EIGHT is a lucky number in China. How fortunate it was, then, that a team of more than 100 scientists was able, after three years of research, to declare that ancient Chinese had achieved no fewer than 88 scientific breakthroughs and engineering feats of global significance. Their catalogue of more than 200 pages, released in June, was hailed as a major publishing achievement.
All Chinese schoolchildren can name their country’s “four great inventions”: paper, printing, the compass and gunpowder. Now it appears they have a lot more homework to do. The study purports to prove that China was first with many other marvels, including the decimal system, rockets, pinhole imaging, rice and wheat cultivation, the crossbow and the stirrup.
It is no coincidence that the project, led by the prestigious Chinese Academy of Sciences, got under way a few months after Xi Jinping took over as China’s leader in 2012. Mr Xi has been trying to focus public attention on the glories of China’s past as a way to instil patriotism and provide a suitable historical backdrop for his campaign to fulfil “the...Continue reading
Source: China http://ift.tt/2hE7edn
EmoticonEmoticon