Chinese Annals of History of Science and Technology最新文献

{"title":"Introduction: Creativity and Imagination through Time, Culture and Identity","authors":"T. Blyth, Yao Yan-an","doi":"10.3724/SP.J.1461.2020.0S001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.1461.2020.0S001","url":null,"abstract":": Highlighting the Time, Culture and Identity cross-disciplinary project conducted between the Science Museum in London, the Palace Museum in Beijing, academics at Beijing Jiaotong University and the Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, and creative industries practitioners in China and the UK, this introduction highlights the key impacts of the research. As well as creating the practical output of a digital museum experience focused on the workings of the Country Scene clock, the research brought a range of wider impacts, including a change in understanding between collaborators, capacity-building skills, research process development and a change in attitude. The papers of this supplementary issue reflect some of the range of impacts of the work of our collaborators.","PeriodicalId":61293,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Annals of History of Science and Technology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48923161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"British Clocks in Eighteenth-Century China: Presents, Tribute, or Trade?","authors":"Roger B. Smith","doi":"10.3724/SP.J.1461.2020.0S026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.1461.2020.0S026","url":null,"abstract":": It is commonly believed that most European clocks that reached China before the nineteenth century were sent to the emperor as diplomatic presents from European rulers, or were given to Chinese officials by European merchants in attempts to improve trading conditions. Although such presents had been given in earlier times, British records show that, by the eighteenth century when the export of clocks to China reached its height, most clocks, including the finest, reached China as private trade goods. Once in Canton (Guangzhou), the best clocks were bought by local Chinese officials for inclusion in their annual tribute to the emperor and senior members of the government in Beijing, where many of these clocks survive in the former imperial collection.","PeriodicalId":61293,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Annals of History of Science and Technology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45165342","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Technical Innovation of LH2/LOX Rocket Engines in China","authors":"Chengzhi Li, Bingtao Ma","doi":"10.3724/SP.J.1461.2020.02160","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.1461.2020.02160","url":null,"abstract":": This paper provides a detailed introduction to and analysis of the course of China’s technological innovation in liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen (LH2/LOX) rocket engines from a historical point of view. It starts with the investigation of LH2/LOX rocket engines by relevant departments of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the 1960s and their preliminary achievements. Then, the policy decision concerning LH2/LOX engine development, the project approval of the Long March-3 (Chang Zheng-3, CZ-3) rocket, and the process of developing LH2/LOX engines are analyzed in detail, followed by an introduction to and summary of the development situation and technical innovation characteristics of China’s LH2/LOX engines as they grew from 4 tons to 8 tons, and finally to 50 tons. Finally, the paper briefly analyzes the innovation experience connected with China’s LH2/LOX engines.","PeriodicalId":61293,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Annals of History of Science and Technology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49052920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Search for Antimalarial Drugs and the Discovery of Artemisinin","authors":"Runhong Li, Daqing Zhang","doi":"10.3724/SP.J.1461.2020.02073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.1461.2020.02073","url":null,"abstract":"With its novel chemical structure, artemisinin is an antimalarial component isolated from the traditional Chinese medicine qinghao (Artemisia annua L.). Nowadays, artemisinin and its derivatives are used compatibly with new synthesized chemical antimalarial compounds to create artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs). These have become the first choice in treating malaria p.f. all over the world, providing an effective solution for the global challenge of curing drug-resistant malaria. Among the five ACTs recommended by the WHO, two were initiated in China and are used as the first-line treatment of falciparum malaria in all malaria endemic areas. As the use of artemisinin-based compound drugs have made such significant contributions to rolling back malaria, regarded as one of the great achievements globally in public health of the early twenty-first century, Tu Youyou, one of the most important researchers in the discovery of artemisinin, was made the first Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine from the Chinese mainland. Artemisinin was discovered in a special social and cultural context through a combination of the exploration of traditional Chinese medical literature with the modern research approach of pharmaceutical sciences. This (Project 523) is a typical case of goal-oriented research leading to scientific advance, and the result of scientific research driven by the national needs.","PeriodicalId":61293,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Annals of History of Science and Technology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48132090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Building Warships and Nurturing Technical Talent at the Foochow Navy Yard during the Self-Strengthening Movement","authors":"L. Mingyang","doi":"10.3724/SP.J.1461.2020.02001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.1461.2020.02001","url":null,"abstract":": In 1866, after the Opium Wars, the Chinese official Zuo Zongtang established the Foochow Navy Yard, which aimed to facilitate the independent construction of modern warships. French advisers, engineers, teachers, and craftsmen were hired, and a series of French schools for naval construction, drawing, and apprenticeship were set up. Previous studies have nearly exhausted the historical material on the Foochow Navy Yard, but few of them give an exact evaluation on its shipbuilding and educational levels. This paper traces the French sources on the shipbuilding technology and educational system at the Foochow Navy Yard and conducts a comparative study. With the guidance and assistance of foreigners, the Foochow Navy Yard gained the ability to assemble ships and imitate engines, while it remained necessary to import design drawings and structural components. The most outstanding students that the navy yard nurtured may have reached the level of École Polytechnique graduates, but the quality of students was hard to maintain. The backwardness of its conceptualization and the lack of financial and political support also contributed to its decline.","PeriodicalId":61293,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Annals of History of Science and Technology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47981860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Greek Texts and the Rigorization of Analysis: An Inquiry into J. L. Lagrange’s Work on the History of Mathematics","authors":"Xiaofei Wang","doi":"10.3724/sp.j.1461.2020.01139","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3724/sp.j.1461.2020.01139","url":null,"abstract":"This paper offers a study of J. L. Lagrange’s research on history of mathematics, aiming to clarify Lagrange’s intention in carrying out historical work. To this end, I first document how Lagrange worked with and exerted his influence on other scholars in the translation and diffusion of ancient Greek texts. Second, investigating Lagrange’s style in doing and writing history of mathematics, this paper takes a new perspective and elucidates his motivation in these activities. In particular, it focuses on Lagrange’s presentation of the history of calculus while he was teaching analysis at the Ecole Polytechnique (1795–1799) so as to clarify the function of history in Lagrange’s mathematical works. My thesis is that Lagrange’s intention in examining the different methods employed by his predecessors was to find inspiration and useful contents in his search for the proper approach to mathematical problems. I thus argue in this paper that history served as a guide or methodology for Lagrange’s mathematics. Meanwhile, through an analysis of his historical writing, this paper points to four epistemological values according to which Lagrange judged various historical methods of differential calculus: generality, simplicity, clarity, and rigor. Lagrange’s move to rigorize analysis was connected to his interest in and research of Greek texts; he was attempting to introduce the rigor of the ancient Greeks’ demonstration in his works of analysis.","PeriodicalId":61293,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Annals of History of Science and Technology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47365274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Shared Ideas, Divergent Approaches: The Hydromethods of the Great West (Taixi shuifa 泰西水法) and the Question on Tides","authors":"Sabine Kink","doi":"10.3724/sp.j.1461.2020.01063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3724/sp.j.1461.2020.01063","url":null,"abstract":"One of the questions about natural phenomena asked in the Hydromethods of the Great West (Taixi shuifa 泰西水法; 1612) (hereafter TXSF), composed by the Italian Jesuit Sabatino de Ursis with the support of the Chinese official Xu Guangqi 徐光啟, concerns the causes of sea tides. The idiosyncratic answer given in the TXSF serves as an example for the Jesuit missionaries’ strategically motivated approach to the transfer of knowledge through the translation of Western scientific thought into Chinese. From a chronological overview of the attempts made both in the East and in the West to theoretically conceptualize the causes of the cyclical occurrence of ebb and flow, the comparison reveals that despite being based on totally different cosmologies, the related insights were virtually on a par. The aim to nevertheless convince the audience of the TXSF of the superiority of Western sciences resulted in a particular rhetoric and a division of tasks in * This article is part of the author’s PhD thesis written within the research project “Translating Western Science, Technology and Medicine to Late Ming China: Convergences and Divergences in the Light of the Kunyu gezhi 坤輿格致 (Investigations of the Earth’s Interior; 1640) and the Taixi shuifa 泰西水法 (Hydromethods of the Great West; 1612).” This project was granted by the German Research Foundation for the years 2018 to 2021 and is carried out at the Department of Chinese Studies at Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen under the direction of Prof. Dr. Hans Ulrich Vogel. I thank Prof. Vogel as my supervisor for his dedicated support, and my project colleague Dr. Cao Jin 曹晋 for her persistent encouragement and great cooperation. My thanks also go to Dr. Alexander Jost, senior scientist at the University of Salzburg and associated researcher of this project, for his valuable remarks. Moreover, I am very grateful to the anonymous referees of CAHST for their helpful and constructive comments. ** In this issue of CAHST, the book title Taixi shuifa 泰西水法 has been translated differently by the authors of two separate articles, one as Hydromethods of the Great West in this article, the other as Hydraulic Methods of the Far West in “Introduction of the Archimedean Screw Pump to East Asia during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” CAHST would like to retain these translations as they are, so as to highlight the difficulties in translating such titles and the authors’ differing interpretations. (This article was copyedited by Charlie Zaharoff.) 1 Research interests: History of science and technology in premodern China, intercivilizational knowledge transfer. Email: sabine.kink@uni-tuebingen.de http://engine.scichina.com/doi/10.3724/SP.J.1461.2020.01063 CAHST—Volume 4, Number 1, June 2020 64 the composition of the tides paragraph. In order to verify the success of this joint effort of de Ursis and Xu Guangqi, a change of perspective from the transmitter to the receiver side is necessary. Thus, the paper also explores the ","PeriodicalId":61293,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Annals of History of Science and Technology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42752774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Introduction of the Archimedean Screw Pump to East Asia during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries","authors":"A. Koenig","doi":"10.3724/sp.j.1461.2020.01102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3724/sp.j.1461.2020.01102","url":null,"abstract":": The Jesuits played an important role in the transmission of Western science and technology to China during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, though their impact on water technology has received scant attention thus far. As a case in point, Sabatino de Ursis, Society of Jesus 熊三拔 , in collaboration with the Chinese official Xu Guangqi 徐光啟 , published in 1612 Hydraulic Methods of the Far West ( Taixi shuifa 泰西水 法 ), the earliest book in China on Western water-lifting devices, which contained a detailed description of the Archimedean screw pump. While the impact of the Archimedean screw pump in China and Korea remained rather limited, the screw pump was used to drain water from gold mines in the Japanese Sado Island from as early as 1637. This fact became known in the West only in the very late 1800s when hand-colored picture scrolls about the Japanese gold mining process became available. These scrolls show various applications of Archimedean screw, which apparently were made according to the manufacturing instructions in Hydraulic Methods of the Far West .","PeriodicalId":61293,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Annals of History of Science and Technology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41468962","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Barefoot Doctor’s Manual as a \"Medical Bible\" : Medical Politics and Knowledge Transmission in China1","authors":"X. Fang","doi":"10.3724/SP.J.1461.2019.02166","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.1461.2019.02166","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the origin, compilation, and circulation of A Barefoot Doctor’s Manual (Chijiao yisheng shouce 赤脚医生手册), exploring the relationship between medical politics and knowledge transmission in China, and its impact on the promotion of Chinese medicine across the world. Barefoot doctors were a special group of rural medical practitioners active in a very special socio-political context. Various editions of barefoot doctor manuals and textbooks were published across China after the first publication of the Manual in 1969. The publication of these manuals and textbooks became an indelible hallmark of the “Cultural Revolution” (1966–1976), when political publications predominated. The Manual was not only a guide for barefoot doctors in their daily study and practice, but also a primary source of medical knowledge for ordinary people. In the middle of the 1970s, the Manual was translated into many languages and published worldwide. This paper argues that the publication of A Barefoot Doctor’s Manual embodied a public-oriented mode of knowledge transmission that emerged and was adopted during a very specific era, and though it was eventually substituted by a mode of training embedded in the formal medical education system, it demonstrated the impact of politics on medicine and health in the context of resource scarcity and low literacy. Changes in China’s geopolitical status, the West’s pursuit of alternative approaches to medicine and health, and the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) concern over health universality and equity all contributed to the translation and circulation of the Manual, facilitating the dissemination of Chinese medicine worldwide. The paper thus presents empirical and theoretical contributions to research on the relationship between medical politics and knowledge transmission in China.","PeriodicalId":61293,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Annals of History of Science and Technology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41892979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Transnational Dimensions of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Modern China","authors":"Danian Hu","doi":"10.3724/sp.j.1461.2019.02001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3724/sp.j.1461.2019.02001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":61293,"journal":{"name":"Chinese Annals of History of Science and Technology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46685608","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}