What are the ancient Chinese science and technology?

Ancient Chinese science and technology

Ancient stone tools

Stone tools refers to the rock as raw materials for the production of tools, it is the first scholars of mankind's main tools of production prevailed in the early stages of human history. From the emergence of mankind until the emergence of bronze, *** experienced two to three million years, belonging to the primitive society period. According to the different stages of development, it can be divided into the Paleolithic and Neolithic Age, and some people will also list a transitional Mesolithic Age between the New and Paleolithic Age. The Paleolithic Age used beaten stone tools, which utilized stone cores or flakes from stone strikes and processed them into certain open-ended stone tools. The types of tools include chopping and smashing tools, scraping tools, and so on. Neolithic prevalent grinding stone tools, this stone first stone into or cut into the appropriate beginning and then ground on the stone processing and become. There are many kinds of stone tools, including axes, chisels, knives, sickles, plows, spears, arrowheads and so on. Some of the finely ground stone tools can be mirror-like.

Ancient Bow and Arrow

Anciently, the bow was used to fire a long-distance weapon with a sharp edge. The bow consists of an elastic bow arm and a resilient bowstring; the arrow consists of an arrowhead, an arrow shaft and an arrow feather. The arrowheads were made of copper or iron, the shafts were bamboo or wood, and the feathers were those of eagles or hawks. It is one of the important weapons used by ancient Chinese armies. The invention of the bow and arrow is a major advance in human technology, showing that people already know how to use the energy stored in the mechanism, when people pull the string to force the deformation of the body of the bow, it will store its own energy into the release, the bow body quickly return to its original shape, at the same time, the energy stored into the violent release, and then will be on the string of the arrow powerfully catapulted out.

Ancient papermaking

Papermaking is one of the four great inventions of China, an outstanding invention in the history of human civilization. China was the first country in the world to raise silkworms and weave silk. Ancient people on the top cocoon silk weaving, the rest of the bad cocoon, sick cocoon, etc. is used to bleaching method to get silk. After bleaching, some residual floss will be left on the gabion mat. When the number of bleaching more, gabion mat on the residual flocculation will accumulate into a layer of fiber flakes, after drying stripped down, can be used for writing. The by-product of this bleaching is small in quantity, and in ancient books it is called het or square wadding. This shows that the origin of Chinese papermaking has a relationship with silk floss.

Ancient Compass

The invention of the compass was the result of the working people of China's understanding of the magnetism of objects in a long period of practice. As a result of productive labor, people came into contact with magnetite and began to understand the nature of magnetism. People first discovered the nature of the magnet to attract iron. Later the pointing nature of magnets was discovered. After much experimentation and research, a practical compass was finally invented.

Ancient Printing

Before the invention of printing, the spread of culture depended mainly on hand-copied books. Hand-copying was time-consuming, laborious, and prone to errors and omissions. It hindered the development of culture and brought undue loss to the spread of culture. Seals and stone carvings provided direct empirical insights into printing, and the method of using paper to make ink tops on stone tablets directly pointed the way to engraved printing. Chinese printing, through the two stages of development of engraving and movable-type printing, gave a gift to the development of mankind.

Ancient Metallurgy

Chinese metallurgy developed from stone quarrying and pottery burning in the late Neolithic period. As people were already able to burn pottery in kilns with high temperatures of nearly 1,000 degrees, and were also becoming familiar with the properties of charcoal, the basic conditions for鎔, forging and metallurgy were in place. Various kinds of metal ores were constantly found during quarrying, and the pottery kiln firing prepared high temperature furnaces for metal smelting and smelting of the ores under reducing conditions in the furnaces. The discovery of bronze knives about 5,000 years old at the Majiayao culture site in Linjia, Dongxiang County, Gansu Province, as well as the discovery of early copper and copper slag at some other late Neolithic sites, marked the birth of metallurgy in China.

Ancient Ceramics

Our ancestors and the forefathers of some countries and regions of the world, such as Egypt, India, Greece, Persia, and Southwest Asia, invented pottery in a long period of practice. The production of pottery also has a history of nearly 10,000 years, since mankind began to know how to make pottery, all aspects of the profound changes, as Engels said "the lowest stage of the age of barbarism - is by the application of pottery". On the basis of the continuous development and improvement of pottery technology, the Chinese invented porcelain. The invention of ceramics not only solved people's living problems, such as living utensils and building materials, but also provided artistic enjoyment.

Ancient Bronze

Four thousand years ago, our ancestors were able to cast bronze. The Shang and Zhou periods were the heyday of our bronze culture. In the twelfth century B.C. had made 832.84 kilograms of ShiMuWu tripod. The ancient mining site of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period (from the eighth century BC to the third century BC) found in Tonglushan of Hubei Province is still piled up with more than 400,000 tons of ancient bronze smelting slag, and the distribution of ancient mine shafts under the ground is dense. In the long-term production practice, China's ancient working people summed up a complete set of mining, smelting, modeling, casting technology; recognize the performance of bronze alloy; according to different needs, using different raw materials ratio made all kinds of bronze, including rituals, weapons, musical instruments, production tools and household items, creating a glorious bronze culture, for the development of ancient productivity, cultural and artistic improvement and paved the way to the Iron Age.

Ancient Textile

The textile and printing and dyeing technology of ancient China has a very long history, as early as in the primitive society period, the ancients in order to adapt to the climate change, already know how to take materials from the ground, use natural resources as raw materials for textile and dyeing, as well as the manufacture of simple textile tools. Until today, our daily clothes, certain daily necessities and works of art are all products of textile and dyeing technology. Chinese machine textiles originated from spinning wheels and waist machines in the Neolithic period 5,000 years ago. Western Zhou period with the traditional performance of simple machinery reeling car, spinning wheel, loom appeared one after another, the Han Dynasty, the widespread use of jacquard machine, slant loom, after the Tang Chinese textile machinery is becoming more and more perfect, greatly promoting the development of the textile industry. The late Song and early Yuan well-known cotton weaver Huang Daobao, for teaching advanced textile technology and promote advanced textile tools, by the people's admiration. During the Qing Dynasty, he was honored as the founder of the cloth industry.

Ancient medicine

Chinese medicine is a rich treasure trove with a history of more than 5,000 years. As early as the Warring States period (before 221 BC) appeared content systematic medical theory work "Huang Di? Neijing"; Zhang Zhongjing, a medical doctor in the Han Dynasty, wrote "Treatise on Typhoid Fever"; Li Shizhen, a medical doctor in the Ming Dynasty, completed "Compendium of Materia Medica". They put together a large amount of clinical practice experience into valuable medical information. In Chinese medicine, China has the diagnosis and treatment method of "looking, smelling, questioning, cutting" and dialectic treatment. In acupuncture, massage, qigong, bone-setting, etc., there are unique treatment, health, fitness methods.

Ancient gunpowder

The invention of gunpowder is more than a thousand years old. His research began in ancient alchemy, the ancients for the search for immortality refining pills, alchemy, the purpose and motivation is absurd and ridiculous, but its experimental methods have merit, and finally led to the invention of gunpowder. Engels spoke highly of China's pioneering role in the invention of gunpowder: "It has now been proved beyond all doubt that gunpowder was passed from China to the Arabs through India, and was introduced into Europe by the Arabs and gunpowder weapons together through Spain." The invention of gunpowder greatly advanced the course of history and was one of the key pillars of the European Renaissance.

Ancient water conservancy

Water conservancy is the lifeblood of agriculture. Over the past thousands of years, hard-working, courageous, intelligent Chinese people with the rivers, lakes and seas for the arduous struggle, the construction of countless large and small water conservancy projects, a strong boost to agricultural production. In ancient times, there were many world-famous water conservancy projects in China. For example, "Dayu ruled the water, Dujiangyan and Zhengguo canal during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, Qin canal, Lingqu and Jiangnan Canal during the Qin Period, and the Sui Grand Canal during the Sui Dynasty." These projects were not only huge in scale, but also high in design, indicating that the hydrological knowledge acquired at that time was already quite rich.

Ancient Astronomy

China was one of the first countries in the world to develop astronomy. According to documentary records, as far back as more than four thousand years ago, Emperor Yao had an official in charge of astronomy. With the progress of society, ancient astronomy developed rapidly. In terms of astronomical observation, there were written records of celestial phenomena in China in the sixteenth century B.C., and they successively left behind accounts of sunspots, comets, meteors, novas, sun, moon and five stars, as well as all kinds of star charts and star lists, which were rich in content and consecutive in date, and many of which were the earliest records in the world; in terms of astronomical theories and astronomical instruments, they created such insightful cosmological concepts as the theory of the Hun-Tian and invented light and light instruments such as the Hun-Yi and the Jian-Yi. In terms of astronomical theory and astronomical instruments, they created such insightful cosmological views as the Huntian theory, and invented such heaven-measuring instruments as the Hunyi and Jianyi, which have illuminated the future generations; in terms of the calendar, as early as in the 16th to 11th centuries B.C., China already had a primitive calendar, which has been continuously reformed and perfected and inherited until now.

Ancient Architecture

Ancient Chinese architecture is a precious heritage in the world's architectural treasure trove, as early as 7,000 years ago, people invented mortise and tenon structure, and in the course of long-term development, a set of traditional architectural system with the main features of wood frame type, combined with rammed earth, arch, stone carving, arch and masonry works, etc., which is used for the residential houses, pavilions, mausoleums, grottoes, palaces, temples, ancient pagodas, gardens, bridges and water conservancy projects, all of which show unique structural forms and artistic styles. Over the past thousands of years, the traditional technology of ancient Chinese architecture, which is mainly characterized by wood frame type, has been inherited and formed its own system, which is unique in the world's architectural history.

Ancient Navigation

China has a long history of navigation. As early as 7,000 years ago in the late Neolithic period, the ancestors of the Chinese nation have been able to use fire and stone axe "router for the boat, the river for the oar", opened the prelude to the use of primitive rafts in the sea navigation, with the gradual birth of wooden sailing, the emergence of large-scale maritime transportation and maritime warfare. In the three kingdoms, two jin, north and south dynasty period, the east wu fleet cruise Taiwan and the south ocean, after sailing home from India, China fleet voyage to the Persian gulf. From the Sui, Tang, and Five Dynasties to the Song and Yuan Dynasties, China's seafaring industry fully prospered, and the Maritime Silk Road traveled as far as the Red Sea and the shores of East Africa. Due to the active maritime trade policy and the major breakthroughs in navigation technology marked by compass navigation, China entered the period of "quantitative navigation" ahead of the West. China's sails reached the Western Pacific Ocean and the entire coast of the northern Indian Ocean, and more than 120 countries and regions in Asia and Africa to establish a maritime trade relations, the famous Prickly Harbor (today's Quanzhou, Fujian Province) became the world's largest international port at that time. To the Ming Dynasty Yongle to Xuande years, the great Chinese navigator Zheng He led a fleet of ocean-going ships, has seven times to the West, visited the countries in Asia and Africa, the size of the fleet, the ship's huge, the route of the wide, high navigation skills, at that time, is unparalleled. This sailing event, not only will the ancient Chinese seafaring industry to the peak, but also in the entire history of human navigation, erected a monument that will remain in the annals of history.

Ancient machinery

China is one of the earliest countries in the world to invent and utilize machinery, and some of the inventions are among the world's foremost. In the mechanical principle, structural design and power application and other aspects have achieved high achievements. Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) on the invention of the leverage principle of orange pulley; since the Eastern Han Dynasty, the shape of the use of different gears are widely used in the water to turn even mill, guide car, the record of drums and other machinery; in the original power, gradually from manpower, animal power to the use of water, wind direction, the mechanical transmission mode is also gradually expanding. In history, our ancestors of the continuous invention of machinery, creation, innovation, greatly promote the development of productive forces and social processes. The development of science and technology and other things in human society, is a certain historical inheritance. Today's science and technology is precisely the development of science and technology from the past. Studying and understanding the history of the development of science and technology in China, and exploring its laws of development, will play a role in learning from history and learning from the past.

Ancient Literature

Ancient Chinese literature is a development process with a long history. It is closely connected with the history and culture of China, showing the characteristic features of unique ethnicity, inheritance and epoch. It is dominated by the literature of the Han nationality, and at the same time it is compatible with the history and literature of other minority nationalities, constituting a magnificent ancient Chinese literature. Both ancient Chinese poetry, prose, opera, and novels have an obvious history that can be traced, and show continuous development, enrichment, and perfection in creation and theory. The evolution of each subject is a history, and the veins are clear, fully embodying and displaying its historical and cultural profundity, showing the great richness and tremendous tension in the connotation of ancient Chinese literature, which is carried by ancient Chinese characters.

Ancient Mathematics

Ancient mathematics, which originated in the early production activities of mankind, arose from the need to calculate commercially, to understand the relationship between numbers, to measure the land and to predict astronomical events. In ancient China, math was called arithmetic, also known as arithmetic, before it was finally changed to mathematics. Ancient China was a nation that operated numerical and mathematical operations with the help of bamboo sticks, which had the dual functions of external and internal calculation, and the value orientation in the cultural tradition was to try to construct a concise operation method under the condition of mechanical repetition of calculations and operations, so as to accurately and quickly solve the specific problems put forward by the practice. In the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, "Nine Chapters of the Mathematical Art" focused on theory and practice, and formed a mathematical system centered on arithmetic, which had a far-reaching impact on the Chinese ancient arithmetic and the world's mathematics.