Characteristics of the development of science in ancient China and the West and their respective achievements

I. Characteristics:

1. Ancient China alone created world-renowned scientific and technological achievements, the achievements of ancient Chinese science and technology in the pioneering, historical continuity, and comprehensive diversity are world-renowned.

2, China's ancient scientific and technological development, especially the development of scientific thought, both continuity, but also show the characteristics of stage culmination.

3. Empirical, descriptive, practical and localized is a prominent feature of China's ancient science and technology.

4. More development of disciplines closely related to agriculture is another characteristic of China's ancient science and technology.

5, government-run is another feature of the history of the development of science and technology in ancient China.

Two, achievements:

1, the early science of ancient Greece, such as geometry, astronomy in many things learned from the ancient civilization of the river. It was the long-term development of such original scientific and technological achievements, inherited through the generations, that formed the scientific and technological system of ancient China.

Dr. Joseph Lee, the famous British historian of science and technology, has done justice to this in the preface to his History of Science and Technology in China, where he says: "These inventions and discoveries in China were often far in advance of their European contemporaries, and this was especially true before the fifteenth century (about which it can be easily proved). "

2, China's ancient society from the five emperors, Xia, Shang, Zhou, Spring and Autumn and Warring States until the end of the Qing Dynasty, where 4,000 years, has been continuous, has not occurred like the Roman Empire as the interruption of the unsuccessful tragedy of history, nor experienced the dark ages of the Middle Ages in Western Europe.

This has enabled the development of ancient science and technology in China to be passed on from generation to generation, accumulated continuously, and on this basis to its own peak.

Expanded

Ancient Chinese science and technology development process:

Chinese science and technology from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period began to catch up with the other civilizations, and then in the long more than a thousand years of "unification" of the rise and fall of feudalism, and continue to develop and always in the world's leading position. development and has always been in a leading position in the world.

China is an ancient agricultural country, successive feudal rulers out of the need to consolidate power to implement the "agricultural state" policy, water conservancy is a concentrated embodiment of this policy, water conservancy projects are both the needs of the agricultural economy, but also the requirements of the social structure of the Great Unification.

It is impossible to produce large-scale water conservancy projects solely on the basis of small farmers' economy, and the impetus from the social structure of the great unification is an important reason why water conservancy technology in ancient China has always maintained its leading position.

Ancient China's most famous architectural marvel, the Great Wall of China, was built to meet the needs of national defense; the maritime technology produced by Zheng He's voyages to the West was developed to meet political needs; metallurgy, textiles, porcelain, and the Four Great Inventions were all developed to meet the political, economic, and military needs of the feudal society.

Most of the ancient Chinese technologies were developed around the consolidation of the needs of the great unified society, and eventually formed a great unified technological structure. The feudal monolithic social structure determined the fate of ancient Chinese technology: it achieved great splendor in the more than 1,000-year-long feudal event, and gradually ended with the decline of the feudal dynasty in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Source:Baidu Encyclopedia-History of Chinese Science and Technology