), a book of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).

[ACTS 1983]


39

Ming period (1368-1644)

• Fashion for academic discussions.• Multiplicity of centers with libraries.Revival of

interest in [practical knowledge: agronomy, military techniques, hydraulics, astronomy, mathematics, …

• The first classification of 33,179 Chinese characters under 214 radicals.Translations of Western mathematical and scientific works.


40

Ming Technology

(1368-1582)

A sowing machine,

Picture taken from the T’ien-kung k’ai-wu

(1637)

[Gernet 1982, p.443]


41

Ming Technology

(1368-1582)

A Mill,


(1637)

[Gernet 1982, p.443]


42

Ming Technology

(1368-1582)

A machine for

reeling off thread,


(1637)

[Gernet 1982, p.443]


43

Ming Technology

(1368-1582)

A pottery workshop,


(1637)

[Gernet 1982, p.443]


44

Qing period (1644-1911)

• Manchu, “The enlightened despots.”• The most extensive empire in the world.• High watermark of agricultural techniques. Much

superior to agriculture in Europe. New crops: sweet potato, the ground nut, sorghum, vegetables, fruit (apart from the traditional wheat, barley, millet, and rice). Fish farming. Industrial crops (cotton, tea, sugar cane) too.

• China’s population growth outpaced that of Europe.


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Qing continued (2)• Craftsmanship on an ‘industrial’ scale.• 200,000 textile industry workers in to the south-

west of Shanghai alone.• Tea production rose from 2.6 million pounds in

1762 to 23.3 million by the end of 18th century. Supply to East India Co. from Guangzhou area.

• Export of porcelain objects to the world.• Criticism of absolutism. The return of the

concrete.


46

Einstein argued

Perhaps we should try to think why something as unlikely and odd as science has ever occurred anywhere ever, rather than why something as seemingly obvious (to us moderns) as science didn’t occur elsewhere.


47

Why China missed out on domestic industrial revolution

Basically cultural reasons:

• Ideological orthodoxy.

• Stress on conformity and tradition.

• Interest in status quo of the dominant and educated classes.

• Suppression of scientific invention by force (as during the Inquisition in the West.)


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• Keeping the study of astronomy, botany, engineering, and mathematics out of the schools.

• The ‘tyranny of language’: ideographs do not lend themselves to abstract “theoretical” thinking.

• Lack of encouragement to develop labor-saving technologies owing to tremendous pre-industrial population growth.


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Needham’s Thesis[http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/gregory/325/handouts/h08_chi.doc]

• “The main reasons are to do with the nature of Chinese society, in particular the stultifying nature of the Chinese feudal bureaucracy in contrast to the rising capitalist democracies of the West, and the narrow and secretive master/ apprentice relations in all areas of Chinese learning.”

• ”The notion of physical law is clearly important. It may be that the West derived this notion from Christian theology (the law-giving God) which is absent in China, or that it came via Greek notions in geometry applied to the world in the Renaissance (Galileo; ‘The book of nature is written in the language of geometry’). Chinese mathematics was more arithmetic than geometrical.”


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Needham thesis 2• “Within the Western tradition, it is easier to distinguish between

moral and physical law; this is not so in Chinese cosmology, where everything has a place where it ought to be (but might not be). In the West there has been a tradition of analytical and causal thinking. We attempt to isolate those elements we believe important, and then think in a scheme of cause and effect. The mechanical world view is very conducive to this sort of thought, as is the related motion of reductive explanation. However, the Chinese tradition is one of thinking in terms of organic wholes where each part is interrelated with each other and each part has a place within the whole. Correlative and sympathetic modes of thought, where the key notions are of principles and associations linked sympathetically rather than causally are the central ideas in this view.


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Some Historic Personsc. 300 B.C. Lao Tzu

372-289 Meng Tzu (Mencius)

551-479 Kong Qiu (Confucius)

1165?-1267 Genghis Khan

1866-1925 Sun Yat-sen

1887-1975 Chiang Kai-shek

1893-1976 Mao Zedong

1905-1997 Deng Xiaoping


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References[ACTS 1983] Ancient China’s Technology and Science, Institute

of the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Foreign Language Press, Beijing, 1983.

[Callis 1959] Helmut G. Callis, China: Confucian and Communist, Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1959.

[Gernet 1982] Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, translated from French into English by J.R. Foster, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 1982.

[Juran 1990] J. M. Juran, “China’s Ancient History of Managing for Quality, Part 1,” Quality Progress, p. 32, July 1990.

www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/gregory/325/handouts/h08_chi.doc

Science and Technology in China up to the 19 th Century Patri K. Venuvinod Professor (Chair) of...

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