List of Chinese discoveries

Aside from many original inventions, the Chinese were also early original pioneers in the discovery of natural phenomena which can be found in the human body, the environment of the world, and the immediate solar system. They also discovered many concepts in mathematics. The list below contains discoveries which found their origins in China.

Discoveries

Ancient and imperial era

Han Dynasty (202 BC 220 AD) paintings on tile of Chinese guardian spirits representing 11 pm to 1 am (left) and 5 am to 7 am (right); the ancient Chinese, although discussing it in supernatural terms, acknowledged circadian rhythm within the human body
Each bronze bell of Marquis Yi of Zeng (433 BC) bears an inscription describing the specific note it plays, its position on a 12-note scale, and how this scale differed from scales used by other Chinese states of the time; before this discovery in 1978, the oldest known surviving Chinese tuning set came from a 3rd-century BC text (which alleges was written by Guan Zhong, d. 645 BC) with five tones and additions or subtractions of ⅓ of successive tone values which produce the rising fourths and falling fifths of Pythagorean tuning.[5]
  • Equal temperament: During the Han Dynasty (202 BC220 AD), the music theorist and mathematician Jing Fang (7837 BC) extended the 12 tones found in the 2nd century BC Huainanzi to 60.[6] While generating his 60-divisional tuning, he discovered that 53 just fifths is approximate to 31 octaves, calculating the difference at ; this was exactly the same value for 53 equal temperament calculated by the German mathematician Nicholas Mercator (c. 16201687) as 353/284, a value known as Mercator's Comma.[7][8] The Ming Dynasty (13681644) music theorist Zhu Zaiyu (15361611) elaborated in three separate works beginning in 1584 the tuning system of equal temperament. In an unusual event in music theory's history, the Flemish mathematician Simon Stevin (15481620) discovered the mathematical formula for equal temperament at roughly the same tim, yet he did not publish his work and it remained unknown until 1884 (whereas the Harmonie Universelle written in 1636 by Marin Mersenne is considered the first publication in Europe outlining equal temperament); therefore, it is debatable who discovered equal temperament first, Zhu or Stevin.[9][10] In order to obtain equal intervals, Zhu divided the octave (each octave with a ratio of 1:2, which can also be expressed as 1:212/12) into twelve equal semitones while each length was divided by the 12th root of 2.[11] He did not simply divide the string into twelve equal parts (i.e. 11/12, 10/12, 9/12, etc.) since this would give unequal temperament; instead, he altered the ratio of each semitone by an equal amount (i.e. 1:2 11/12, 1:210/12, 1:29/12, etc.) and determined the exact length of the string by dividing it by 122 (same as 21/12).[11]
  • Gaussian elimination: First published in the West by Carl Friedrich Gauss (17771855) in 1826, the algorithm for solving linear equations known as Gaussian elimination is named after this Hanoverian mathematician, yet it was first expressed as the Array Rule in the Chinese Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, written at most by 179 AD during the Han Dynasty (202 BC220 AD) and commented on by the 3rd century mathematician Liu Hui.[12][13][14]
Aware of underground minerals associated with certain plants by at least the 5th century BC, the Chinese extracted trace elements of copper from Oxalis corniculata, pictured here, as written in the 1421 text Precious Secrets of the Realm of the King of Xin.
Bamboo and rocks by Li Kan (12441320); using evidence of fossilized bamboo found in a dry northern climate zone, Shen Kuo hypothesized that climates naturally shifted geographically over time.
  • Geomorphology: In his Dream Pool Essays of 1088, Shen Kuo (10311095) wrote about a landslide (near modern Yan'an) where petrified bamboos were discovered in a preserved state underground, in the dry northern climate zone of Shanbei, Shaanxi; Shen reasoned that since bamboo was known only to grow in damp and humid conditions, the climate of this northern region must have been different in the very distant past, postulating that climate change occurred over time.[15][16] Shen also advocated a hypothesis in line with geomorphology after he observed a stratum of marine fossils running in a horizontal span across a cliff of the Taihang Mountains, leading him to believe that it was once the location of an ancient shoreline that had shifted hundreds of km (mi) east over time (due to deposition of silt and other factors).[17][18]
  • Greatest Common Divisor: Rudolff gave in his text Kunstliche Rechnung, 1526 the rule for finding the greatest common divisor of two integers, which is to divide the larger by the smaller. If there is a remainder, divide the former divisor by this, and so on;. This is just the Mutual Subtraction Algorithm as found in the Rule for Reduction of Fractions, Chapter 1, of The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art [19]
  • Grid reference: Although professional map-making and use of the grid had existed in China before, the Chinese cartographer and geographer Pei Xiu of the Three Kingdoms period was the first to mention a plotted geometrical grid reference and graduated scale displayed on the surface of maps to gain greater accuracy in the estimated distance between different locations.[20][21][22] Historian Howard Nelson asserts that there is ample written evidence that Pei Xiu derived the idea of the grid reference from the map of Zhang Heng (78139 CE), a polymath inventor and statesman of the Eastern Han dynasty.[23]
  • Irrational Numbers: Although irrational numbers were first discovered by the Pythagorean Hippasus, the ancient Chinese never had the philosophical difficulties that the ancient Greeks had with irrational numbers such as the square root of 2. Simon Stevin (1548-1620) considered irrational numbers are numbers that can be continuously approximated by rationals. Li Hui in his comments on the Nine Chapters of Mathematical Art show he had the same understanding of irrationals. As early as the third century Liu knew how to get an approximation to an irrational with any required precision when extracting a square root, based on his comment on 'the Rule for Extracting the Square Root', and his comment on 'the Rule for Extracting the Cube Root'. The ancient Chinese did not differentiate between rational and irrational numbers, and simply calculated irrational numbers to the required degree of precision. [24]
  • Jia Xian triangle: This triangle was the same as Pascal's Triangle, discovered by Jia Xian in the first half of the 11th century, about six centuries before Pascal. Jia Xian used it as a tool for extracting square and cubic roots. The original book by Jia Xian titled Shi Suo Suan Shu was lost; however, Jia's method was expounded in detail by Yang Hui, who explicitly acknowledged his source: "My method of finding square and cubic roots was based on the Jia Xian method in Shi Suo Suan Shu."[25] A page from the Yongle Encyclopedia preserved this historic fact.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi tends to a leper; the Chinese were the first to describe the symptoms of leprosy.
Iron plate with an order 6 magic square in Eastern Arabic numerals from China, dating to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).
With the description in Han Ying's written work of 135 BC (Han Dynasty), the Chinese were the first to observe that snowflakes had a hexagonal structure.
Oiled garments left in the tomb of Emperor Zhenzong of Song (r. 9971022), pictured here in this portrait, caught fire seemingly at random, a case which a 13th-century author related back to the spontaneous combustion described by Zhang Hua (232300) around 290 AD
  • True north, concept of: The Song Dynasty (9601279) official Shen Kuo (10311095), alongside his colleague Wei Pu, improved the orifice width of the sighting tube to make nightly accurate records of the paths of the moon, stars, and planets in the night sky, for a continuum of five years.[46] By doing so, Shen fixed the outdated position of the pole star, which had shifted over the centuries since the time Zu Geng (fl. 5th century) had plotted it; this was due to the precession of the Earth's rotational axis.[47][48] When making the first known experiments with a magnetic compass, Shen Kuo wrote that the needle always pointed slightly east rather than due south, an angle he measured which is now known as magnetic declination, and wrote that the compass needle in fact pointed towards the magnetic north pole instead of true north (indicated by the current pole star); this was a critical step in the history of accurate navigation with a compass.[49][50][51]

Modern era

See also

Notes

  1. Chern later acquired American citizenship in 1961. He was born in Jiaxing, Zhejiang.
  2. Yang later acquired American citizenship in 1964, Lee in 1962. Both men were born in China.

References

Citations

  1. Ho (1991), 516.
  2. Lu, Gwei-Djen (25 October 2002). Celestial Lancets. Psychology Press. pp. 137–140. ISBN 978-0-7007-1458-2.
  3. Needham (1986), Volume 3, 89.
  4. Medvei (1993), 49.
  5. McClain and Ming (1979), 206.
  6. McClain and Ming (1979), 207208.
  7. McClain and Ming (1979), 212.
  8. Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 1, 218219.
  9. Kuttner (1975), 166168.
  10. Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 1, 227228.
  11. Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 1, 223.
  12. Needham (1986), Volume 3, 2425, 121.
  13. Shen, Crossley, and Lun (1999), 388.
  14. Straffin (1998), 166.
  15. Chan, Clancey, Loy (2002), 15.
  16. Needham (1986), Volume 3, 614.
  17. Sivin (1995), III, 23.
  18. Needham (1986), Volume 3, 603604, 618.
  19. Kangsheng Shen, John Crossley, Anthony W.-C. Lun (1999): "Nine Chapters of Mathematical Art", Oxford University Press, pp.33-37
  20. Thorpe, I. J.; James, Peter J.; Thorpe, Nick (1996). Ancient Inventions. Michael O'Mara Books Ltd (published March 8, 1996). p. 64. ISBN 978-1854796080.
  21. Needham, Volume 3, 106107.
  22. Needham, Volume 3, 538540.
  23. Nelson, 359.
  24. Shen, pp.27, 36-37
  25. Wu Wenjun chief ed, The Grand Series of History of Chinese Mathematics Vol 5 Part 2, chapter 1, Jia Xian
  26. McLeod & Yates (1981), 152153 & footnote 147.
  27. Aufderheide et al., (1998), 148.
  28. Salomon (1998), 1213.
  29. Martzloff, Jean-Claude (1997). "Li Shanlan's Summation Formulae". A History of Chinese Mathematics. pp. 341–351. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-33783-6_18. ISBN 978-3-540-33782-9.
  30. C. J. Colbourn; Jeffrey H. Dinitz (2 November 2006). Handbook of Combinatorial Designs. CRC Press. pp. 525. ISBN 978-1-58488-506-1.
  31. Selin, Helaine (2008). Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer (published March 17, 2008). p. 567. ISBN 978-1402049606.
  32. Needham (1986), Volume 3, 91.
  33. Needham (1986), Volume 3, 90-91.
  34. Teresi (2002), 6566.
  35. Needham (1986), Volume 3, 90.
  36. Neehdam (1986), Volume 3, 99100.
  37. Berggren, Borwein & Borwein (2004), 27
  38. Arndt and Haenel (2001), 177
  39. Wilson (2001), 16.
  40. Needham (1986), Volume 3, 100101.
  41. Berggren, Borwein & Borwein (2004), 2426.
  42. Berggren, Borwein & Borwein (2004), 26.
  43. Berggren, Borwein & Borwein (2004), 20.
  44. Gupta (1975), B45B48
  45. Berggren, Borwein, & Borwein (2004), 24.
  46. Sivin (1995), III, 1718.
  47. Sivin (1995), III, 22.
  48. Needham (1986), Volume 3, 278.
  49. Sivin (1995), III, 2122.
  50. Elisseeff (2000), 296.
  51. Hsu (1988), 102.
  52. Croft, S.L. (1997). "The current status of antiparasite chemotherapy". In G.H. Coombs; S.L. Croft; L.H. Chappell (eds.). Molecular Basis of Drug Design and Resistance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 5007–5008. ISBN 978-0-521-62669-9.
  53. O'Connor, Anahad (12 September 2011). "Lasker Honors for a Lifesaver". The New York Times.
  54. Tu, Youyou (11 October 2011). "The discovery of artemisinin (qinghaosu) and gifts from Chinese medicine". Nature Medicine.
  55. McKenna, Phil (15 November 2011). "The modest woman who beat malaria for China". New Scientist.
  56. Chen, J.R. (1966). "On the representation of a large even integer as the sum of a prime and the product of at most two primes". Kexue Tongbao. 17: 385–386.
  57. Chen, J.R. (1973). "On the representation of a larger even integer as the sum of a prime and the product of at most two primes". Sci. Sinica. 16: 157–176.
  58. Chen, J. R. (1966). "On the representation of a large even integer as the sum of a prime and the product of at most two primes". Kexue Tongbao 17: 385–386.
  59. Cheng, Shiu Yuen (1975a). "Eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of Laplacian". Differential geometry (Proc. Sympos. Pure Math., Vol. XXVII, Stanford Univ., Stanford, Calif., 1973), Part 2. Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society. pp. 185–193. MR 0378003.
  60. Chavel, Isaac (1984). "Eigenvalues in Riemannian geometry". Pure Appl. Math. 115. Academic Press. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  61. Chern, S. S. (1946). "Characteristic classes of Hermitian Manifolds". Annals of Mathematics. Second Series. The Annals of Mathematics, Vol. 47, No. 1. 47 (1): 85–121. doi:10.2307/1969037. ISSN 0003-486X. JSTOR 1969037.
  62. S Darougar, B R Jones, J R Kimptin, J D Vaughan-Jackson, and E M Dunlop. Chlamydial infection. Advances in the diagnostic isolation of Chlamydia, including TRIC agent, from the eye, genital tract, and rectum. Br J Vener Dis. 1972 December; 48(6): 416–420; TANG FF, HUANG YT, CHANG HL, WONG KC. Further studies on the isolation of the trachoma virus. Acta Virol. 1958 Jul-Sep;2(3):164-70; TANG FF, CHANG HL, HUANG YT, WANG KC. Studies on the etiology of trachoma with special reference to isolation of the virus in chick embryo. Chin Med J. 1957 Jun;75(6):429-47; TANG FF, HUANG YT, CHANG HL, WONG KC. Isolation of trachoma virus in chick embryo. J Hyg Epidemiol Microbiol Immunol. 1957;1(2):109-20
  63. Ji Qiang; Ji Shu-an (1996). "On the discovery of the earliest bird fossil in China and the origin of birds" (PDF). Chinese Geology. 233: 30–33.
  64. Browne, M.W. (19 October 1996). "Feathery Fossil Hints Dinosaur-Bird Link". New York Times. p. Section 1 page 1 of the New York edition.
  65. Chen Pei-ji, Pei-ji; Dong Zhiming; Zhen Shuo-nan (1998). "An exceptionally preserved theropod dinosaur from the Yixian Formation of China". Nature. 391 (6663): 147–152. Bibcode:1998Natur.391..147C. doi:10.1038/34356. S2CID 4430927.
  66. Sanderson, K. (23 May 2007). "Bald dino casts doubt on feather theory". News@nature. doi:10.1038/news070521-6. S2CID 189975591. Retrieved 14 January 2011.
  67. Cohn 2003, §9.1
  68. Hua Loo-keng (1938). "On Waring's problem". Quarterly Journal of Mathematics. 9 (1): 199–202. Bibcode:1938QJMat...9..199H. doi:10.1093/qmath/os-9.1.199.
  69. Sant S. Virmani, C. X. Mao, B. Hardy, (2003). Hybrid Rice for Food Security, Poverty Alleviation, and Environmental Protection. International Rice Research Institute. ISBN 971-22-0188-0, p. 248
  70. Wolf Foundation Agricultural Prizes
  71. Huang-Minlon (1946). "A Simple Modification of the Wolff-Kishner Reduction". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 68 (12): 2487–2488. doi:10.1021/ja01216a013.
  72. Huang-Minlon (1949). "Reduction of Steroid Ketones and other Carbonyl Compounds by Modified Wolff--Kishner Method". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 71 (10): 3301–3303. doi:10.1021/ja01178a008.
  73. Organic Syntheses, Coll. Vol. 4, p. 510 (1963); Vol. 38, p. 34 (1958). (Article)
  74. Yang, C. N.; Lee, T. D. (1952). "Statistical Theory of Equations of State and Phase Transitions. I. Theory of Condensation". Physical Review. 87 (3): 404–409. Bibcode:1952PhRv...87..404Y. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.87.404. ISSN 0031-9007.
  75. Tsen, C. (1936). "Zur Stufentheorie der Quasi-algebraisch-Abgeschlossenheit kommutativer Körper". J. Chinese Math. Soc. 171: 81–92. Zbl 0015.38803.
  76. Wu, Wen-Tsun (1978). "On the decision problem and the mechanization of theorem proving in elementary geometry". Scientia Sinica. 21.
  77. P. Aubry, D. Lazard, M. Moreno Maza (1999). On the theories of triangular sets. Journal of Symbolic Computation, 28(1–2):105–124
  78. Exum, Roy (December 27, 2015). "Roy Exum: Ellen Does It Again". The Chattanoogan.

Sources

  • Arndt, Jörg, and Christoph Haenel. (2001). Pi Unleashed. Translated by Catriona and David Lischka. Berlin: Springer. ISBN 3-540-66572-2.
  • Aufderheide, A. C.; Rodriguez-Martin, C. & Langsjoen, O. (1998). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Paleopathology. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-55203-6.
  • Berggren, Lennart, Jonathan M. Borwein, and Peter B. Borwein. (2004). Pi: A Source Book. New York: Springer. ISBN 0-387-20571-3.
  • Chan, Alan Kam-leung and Gregory K. Clancey, Hui-Chieh Loy (2002). Historical Perspectives on East Asian Science, Technology and Medicine. Singapore: Singapore University Press. ISBN 9971-69-259-7
  • Elisseeff, Vadime. (2000). The Silk Roads: Highways of Culture and Commerce. New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 1-57181-222-9.
  • Gupta, R C. "Madhava's and other medieval Indian values of pi," in Math, Education, 1975, Vol. 9 (3): B45–B48.
  • Ho, Peng Yoke. "Chinese Science: The Traditional Chinese View," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 54, No. 3 (1991): 506–519.
  • Hsu, Mei-ling (1988). "Chinese Marine Cartography: Sea Charts of Pre-Modern China". Imago Mundi. 40: 96–112. doi:10.1080/03085698808592642.
  • McLeod, Katrina C. D.; Yates, Robin D. S. (1981). "Forms of Ch'in Law: An Annotated Translation of The Feng-chen shih". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 41 (1): 111–163. doi:10.2307/2719003. JSTOR 2719003.
  • McClain, Ernest G.; Shui Hung, Ming (1979). "Chinese Cyclic Tunings in Late Antiquity". Ethnomusicology. 23 (2): 205–224. doi:10.2307/851462. JSTOR 851462.
  • Medvei, Victor Cornelius. (1993). The History of Clinical Endocrinology: A Comprehensive Account of Endocrinology from Earliest Times to the Present Day. New York: Pantheon Publishing Group Inc. ISBN 1-85070-427-9.
  • Needham, Joseph. (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 3, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
  • Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology; Part 1, Physics. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
  • Salomon, Richard (1998), Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509984-2.
  • Sivin, Nathan (1995). Science in Ancient China: Researches and Reflections. Brookfield, Vermont: VARIORUM, Ashgate Publishing.
  • Straffin Jr, Philip D. (1998). "Liu Hui and the First Golden Age of Chinese Mathematics". Mathematics Magazine. 71 (3): 163–181. doi:10.1080/0025570X.1998.11996627.
  • Teresi, Dick. (2002). Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science–from the Babylonians to the Mayas. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-684-83718-8.
  • Wilson, Robin J. (2001). Stamping Through Mathematics. New York: Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.