Guest Anonymous Posted September 2, 2003 at 08:24 PM Report Share Posted September 2, 2003 at 08:24 PM people always talk about how the west invented this and that' date=' but what is the west. is russia the west? italy? britain? france? germany? spain? poland? the u.s.? how many states and nations are included in the word "west"? and what abotu china? yes, china is only ONE country! even tho its big, but its still under one leadership. with no sigificant inovative or scientifically competitive country around it, to have done what it has done, to me that is really amazing. information and inovation flew freely in the west, even discoveries made in the middle east, the west had first access to it. is it really fair to compare the contributions by so many nations and states against one single state? it's like adding up all the gold medals of the "WEST" in the olympics and compare them against the chinese gold medals.[/quote'] That's very interesting. I've seen many nations bordering the West (namely Russia, and Central and South Americas) have been both included and left out in many instances to make the impression that the name West equals modern and advanced. Personally, under my imrpession, the West generally means any nations that's ruled by Caucasians. Although I have seen Japan being included in the West many times as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pazu Posted September 30, 2003 at 08:40 PM Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 at 08:40 PM Have you heard that, toothbrush was invented in China too. Okay, just correct me if you have any other information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted September 30, 2003 at 09:00 PM Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 at 09:00 PM I don't know about toothbrush (might be true) but I've heard that "testing" was also first practiced in China. For hundreds of years, tests were held in China for those who wish to obtain a position as a government officials. The test is somewhat different from what we're used to today. It was more of a memorization of a guideline of conducts such as Confucius's teachings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quest Posted October 3, 2003 at 03:32 AM Report Share Posted October 3, 2003 at 03:32 AM civil examination Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest byoi Posted October 11, 2003 at 10:14 AM Report Share Posted October 11, 2003 at 10:14 AM So, back to the inventions. Was early Chinese ink and paper similar to the styles in Renaissance England? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BeiRen Posted November 8, 2003 at 03:20 PM Report Share Posted November 8, 2003 at 03:20 PM Actually China had never thought of colonising like the western imperialist. The purpose for the western imperialist to do so it to suck the wealth from the colonised teritory. As for China, it's for fux for them to colonise such a backward area. It's more like they claiming the land where their ancestor once controlled. If China wants to colonise a country, she would long ago colonise the whole South-East Asia during the 14th - 15th century where she had archieved a respectful status in ship fleets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holyman Posted November 23, 2003 at 04:38 AM Report Share Posted November 23, 2003 at 04:38 AM Actually China had never thought of colonising like the western imperialist. The purpose for the western imperialist to do so it to suck the wealth from the colonised teritory. As for China, it's for fux for them to colonise such a backward area. It's more like they claiming the land where their ancestor once controlled. If China wants to colonise a country, she would long ago colonise the whole South-East Asia during the 14th - 15th century where she had archieved a respectful status in ship fleets. tell me about guangzhou, hainan, guangxi, guilin, yunnan, tibet, xinjiang. or maybe u can tell me where is 'ri'nan' or 'cangwu'. then maybe tell me about the malacca empire, or how modern vietnam came about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted November 23, 2003 at 08:44 AM Report Share Posted November 23, 2003 at 08:44 AM Actually China had never thought of colonising like the western imperialist. The purpose for the western imperialist to do so it to suck the wealth from the colonised teritory. As for China' date=' it's for fux for them to colonise such a backward area. It's more like they claiming the land where their ancestor once controlled. If China wants to colonise a country, she would long ago colonise the whole South-East Asia during the 14th - 15th century where she had archieved a respectful status in ship fleets.[/quote']tell me about guangzhou, hainan, guangxi, guilin, yunnan, tibet, xinjiang. or maybe u can tell me where is 'ri'nan' or 'cangwu'. then maybe tell me about the malacca empire, or how modern vietnam came about. To say that China doesn't colonize at *ALL* would be a lie. Every powerful nation must have colonized at least a little inorder to even survive, considering the harsh world we live in. However, it is true that China hasn't colonized the world and caused as much "damage" as Western Imperialist forces have, especially in the past two centuries. Yes, pretty much the whole China, except for the Yellow River basin area was "colonized" by the Chinese. But compare that pales in comparison to the colonization of Africa, both North and South Americas, Australia, New Zealand, parts of Asia and the Middle East by the Western Imperialists. However, most of the Chinese territories were gained and already established in early Chinese history, as opposed to the Europeans who just started their "Age of Imperialism" during the 1700's. So we can say that in early history, the Chinese did colonize its share of land while modern European nations were still being governed by the Roman Empire (who certain colonized as well) or in the Dark Ages. In more recent history, Europeans nearly colonized the whole world while China remained pretty much in its little corner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsunku Posted November 23, 2003 at 05:03 PM Report Share Posted November 23, 2003 at 05:03 PM In more recent history, Europeans nearly colonized the whole world while China remained pretty much in its little corner. It's a pretty big corner if you ask me. ;) Western colonialism sucked, but China also had to fight wars to get the land it has today. Nearly every country with any force behind it has conquered people who didn't always want to be conquered. Whether the conquering was justified or not is all a matter of perspective. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted November 23, 2003 at 05:34 PM Report Share Posted November 23, 2003 at 05:34 PM It's a pretty big corner if you ask me. ;) China's current territory, not including Mongolia, is no bigger than the continental U.S. It's quite small compare to European colonization of the rest of the world. Western colonialism sucked, but China also had to fight wars to get the land it has today. Nearly every country with any force behind it has conquered people who didn't always want to be conquered. Whether the conquering was justified or not is all a matter of perspective. Actually that was almost exactly my point :-) To say that China doesn't colonize at *ALL* would be a lie. Every powerful nation must have colonized at least a little inorder to even survive, considering the harsh world we live in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian_Lee Posted December 17, 2003 at 09:46 PM Report Share Posted December 17, 2003 at 09:46 PM NOVA has done a documentary on an ancient Chinese invention -- arch bridge. They even got a team to build an arch bridge based on that ancient technology in China. More Chinese inventions happened in the Northern Sung Dynasty -- a period when China was militarily weak but culturally strong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest greenpine Posted January 1, 2004 at 01:08 PM Report Share Posted January 1, 2004 at 01:08 PM primitive firearms in forms of gun and cannon were developed in china during Song, but the european developed those independently after the mongols passed gunpowder to europe i believe, Ming firearms were generally weaker and less efficient comparing to that of europeans, but not too far behind and frequent communication in late ming helped to catch up, but the later Manchu's firearm was a major setback, during the opium war, its firearms were almost useless that Ming legacy firearms had to be reconstructed to at least do some damage to the enemy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quest Posted January 1, 2004 at 05:21 PM Report Share Posted January 1, 2004 at 05:21 PM 君主不明，百姓受灾 -- Qing Dynasty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
芳芳 Posted January 4, 2004 at 05:26 AM Report Share Posted January 4, 2004 at 05:26 AM Hii!!! Uh...I'm just asking for a pacific question (Why can't we talk about sciences and evolution without talking about war? Ahlala!) I'm interested in maths history, and here is the point: without wondering who started what among greeks, egyptians, indians or arabs, a lot of trails have been transmitted by their scientist through manuscripts, books... But I've not heard yet about any chinese ouvrage in this domain, or any chinese school of maths in ancient times. No chinese name in the hundreds/ thousand of theorems that frighten poor students along their lessons (but this is not really relevant of a maths activity, as far as maths dicoveries don't always carry the name of their first discoverer). All that speech to say that, despite the few trails of an antic chinese math activity, I can't believe they didn't discover things or explore this domain. I know, there is the Yiking (not sure of the orthographie) about mutations, but it is more philosophical and it is not mathemathics, but what else? Maybe was it all oral tradition, but anyway, there must be something, right? Can someone give me a piece of information about it? -I recognise I don't know much about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 北洋大臣 Posted January 4, 2004 at 06:59 AM Report Share Posted January 4, 2004 at 06:59 AM around the 500s, Chines mathematician Zhu Chongzi 祖沖之 found the 7th decimal of pi, exactly 1000 year ahead of the first European mathematician ( a german ) in 1573 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
芳芳 Posted January 4, 2004 at 07:14 AM Report Share Posted January 4, 2004 at 07:14 AM Oh yeah! now you remind it to me I remember of this performance. That's really impressive! And it's a sign that there must have been chinese mathematicians of a very high level. I'd like to know them. I'll begin to make a research on Zhu Chongzi 祖沖之. Thanks a lot, 北洋大臣! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yan Posted January 4, 2004 at 12:27 PM Report Share Posted January 4, 2004 at 12:27 PM There is also a 'Chinese Remainder Theorem' in Algebra: http://www.cut-the-knot.org/blue/chinese.shtml Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quest Posted January 4, 2004 at 03:20 PM Report Share Posted January 4, 2004 at 03:20 PM CHinese Mathematics History: http://www.roma.unisa.edu.au/07305/chinese.htm http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/mathhist/china.html http://www.saxakali.com/COLOR_ASP/chinamh1.htm I know Chinese discovered the Pythagorean thereom before Pythagoras, and the Pascal's Triangle before Pascal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted January 5, 2004 at 04:04 AM Report Share Posted January 5, 2004 at 04:04 AM There's a page on Zhu Chongzhi here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
芳芳 Posted January 5, 2004 at 05:38 AM Report Share Posted January 5, 2004 at 05:38 AM Thanks everybody for these usefull links! No I'm conforted in my intuition that chinese discovered a lot of things in maths before euuhh...a lot of other people even if few books and fewer teacher really mention them when it comes to discuss about maths history. So? give back to chinese what belongs to chinese? Bah, maths is not a contest after all, the point is that the discover and the way of thinking to make it is more important. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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