China?

The Greeks were good in philosophy but the Chinese, in my prespective, had more scientific research. some invetions were gunpowder, compass, paper, earth quake meter, copying technique.

This is not about inventions, is it?

In classical age, Greeks definitely. Chinese had many inventions, but not in the classical age timeframe.

As for scientific research... I don't think that was established in the West before the Alexandrine school and much later in China. It's still the Greeks, but not in the classical age (they lacked a crucial part of the "scientific method", the experiment/verification process, even though they excelled at the theoretical approach) only in the days of the Alexandrine school (the generation of early scientists blooming in the famous Alexandrian Library).

If we talk about inventions only, there are far more contestants than just Greek and China. Romans were great inventors, Sumerians and Egyptians long before them also.

But they lacked the theoretical and scientific, approach of the Greeks. They were more empiricists than anything else. But that didn't hinder the mesopotamian cultures to discover great theoretical concepts like the Pi number or an early form of the Pythagorean theorem.

The Indians were great thinkers, as well.

P.S. forgot to add something to clear up a confusing fact: the ancient Greek term philosophy (love for wisdom?) as used in antiquity, is in all practical ways synonumous to our term "Science". So, if you say that Greeks invented philosophy it's like stating that they invented science. Which, in a way, is correct, concept-wise though. Practically, many more cultures long before the classical Greeks, have practiced science. They just didn't name it

Forgot to add a couple of links I've found

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Inventions.htm - http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Inventions.htm

http://www.crystalinks.com/chinainventions.html - http://www.crystalinks.com/chinainventions.html

When was the classical age?

Gunpowder was invented in China during Han dynasty (209 BC - 220 AD)

Paper was an invention in China in Han dynasty as well.

Many Chinese inventions such as crossbows were already widely used in Spring and Autman period (770 bc - 483 bc).

The following is from warhead's information: 

Sun Bing's military manual written in 340 b.c. and unearthed in 1972 shows a number of deployments.

Here are some described:

The Wu Îé - five-man squad in line astern.

The Dui ¶Ó - 10 Wu in line abreast (5 men deep and 10 across) 50 men

The Bo ²® - Two Dui in line abreast (5 men deep and 20 across) or line astern (a square 10 men deep and 10 across) 100 men

The Qu Çú - Two Bo in line abreast (5 men deep and 40 across) or line astern (20 men deep and 10 across) 200 men

The Square ·½Õó - made up of several rows of Qu, with the HQ in the middle of the rear row. Not necessarily a true square, can be rectangular. A favourite tactic was to place stronger Qu on the flanks, and then lure the enemy to attack the centre and be outflanked.

The Circle Ô²Õó - a Qu reformed into a ring, with the HQ protected within it. A highly defensive formation.

Dispersed Formation ÊèÕó - increasing the distance between individual Qu in a square, so as to mislead the enemy or divide his forces.

Close Formation ÊýÕó - decreasing the distance between individual Qu in a square, for strength in close-quarter fighting.

The Awl ׶(zhui)ÐÐÖ®Õó - A wedge (triangle with one point facing forward), a highly offensive formation. Also known in later history as the Male Formation êò(pin)Õó (you'll see why later).

The Wild-Goose-Flight Formation Ñã(yan)ÐÐÖ®Õó - A V-formation with two wings for enveloping the enemy and the HQ in the middle. Or an inverted-V for a defensive formation that can quickly be converted to offensive wedge. The V-formation can also be modified into a flattened U known as the Basket Formation »þ(ji)ÐÎÕó or Female Formation ĵ(mu)Õó, for luring enemy wedges into the centre and then enveloping them.

The Hook Formation ¹³ÐÐÖ®Õó - A line abreast with the two ends sloping inwards to avoid being flanked. Probably most suitable for archers or crossbowmen.

Then there are unorthodox formations such as the Bagua which is a highly flexible formation with high degree of manuvre.

China had a more advanced technology.

By no later than the end of the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 B.C.), the Chinese developed the technology of the blast furnace. This allowed them to heat the ore above its melting point, and produce cast iron. Among the inventions that made this possible, was the double-action bellows. The manufacture of iron, using a blast furnace to produce a molten metal, greatly expanded production: The process could be continuous, as the molten metal flowed from the reducing furnace, was poured into molds, and made into a large variety of products.
The blast furnace was introduced in Europe, on a wide scale, only in the late 14th Century, almost 2,000 years later. The use of cast iron was, unfortunately, introduced in Europe largely for the production of cannon; Henry VII constructed the first blast furnaces in England. The replacement of the bloom furnace with the blast furnace, increased productivity in the English iron industry 15-fold.
The Chinese were able to manufacture superior tools, that the more primitive European metallurgy was incapable of producing, which led to a substantial advance in productivity throughout the entire economy. As early as the Third Century B.C., the state of Qin appointed government officials to supervise the iron industry, and penalize manufacturers who produced substandard products. The Han Dynasty nationalized all cast-iron manufacture in 119 B.C. Around that time, there were 46 imperial Iron Casting Bureaus throughout the country, with government officials insuring that cast-iron tools were widely available. This included cast-iron plowshares, iron hoes, iron knives, axes, chisels, saws and awls, cast-iron pots, and even toys.

The Chinese also developed methods for the manufacture of steel that were only matched in the West, in the recent period. The characteristics of iron alloys are related to the carbon content. Cast iron generally has a high carbon content, which makes it strong, but brittle. Steel, which is an alloy of iron with a low carbon content, is strong and more durable. The use of steel in agricultural implements was introduced, on a wide scale, during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.). This led to a further improvement in productivity.

In the Second Century B.C., the Chinese developed what became known in the West as the Bessemer process. They developed a method for converting cast iron into steel, by blowing air on the molten metal, which reduced the carbon content. In 1845, William Kelly brought four Chinese steel experts to Kentucky, and learned this method from them, for which he received an American patent. However, he went bankrupt, and his claims were made over to the German, Bessemer, who had also developed a similar process.

The Chinese also had superior weapons and tools:

Pilum is a primitive weapon for limitd throwing power. With the presense of crossbow, their is noneed for weapons of inferior power. As for pavises, the warring state shield industry was highly advanced, the shields are made in fine hide along with maximu care, the rules were stric, if rat bitten marks were found, the shield carers are severely punished. Shields are made through careful calculation of the time in drying the wood and hide to maximize defense power. And designed in such shape to deflect missiles.

Sun Zhi lived in 5th century BC during the Spring and Autumn peiord (2 hundred years before Alexander) but his war mannual was widely studied during warring state period of China.

Coolstorm, is this going to evolve into another "the Chinese are better than anyone" type of thread? Because if it is, I honestly don't want to have anything to do with.

As to the subject of this thread, what excactly do you define "science"? Because battle formations (2/3 of your post) is definitely not "science". Since we are talking about scientific research, it's rather peculiar to refer to military manuals, formations, and such.

The Greeks formulated the whole theory of "science", which is a huge step forward in science nevertheless. I don't think China, besides practical implementation of things, had any theoriticists in the calibre of Aristotle, or any working scientists in the league of an Archimedes or a Hero.

I don't doubt the exceptional progress conducted in areas of China throughout the ages, but the blast furnace alone doesn't qualify the Chinese as superior scientists to the Greeks, don't you agree?

A rundown by invention:

Greeks

- Science

- Acoustics

- Anchor

- Astrolabe

- Automata (that is, primitive machines)

- Bricks

- Bucket chain

- Caltrops

- camera obscura

- catalog of books

- catapult

- chewing gum

- city planning

- coin automate

- compound pulley

- computing device

- cranes

- drydock

- dice

- dioptra

- fire extinction machine

- flame thrower

- floating bridge (pontoon bridge)

- hopper rubbers

- hydravlis

- terra cotta lamps

- lever

- lighthouse

- musical notation

- odometer

- parchment

- piston

- Alarm clock

...and many others, including the famous inventions by Archimedes.

Chinese

- Fireworks

- wheelbarrow

- Earthquake weathercock

- compass

- spaghetti

- fan

- kites

- bamboo working

- iron casting

- harnessing animals

- advanced navigation

- Abacus

- clock

- rudder

- planetarium

- anesthetic

- paper

- printing

- books

- umbrella

And many, many others

(both lists from the links I provided in the previous post)

What is my point? They were both great inventors, but the Chinese have more inventions relative to warfare and practical everyday use, while the Greeks have more sophisticated devices, but not practically useful all the times.

Note though that the Greek inventions date up to the 1st century AD, while the Chinese inventions mentioned in the list date up to the 10the century AD.

What is my point? They were both great inventors, but the Chinese have more inventions relative to warfare and practical everyday use, while the Greeks have more sophisticated devices, but not practically useful all the times.

Note though that the Greek inventions date up to the 1st century AD, while the Chinese inventions mentioned in the list date up to the 10the century AD."

Many of the Chinese inventions you listed actually could date up to Spring and Autumn period (770 bc - 483 bc).

For example, gunpowder was an invention of Han dynasty (209 bc - 220 ad).

Paper was also in use during the Han dynasty.

I absolutely don't think that Chinese civilization was better than anyone else's but I also disagree that the Greek inventions came before the Chinese. The fact is both were great civilizations and both had just as many inventions in ancient time.

Talking about science and the planning of government and cities, the Chinese came up with the Calendar, the study of the universe, their own version of computing device, Taoism, Confucianism, compass was a Chin invention (Chin state established in Eastern Chou period (1020 bc - 221 bc) Chin dynasty (221 bc - 208 bc)) So saying that the Chinese inventions only dated up to 10 th century AD is absolutely wrong.

I think both Greek and Chinese were great civilization. But, I disagree with you saying that the Greek were more ancient and had more ancient inventions.

"Ru guo ni you rang da jia xiang xin zhong guo de chen jiou, ni bi shu rang da jia zhuen jing zhong guo de nien hang (if you know how to read Chinese, which i believe you can)."

Infact, I can't read a single word of this.

I can read Chinese but not ping ying. I am really bad with ping ying especially the mandarin romanization as it is not my mother touque.

If you could put that in written form or English, it would be great.

"You can be patrotic about being Chinese but dont be exaggerate their achivement as it seems they are simply GREAT in every era."

I actually think that Chinese civilization entered a dark age after mid Ming.

I don't think that the Chinese did well in every era but however during the warring state period and the classical age as you mentioned, China definitely had a firm scientific foundation. I agree that the Greeks were excellent in Math, philosophy... etc. I am not undervaluating their acheivements. However, I am not exaggerating Chinese achievements either.

Other than saying that I am exagerating Chinese achievements, would you also kindly list anything from my post that you find exaggerating and not based upon the truth.

Please also note that many technologies that western Europeans mastered from central Asia were originally developed in China. Gunpowder, scope, and compass are some examples.

I will wait for you reply here.

    I hope you guys are not gonna throw things at me for saying this: define science.

    I've once read this: the Chinese were great sociologists, the Greeks were great naturalists, and Indians were greak psychologists, if I remember what I read correctly.  Oversimplification of course, but I think we can somewhat identify the strenghts of each scientific culture.

    the beginning stage of the Chinese classical era was also one of the most chaotic one.  One way to help understand the 100 schools (in reality there were less than 30.  one hundred is another way of saying "a lot.") suddenly blosoming in classical China (circa 400 BC - 200 AD, as Kids suggested,) one must realize the issues they were facing.  All of these schools were essentially trying to solve a big dilemma: the Zhou regime had waned, and the many different states were competing for supremacy.  Zhou was essentially a kind of "overlord" state over, at one point 800 states.  With the collapse of the Zhou regime, these states competed for supremacy to replace Zhou.  By the time of the Spring and Autum era, there were a hundred something left; by the time of the Warring States era, only 13 are left, and of which only 7 were real powers.  What you can expect from this is a lot of war and chaos.

    It must've been a frightening time: wars went from chivalrous contest involving thousands that last about a day in the Spring and Autumn era to the large scale conquest of hundreds of thousands soliders on each side in the Warring State era.  Such scholars as Confucius and Lao Tzu were ardently trying to solve a problem facing them everyday.  Confucianism suggests a system of rituals and propriety, proper relations, compassionate rulers, and well educated leaders as the solution.  Taoism suggests escapism from mundanity and a lack of interference from the state.  Legalism suggests clear laws and absolute state power to enforce them.  Mohism suggests adamant pacificism and that everyone loves everyone else equally.  All other schools, including schools of diplomacy and military, all aimed at solving social unrest in one way or another.

    After first two hundred years of classical era, China was united, then disunited after a decade or so, and reunited again around 200 B.C.  Thus begun a peaceful stage of classicism, one where Confucianism reigned supreme, with Taoism still studied, and all the other schools became integrated with them one way or the other, while Buddhism was beginning to be known in China.  Perhaps the climates of other cultures, such as Greeks and Indians, also induced them to have different emphasis of science, but I'd leave that question to others. 

Goodness, I have written an extremely lenghty and detailed post about the cultural differences between East and West, and I did something silly and lost it... damned. I can't write this again, not now.

Congratulations to Mengtze, though. His post is very good.

Today, we ask how the Chinese managed to hide their candle under a bushel. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.

Modern pharmacology had to wait for biochemistry. Without it, all we could do was play around with herbs and hope for the best, right? Well, maybe not. Since the early days of Rome, Chinese doctors have done astonishing things with medicine and anatomy.

While Rome fought the last Punic War in the 2nd century BC, Chinese doctors were learning that blood recirculates and that it's refreshed in the lungs. Europe didn't begin to realize that until the 1500s. William Harvey finally got it straight in 1628. The Chinese also calculated that blood recirculates every 30 minutes. They got that figure by dissecting bodies, measuring the length of blood vessels, and making dubious assumptions. The correct value is more like 30 seconds. But -- Harvey also thought it took 30 minutes.

As the Punic wars ended, the Chinese had also begun extracting male and female hormones from urine. They did that by evaporating the liquid and using sublimation to separate estrogens or androgens from the other solids. They called those hormones the "autumn mineral," because they looked like autumn frost. They used them to treat sexual dysfunction and underdeveloped sexual characteristics.

By the height of the Roman empire, the Chinese were writing about using diet to fight beriberi. It was 1900 before Western doctors realized you got beriberi by trying to subsist on white rice. If the Chinese didn't know the part about vitamin B in brown rice -- well, it was 1936 before Western doctors isolated vitamin B.

By the time of Europe's Dark Ages, the Chinese had synthesized thyroid hormone from jujube dates. They used it to treat goiters. They also controlled diabetes with the right diet. They knew diabetics should avoid starchy foods. And, when the American, Michael Katsoyannis, synthesized insulin in 1966, the irony is that Chinese scientists Zahn and Wang had synthesized it two years earlier. But Zahn and Wang got swallowed up in the Cultural Revolution. The West got the credit.

Finally, as medieval cathedrals rose in France, the Chinese were regularly inoculating themselves against smallpox.

Why did all this stay unknown in the West? Well, the language barrier went beyond words. We were put off by metaphors like autumn mineral. And the Chinese didn't have our medium of print to spread knowledge. China did have printing before the West, but with so many characters it never became a real mass medium.

So the word didn't get out. And we have, for the last 400 years, proudly reinvented idea after idea already known to the Chinese -- things already known for two millennia.

I'm John Lienhard at the University of Houston, where we're interested in the way inventive minds work.

(Theme music)

---

Temple, R, and Needham, J., The Genius of China: 3000 Years of Science Discovery and Invention. New York: A Touchstone Book, 1989, Part 5, Medicine and Health.

I am grateful to Robert Hazlewood, UH Biology Department, for pointing out the Chinese synthesis of insulin in 1964.

Chinese also had some alchemy (thanx to those pill producing magicians who claim that they are able to produce the elixir of immortality).

And we came up with Pascal's Triangle several centuries before Pascal was born (and thus it should be named the Chinese Triangle...only I use such definition in my class and my professor allowed me to when I showed him proof). Not to mention we have a superior pi ratio of 355/113 courtesy of Ju Chongzhi.

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I guess you probaly use the traditional Chinese Pinyin, it is hard to translate into simplefied.

i use traditional chinese but i know nothing about pin yin. and they will never

history has proven it

here's what's said about ancient china on the cia factbook:

"For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences. "

Coolstorm, I do find your constant effort to prove China is uber alles, rather amusing... even though I'd suggest alternative ways of thinking, like "there is no best nation" for instance.

the idea of everyone being equal is a modern propoganda promoting equality among people.

but the world is not equal and power is not equaly distributed.

that holds true at the modern time as well as the ancient time.

would you say the us is as good as afganistan in term of power?

Wow.  I expect these Americans who wrote the cia factbook did have a lot of evidence to say that statement....?  Or did they just tried to come up with a generalization?

EDIt: to have a better comparison, why not post what CIA wrote about Greece?

"If you (want?) everybody to believe China's achievements, then you must have everybody respect its culture."

history has however proven that foreigners have always been hostile towards the chinese.

still remember the time they stole the national treasures when beijing fell? they even burned down the state of the art "yuan ming garden" palace?

if you wanna appreciate the imperial chinese vases, u probably have to go to the great british musuem.

don't expect foreigners to treat u well one day or anything to be fair in the world cause it is never going to be.

Romano, the Chinese did not invent spaghetti. What kind of an Italian are you? Lol

we had our own version of "mian" (noodles similar to pasta)

we had our own version of pizza and ice cream as well.

The only ancient civilization that have lasted till now is China.

It's more complicated than that. The British burned down the White House in Washington DC, and stole the Pantheon freeze. But afterwards, the US and Britian became friends. Western Europe holds great admiration to the Greeks.

Since you are so fervent in trying to prove that China was superior, one thing that I have to say is this:

If only you alone say you're the greatest, it means little. But if others say so, then that shows you have won the admiration of the rest.

"China was actually conquered by the Mongols, which spread Mongolian influence over the people as well. "

it's the other way around for china's cultural influence and large population.

both the mongols and manchu who lived in china got incorporated into the chinese culture.

foreigners will always be hostile to china and i dun have any fantasy. i live in reality.

"

I disagree.  You can't really say the people from a thousand years ago or more are really like their modern counterparts

"

it's not something that can be debated. it's an accepted and proven fact that the chinese culture is the only ancient civilization that has survived till now. the writing, traditions, cultures blah blah blah haven't changed.

taoism today is taoism 2000 yrs ago.

check cia factbook for further information

Hmm...something to ponder about from friend Imperator Invictus.

But western Europe has a small population compared to India and China, and China and India mutually acknowledges each other to be great and powerful civilizations. That's like 1/5 + 1/6 of the world population.

It doesn't matter if western Europeans respect Greek culture. Do they respect Greece right now?

And now we have this montrosity known as China. How much fear does China command! Dude, look around and you can see all those news articles in English about how China is a threat blah blah blah. We have already proven our greatness through your fear which will undoubtedly grow.

Once more, in a less subtle way, since what Imperator Invictus is trying to pass along does miss it's points:

- Everybody is entitled on believing his-hers ancestors are the greatest among humans and that all other people are "lesser". It is only natural. But trying to stuff this personal truth of yours upon other people's throats, is not productive, neither intelligent, nor mature. It's childish behaviour and sometimes dangerous: that was precisely what Hitler and his ridiculous ubermenschen believed... see what they've come up with?

Dario

Well, the Chinese invented noodles, which is a form of spaghetti. But, surely, the pasta is an Italian thing

china and greece only  what about the rest???

the topic says research.