1.
Xi'an
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Xian, formerly romanized as Sian, and also known as Changan before the Ming dynasty, is the capital of Shaanxi Province, Peoples Republic of China. It is a city located in the center of the Guanzhong Plain in Northwest China. Xian is the point of the Silk Road and home to the Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang. Xian currently holds sub-provincial status, administering 9 districts and 4 counties, as of 2015 Xian has a population of 8,705,600 and the Xian-Xianyang metropolitan area has a population of 13,569,700. It is the most populous city in Northwest China, as well as one of the three most populous cities in Western China. According to a July 2012 report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, it was named as one of the 13 emerging megacities, or megalopolises. The report pinpoints and highlights the demographic and income trends that are shaping these cities development, the two Chinese characters 西安 in the name Xian mean Western Peace. It was renamed Changan during the Han dynasty, although it was referred to as Xijing during the Eastern Han dynasty after the capital was relocated to Luoyang in the east. It changed to Daxing in 581 AD during the Sui dynasty, during the Yuan dynasty, the city was first given the name Fengyuan, followed by Anxi then Jingzhao. It finally became Xian in 1369 at the time of the Ming dynasty and this name remained until 1928, then in 1930 it was renamed Xijing, or western capital. The citys name once again reverted to its Ming-era designation of Xian in 1943, Xian currently does not have a widely accepted one-character abbreviation as many other Chinese cities do, possibly due to fact that it was historically called Jing or Du, both meaning the capital. Several suggested abbreviations include Feng, Hao, or Tang, Xian has rich and culturally significant history. The Lantian Man was discovered in 1963 in Lantian County,50 km southeast of Xian, the site is now home to the Xian Banpo Museum, built in 1957 to preserve the archaeological collection. Xian became a cultural and political centre of China in the 11th century BC with the founding of the Zhou dynasty, the capital of Zhou was established in the twin settlements of Fengjing and Haojing, together known as Fenghao, located southwest of contemporary Xian. The settlement was known as Zhōngzhōu to indicate its role as the capital of the vassal states. In 770 BC, the capital was moved to Luoyang due to political unrest, following the Warring States period, China was unified under the Qin dynasty for the first time, with the capital located at Xianyang, just northwest of modern Xian. The first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang ordered the construction of the Terracotta Army and his mausoleum just to the east of Xian almost immediately after his ascension to the throne. In 202 BC, the founding emperor Liu Bang of the Han dynasty established his capital in Changan County, his first palace and this is traditionally regarded as the founding date of Changan, or Xian
2.
History of science and technology in China
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Among the earliest inventions were the abacus, the shadow clock, and the first items such as Kongming lanterns. The Tang Dynasty in particular, was a time of great innovation, a good deal of exchange occurred between Western and Chinese discoveries up to the Qing Dynasty. In the 19th and 20th century the introduction of Western technology was a factor in the modernization of China. Much of the early Western work in the history of science in China was done by Joseph Needham, the Warring States period began 2500 years ago at the time of the invention of the crossbow. Needham notes that the invention of the crossbow far outstripped the progress in defensive armor, at this time, there were also many nascent schools of thought in China — the Hundred Schools of Thought, scattered among many polities. The schools served as communities which advised the rulers of these states, mo Di introduced concepts useful to one of those rulers, such as defensive fortification. One of these concepts, fa was extended by the School of Names, the development of a school of logic was cut short by the defeat of Mohisms political sponsors by the Qin Dynasty, and the subsumption of fa as law rather than method by the Legalists. You conquered the empire on horseback, but from horseback you will never succeed in ruling it, derived from Taoist philosophy, one of the newest longstanding contributions of the ancient Chinese are in Traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture and herbal medicine. These claims, however, are disputed and rely on much supposition. The Book of Silk was the first definitive atlas of comets and it listed 29 comets that appeared over a period of about 300 years, with renderings of comets describing an event its appearance corresponded to. In architecture, the pinnacle of Chinese technology manifested itself in the Great Wall of China, typical Chinese architecture changed little from the succeeding Han Dynasty until the 19th century. The Qin Dynasty also developed the crossbow, which became the mainstream weapon in Europe. Several remains of crossbows have been found among the soldiers of the Terracotta Army in the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the Eastern Han Dynasty scholar and astronomer Zhang Heng invented the first water-powered rotating armillary sphere, and catalogued 2500 stars and over 100 constellations. In 132, he invented the first seismological detector, called the Houfeng Didong Yi, according to the History of Later Han Dynasty, this seismograph was an urn-like instrument, which would drop one of eight balls to indicate when and in which direction an earthquake had occurred. On June 13,2005, Chinese seismologists announced that they had created a replica of the instrument, the mechanical engineer Ma Jun was another impressive figure from ancient China. However, Ma Juns most impressive invention was the south-pointing chariot and it incorporated the use of a differential gear in order to apply equal amount of torque to wheels rotating at different speeds, a device that is found in all modern automobiles. Sliding calipers were invented in China almost 2,000 years ago, the Chinese civilization was the earliest civilization to experiment successfully with aviation, with the kite and Kongming lantern being the first flying machines. The Four Great Inventions are the compass, gunpowder, papermaking and printing, paper and printing were developed first
3.
Four Great Inventions
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The Four Great Inventions are inventions from ancient China that are celebrated in Chinese culture for their historical significance and as symbols of ancient Chinas advanced science and technology. The Four Great Inventions are, Compass Gunpowder Papermaking Printing These four discoveries had a impact on the development of civilization throughout the world. This commonplace spread rapidly throughout Europe in the 16th century and was appropriated only in recent times by Chinese scholars and these inventions were a badge of honor to modern Europeans, who proclaimed that there was nothing to equal them among the ancient Greeks and Romans. After reports by Portuguese sailors and Spanish missionaries began to back to Europe beginning in the 1530s. By 1620, when Francis Bacon wrote in his Instauratio magna that printing, gunpowder, and the nautical compass. Have altered the face and state of the world, first, in matters, second, in warfare, third, in navigation. Western writers and scholars from the 19th century onwards commonly attributed these inventions to China, edkins notes on these inventions were mentioned in an 1859 review in the journal Athenaeum, comparing the contemporary science and technology in China and Japan. In 1880 Johnsons New Universal Cyclopædia, A Scientific and Popular Treasury of Useful Knowledge. The Chautauquan in 1887, none of these, however, referred to four inventions or called them great. A lodestone compass was used in China during the Han Dynasty between the 2nd century BC and 1st century AD, where it was called the south-governor and it was not used for navigation, but rather for geomancy and fortune-telling. The device is recommended as a means of orientation in the obscurity of the night, the first suspended magnetic needle compass was written of by Shen Kuo in his book of 1088. For most of Chinese history, the compass that remained in use was in the form of a magnetic needle floating in a bowl of water. According to Needham, the Chinese in the Song Dynasty and continuing Yuan Dynasty did make use of a dry compass, Gunpowder was discovered in the 9th century by Chinese alchemists searching for an elixir of immortality. By that time, the Chinese had discovered how to create explosive round shot by packing their hollow shells with this nitrate-enhanced gunpowder, however, a recent archaeological discovery has been reported from Gansu of paper with Chinese characters on it dating to 8 BC. While paper used for wrapping and padding was used in China since the 2nd century BC, by the 6th century in China, sheets of paper were beginning to be used for toilet paper as well. During the Tang Dynasty paper was folded and sewn into square bags to preserve the flavor of tea, the Song Dynasty that followed was the first government to issue paper currency. The Chinese invention of Woodblock printing, at some point before the first dated book in 868, according to A. Hyatt Mayor, curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was the Chinese who really discovered the means of communication that was to dominate until our age. Woodblock printing was better suited to Chinese characters than movable type, which the Chinese also invented, western printing presses, although introduced in the 16th century, were not widely used in China until the 19th century. China, along with Korea, was one of the last countries to adopt them, Woodblock printing for textiles, on the other hand, preceded text printing by centuries in all cultures, and is first found in China at around 220
4.
Chinese mathematics
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Mathematics in China emerged independently by the 11th century BC. The Chinese independently developed very large and negative numbers, decimals, a place value system, a binary system, algebra, geometry. Knowledge of Chinese mathematics before 254 BC is somewhat fragmentary, as in other early societies the focus was on astronomy in order to perfect the agricultural calendar, and other practical tasks, and not on establishing formal systems. Ancient Chinese mathematicians did not develop an approach, but made advances in algorithm development. Some exchange of ideas across Asia through known cultural exchanges from at least Roman times is likely, frequently, elements of the mathematics of early societies correspond to rudimentary results found later in branches of modern mathematics such as geometry or number theory. The Pythagorean theorem for example, has been attested to the time of the Duke of Zhou, knowledge of Pascals triangle has also been shown to have existed in China centuries before Pascal, such as by Shen Kuo. Simple mathematics on Oracle bone script date back to the Shang Dynasty, one of the oldest surviving mathematical works is the Yi Jing, which greatly influenced written literature during the Zhou Dynasty. For mathematics, the book included a sophisticated use of hexagrams, leibniz pointed out, the I Ching contained elements of binary numbers. Since the Shang period, the Chinese had already developed a decimal system. Since early times, Chinese understood basic arithmetic, algebra, equations, although the Chinese were more focused on arithmetic and advanced algebra for astronomical uses, they were also the first to develop negative numbers, algebraic geometry and the usage of decimals. Math was one of the Liù Yì or Six Arts, students were required to master during the Zhou Dynasty, learning them all perfectly was required to be a perfect gentleman, or in the Chinese sense, a Renaissance Man. Six Arts have their roots in the Confucian philosophy, the oldest existent work on geometry in China comes from the philosophical Mohist canon of c.330 BC, compiled by the followers of Mozi. The Mo Jing described various aspects of many associated with physical science. It provided a definition of the geometric point, stating that a line is separated into parts. Much like Euclids first and third definitions and Platos beginning of a line, there is nothing similar to it. Similar to the atomists of Democritus, the Mo Jing stated that a point is the smallest unit and it also described the fact that planes without the quality of thickness cannot be piled up since they cannot mutually touch. The book provided word recognition for circumference, diameter, and radius, the history of mathematical development lacks some evidence. There are still debates about certain mathematical classics, for example, the Zhoubi Suanjing dates around 1200–1000 BC, yet many scholars believed it was written between 300–250 BC
5.
Chinese astronomy
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Astronomy in China has a very long history, with historians indicating that the Chinese were the most persistent and accurate observers of celestial phenomena anywhere in the world before the Arabs. Detailed records of observations began during the Warring States period. The telescope was introduced in the seventeenth century, in 1669, the Peking observatory was completely redesigned and refitted under the direction of Ferdinand Verbiest. Today, China continues to be active in astronomy, with many observatories, one of the main functions was for the purpose of timekeeping. The Chinese used a calendar, but, because the cycles of the sun. The Chinese calendar was considered to be a symbol of a dynasty, as dynasties would rise and fall, astronomers and astrologers of each period would often prepare a new calendar to be made, with observations for that purpose. Astrological divination was also an important part of astronomy, astronomers took careful note of guest stars, which suddenly appeared among the fixed stars. Ancient astronomical records of phenomena like comets and supernovae are used in modern astronomical studies. The Chinese developed three different cosmological models, the Gai Tian, or hemispherical dome, model conceived the heavens as a hemisphere lying over a dome-shaped earth. The second cosmological model, associated with the Hun Tian school, saw the heavens as a celestial sphere not unlike the spherical models developed in the Greek, the divisions of the sky began with the Northern Dipper and the 28 mansions. In 1977, a box was excavated from the tomb of Yi. Names of the 28 lunar mansions were found on the cover of the box, as lunar mansions have such an ancient origin, the meanings of most of their names have become obscure. Even worse, the name of each lunar mansion consists of only one Chinese word, the meanings of the names are still under discussion. Besides the 28 lunar mansions, most constellations are based on the works of Shi Shen-fu and Gan De, in the fourth century BC, the two Chinese astronomers responsible for the earliest information going into the star catalogues were Shi Shen and Gan De of the Warring States period. These books appeared to have lasted until the sixth century, but were lost after that, a number of books share similar names, often quoted and named after them. These texts should not be confused with the original written by them. Notable works that helped preserve the contents include, Wu Xian has been one of the astronomers in debate and he is often represented as one of the Three Schools Astronomical tradition along with Gan and Shi. Moreover, it was customary in the past for the Chinese to forge works of notable scholars, Wu Xian is generally mentioned as the astronomer who lived many years before Gan and Shi
6.
Chinese calendar
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Traditional Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar which reckons years, months and days according to astronomical phenomena. It is used for activities in China and overseas Chinese communities. It depictures and lists the dates of traditional Chinese holidays, and guides Chinese people in selecting the most auspicious days for weddings, funerals, moving, in the Chinese calendar, the days begin and end at midnight. The months begin on the day with the dark moon, the years begin with the dark moon near the midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox. The solar terms are the important components of the Chinese calendar, in a month, there are one to three solar terms. The currently used traditional Chinese calendar is the end result of centuries of evolution, many astronomical and seasonal factors were added by ancient scientists, and people can reckon the date of natural phenomena such as the moon phase and tide upon the Chinese calendar. The Chinese calendar has over 100 variants, whose characteristics reflect the evolutionary path. As with Chinese characters, different variants are used in different parts of the Chinese cultural sphere, calendars in Mongolia and Tibet have absorbed elements from the Chinese calendar and elements from other systems, but they are not direct descendants of the Chinese calendar. The official calendar in China is the Gregorian calendar, but the traditional Chinese calendar still plays an important role there. The Chinese calendar is known officially as the Rural Calendar, but is referred to by other names, such as the Former Calendar. The Chinese calendar preserves traditional East Asian culture, although the month sequences of Chinese calendar is decided by the solar term, the Chinese calendar is not an agriculture calendar. The Chinese calendar has greatly influenced the traditional calendars around Asia, the calendar has a year, month and date frame. The key elements are the day, synodic month and solar year, the Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, similar to the Hindu and Hebrew calendars. The concepts in the Chinese, Hindu, and Hebrew calendars, day, in the Chinese calendar, a day starts from the midnight, in the Hindu calendars, a day starts from sunrise, and in the Hebrew calendar, a day starts from sunset. Month, the time is based on the obliquity of the moon path, a month is about 29 17/32 days. Phase, 1/30 month, 12° obliquity of the moon path, a unique concept of dating method in the Hindu calendar, a phase is about 63/64 day, which derived out the 64 divinatory symbols. Date, the day number in a month, in the Chinese and Hebrew calendars, days are numbered in sequence from 1 to 29 or 30, and in the Hindu calendars, the days are numbered according to the number of the phase in the days. In the Hindu calendars, some dates may be vacant, Year, the time based on the earths revolution
7.
Chinese units of measurement
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Chinese units of measurement are the customary and traditional units of measure used in China. In the Peoples Republic of China, the units were re-standardised during the late 20th century to make them approximate SI units, many of the units were formerly based on the number 16 instead of 10. The Chinese name for most SI units is based on that of the closest traditional unit, when it is necessary to emphasize which system is used, the words market for traditional units or common/standard for SI units may be added in front of the name. SI is the system of units, but traditional units are still ubiquitously used in everyday life. Note, The names lí and fēn for small units are the same for length, area, according to the Liji, the legendary Yellow Emperor created the first measurement units. The Xiao Erya and the Kongzi Jiayu state that length units were derived from the human body, according to the Records of the Grand Historian, these human body units caused inconsistency, and Yu the Great, another legendary figure, unified the length measurements. Rulers with decimal units have been unearthed from Shang Dynasty tombs, in the Zhou Dynasty, the king conferred nobles with powers of the state and the measurement units began to be inconsistent from state to state. After the Warring States period, Qin Shi Huang unified China, in the Han Dynasty, these measurements were still being used, and were documented systematically in the Book of Han. Astronomical instruments show little change of the length of chi in the following centuries and it was not until the introduction of decimal units in the Ming Dynasty that the traditional system was revised. On 7 January 1915, the Beiyang Government promulgated a measurement law to use not only metric system as the standard, in 1976 the Hong Kong Metrication Ordinance allowed a gradual replacement of the system in favor of the International System of Units metric system. The Weights and Measures Ordinance defines the metric, Imperial, as of 2012, all three systems are legal for trade and are in widespread use. On 24 August 1992, Macau published Law No, traditional units of length include the chi, bu, and li. The precise length of these units, and the ratios between these units, has varied over time,1 bu has consisted of either 5 or 6 chi, while 1 li has consisted of 300 or 360 bu. All metric values given in the tables are exact unless otherwise specified by the approximation sign ~, certain units are also listed at List of Chinese classifiers → Measurement units. The Chinese word for metre is 米 mǐ, this can take the Chinese standard SI prefixes, a kilometre, however, may also be called 公里 gōnglǐ, i. e. a metric lǐ. For example, a kilometre is 平方公里 píngfāng gōnglǐ. These units are used to measure cereal grains, among other things, in imperial times, the physical standard for these was the jialiang. In the case of volume, the market and metric shēng coincide, the Chinese standard SI prefixes may be added to this word shēng
8.
Early Chinese cartography
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Early Chinese cartography began in the 5th century BC during the Warring States period when cartographers started to make maps of the Earths surface. Its scope extended beyond Chinas borders with the expansion of the Chinese Empire under the Han dynasty, there is an ancient Chinese legend called He Bo Xian Tu, which roughly means the River Deity presenting a map. During the mythical Xia dynasty, a river deity gave Yu the Great a stone with a flood map etched on its surface, Yu the Great used the map to help him in taming the flood that threatened to destroy rural agriculture. In general, the development of early Chinese cartography experienced three phrases, primitive map, classical map, and survey map, the primitive maps were simple maps, still steeped in myth and legend. It was not until the Han dynasty that classical maps began to emerge, the earliest reference to a map in Chinese history can be found in Volume 86 of the historical text Records of the Grand Historian. This volume recorded an incident in 227 BC during the late Warring States period in which a map is mentioned, crown Prince Dan of the Yan state sent Jing Ke to assassinate the King of the Qin state, so as to prevent Qin from conquering Yan. The map, which was rolled up and held in a case, had a dagger hidden in it. As Jing Ke was showing the King the map, he slowly unrolled the map until the dagger was revealed, the King managed to escape unharmed and Jing Ke was killed in his failed assassination attempt. From then on, maps are frequently mentioned in Chinese historical texts, in 1986, seven maps were found in Tomb 1, dating to the Qin state of the Warring States period, at Fangmatan in Gansu Province. The areas covered by the seven maps overlap, but in total they cover 107 ×68 km in area. In addition to the seven maps on wooden blocks found at Tomb 1 of Fangmatan and this tomb is dated to the early Western Han dynasty, so the map dates to the early 2nd century BC. The map shows topographic features such as mountains, waterways and roads, concrete evidence of the existence of maps in ancient China dates back to the Han dynasty. The three silk maps found at the Mawangdui tumulus in Changsha, Hunan Province are traced back to the 2nd century BC, the three maps are a topographic map of the Changsha region, a military map of southern Changsha, and a prefecture map. Research on the three maps indicates that the Chinese had acquired cartography skills in the Han dynasty, the scale of the map is approximately 1,180000. At the time of their discovery, these three silk maps were the oldest to be found in China, however, they were superseded in 1986 after Qin dynasty maps dating back to the 4th century BC were found in Fangmatan, Tianshui, Gansu Province. Throughout the Yuan and Ming dynasties, Chinese cartography did not experience any significant developments, however, traditional cartography skills became more refined, and different types of maps starting appearing. The new types of maps include national maps showing mountains and cities, land maps, coastal defence maps, river maps for flood control. The Guang Yu Tu incorporates the discoveries of admiral Zheng Hes 15th century voyages along the coasts of China, Southeast Asia, India, among Ming dynasty maps, Zheng Hes map was the most influential nautical chart
9.
Chinese geography
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The study of geography in China begins in the Warring States period. It expands its scope beyond the Chinese homeland with the growth of the Chinese Empire under the Han dynasty. It enters its golden age with the invention of the compass in the 11th century, three Kingdoms Pei Xiu, the father of Chinese cartography produced a map of China with plotted grid lines and a graduated scale. A map carved in stone in AD1137 shows 500 settlements and a dozen rivers in China, on the reverse, the Yu Ji Tu, a copy of a more ancient map, uses the grid system developed in China a millennium earlier. After the founding of the Yuan dynasty in 1271, Kublai Khan ordered the compilation of a geography monograph named Dayuan Dayitong Zhi in 1285. In 1286, Persian astronomer Jamāl al-Dīn made Kublai Khan a proposal for merging several maps of the empire into a world map. It was supposedly a world map but is lost today and he also ordered to obtain a book called Rāh-nāmah from Muslim sailors. An extant map attached to the Jingshi Dadian proves Mongols accurate knowledge on Inner Asia that was obtained from Muslims, influence by these official projects, Taoist monk Zhu Siben compiled a geography monograph of China named Jiuyu Zhi in 1297. Based on this work, he created a now lost map of China named Yuditu in 1311-1320. These materials were, however, too large for circulation, what directly impacted Chinese intellectuals were the secondary compilations. Newly discovered materials reveal personal networks among intellectuals of southern China, Qingjun, who was from neighboring Taizhou, created the Hunyi Jiangli Tu when he stayed in Qingyuan. Wu Sidao, who left an important bibliographic clue, was also from Qingyuan, in addition, Ningbo was one of the most important seaports and the sea routes were extended to Fuzhou and Guangzhou, and Southeast Asia, Japan and Goryeo. They must have acquired marine information from Muslim sailors, maps in the Chinese tradition tended to be known by specific titles, easily expressed as short sequences of ideograms, such as the Yu Gong Jiuzhou Lidai Diwang Guodu Dili Tu. The Shengjiao Guangbei Tu by Li Zemin is lost, the Da Ming Hun Yi Tu, a Ming period map with much later Manchu translations of its labels, is also considered to have been based ultimately on Li Zemins map. The Shengjiao Guangbei Tu was a world map and it contained not only China but also Africa and Europe. Little is known about the author Li Zemin, based on place names on the map, it has been presumed that it was created around 1319 and revised sometime between 1329 and 1338. However, Wu Sidaos statement suggests that his map was newer than Qingjuns, the Hunyi Jiangli Tu by Zen monk Qingjun is lost. However, the Shuidong Riji by the Ming period book collector Ye Sheng includes an edition of the map by the name of Guanglun Jiangli Tu
10.
History of printing in East Asia
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Printing in East Asia evolved from ink rubbings made on paper or cloth from texts on stone tables in China during the Han dynasty. Mechanical woodblock printing on paper started in China during the Tang dynasty before the 8th century CE, use of woodblock printing quickly spread to other East Asian countries. While the Chinese used only clay and wood movable type at first, the Western-style printing press became known in East Asia by the 16th century but was not fully adopted until centuries later. Traditionally, there have two main printing techniques in Asia, woodblock printing and moveable type printing. In the woodblock technique, ink is applied to letters carved upon a wooden board, with moveable type, the board is assembled using different lettertypes, according to the page being printed. Wooden printing was used in the East from the 8th century onwards and it is a dharani sutra printed on hemp paper and dated to 650 to 670 AD, during the Tang Dynasty. Another printed document dating to the half of the Chinese Tang Dynasty has also been found. In Korea, an example of woodblock printing from the century was discovered in 1966. The document is estimated to have been created no later than 704 AD, the manuscript is transcribed onto thin slightly waxed sheets of paper by a professional calligrapher. The engraving uses a set of sharp-edged tools to cut the characters with a double edged tool used to cut away any extra surfaces, the knife is held like a dagger in the right hand and guided by the middle finger of the left hand, drawing towards the cutter. The vertical lines are cut first, then the block is rotated 90 degrees, four proof-readings are normally required - the transcript, the corrected transcript, first sample print from block and after any corrections have been made. A small correction to a block can be made by cutting a small notch, after this the block is washed to remove any refuse. To print, the block is fixed firmly on a table, the printer takes a round horsehair inking brush and applies ink with a vertical motion. The paper is laid on the block and rubbed with a long narrow pad to transfer the impression to the paper. The paper is peeled off and set to dry, because of the rubbing process, printing is only done on one side of the paper, and the paper is thinner than in the west, but two pages are normally printed at once. Sample copies were made in red or blue, but black ink was always used for production. It is said that a printer could produce as many as 1500 or 2000 double sheets in a day. Blocks can be stored and reused when extra copies are needed,15,000 prints can be taken from a block with a further 10,000 after touching up
11.
Chinese ceramics
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Chinese ceramics show a continuous development since pre-dynastic times and are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. The first pottery was made during the Palaeolithic era, Porcelain is so identified with China that it is still called china in everyday English usage. Most later Chinese ceramics, even of the finest quality, were made on an industrial scale, many of the most important kiln workshops were owned by or reserved for the Emperor, and large quantities of ceramics were exported as diplomatic gifts or for trade from an early date. The earliest Chinese pottery was earthenware, which continued in production for utilitarian uses throughout Chinese history, but was increasingly less used for fine wares. Porcelain, on a Western definition, is a term comprising all ceramic ware that is white and translucent. The Chinese tradition recognizes two categories of ceramics, high-fired and low-fired, so doing without stoneware, which in Chinese tradition is mostly grouped with porcelain. Terms such as porcellaneous or near-porcelain may be used for stonewares with porcelain-like characteristics, the Erya defined porcelain as fine, compact pottery. Chinese pottery can also classified as being either northern or southern, the kiln types were also different. Southern materials have high silica, low alumina and high potassium oxide, the northern materials are often very suitable for stoneware, while in the south there are also areas highly suitable for porcelain. Chinese porcelain is made by a combination of the following materials. Porcelain stone - decomposed micaceous or feldspar rocks, historically known as petunse. Feldspar Quartz In the context of Chinese ceramics, the term lacks a universally accepted definition. This in turn has led to confusion about when the first Chinese porcelain was made, claims have been made for the late Eastern Han dynasty, the Three Kingdoms period, the Six Dynasties period, and the Tang dynasty. Chinese kiln technology has always been a key factor in the development of Chinese pottery, the Chinese developed effective kilns capable of firing at around 1, 000°C before 2000 BC. These were updraft kilns, often built below ground, two main types of kiln were developed by about 200 AD and remained in use until modern times. Both could reliably produce the temperatures of up to 1300°C or more needed for porcelain, in the late Ming, the egg-shaped kiln or zhenyao was developed at Jingdezhen, but mainly used there. This was something of a compromise between the types, and offered locations in the firing chamber with a range of firing conditions. According to Science, pottery dating from 20,000 years ago were found at the Xianrendong Cave site
12.
History of metallurgy in China
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Metallurgy in China has a long history. The earliest metal objects in China date to around 3,000 BC, China was also the earliest civilization that produced cast iron. Recent evidence indicates that the earliest metal objects in China go back to the fourth millennium BCE. The earliest sites that have yielded metal objects date to the late fourth, copper was generally the earliest metal to be used by mankind. The use of copper in ancient China goes back to 3,000 BC, although bronze artifacts were exhumed in the archeological sites of Majiayao culture, it is still widely believed that Chinas Bronze Age began from around 2100 BC during the Xia dynasty. The Qijia culture of Qinghai, Gansu and western Shaanxi has yielded copper and bronze items and gold, copper. The earliest dates for metal in this region are found at a Majiayao site at Linjia, Dongxiang, Linjia site has the earliest evidence for bronze in China, dating to c.3,000 BC. The majority of metal items found in China come from the North-Western Region. Their dates range from 2900 –1600 BCE and these metal objects represent the Majiayao 马家 窑 Type of the Majiayao Culture, Zongri 宗日 Culture, Machang 马 厂 Type, Qijia 齐家 Culture, and Siba 四坝 Culture. The Erlitou culture, Shang Dynasty and Sanxingdui culture of early China used bronze vessels for rituals as well as farming implements, chromium only came to the attention of westerners in the 18th century. The alloys of tin and copper enabled weapons such as knives and swords to avoid rust. The layer of chromium oxide used on steel swords was 10 to 15 micrometers, the beginning of new breakthroughs in metallurgy occurred towards the Yangzi Rivers south in Chinas southeastern region in the Warring States Period such as gilt-bronze swords. According to some scholars, lost-wax casting was used in China already during the Spring and Autumn period, in 2008, two iron fragments were excavated at the Mogou site, in Gansu. They have been dated to the 14th century BC, belonging to the period of Siwa culture, one of the fragments was made of bloomery iron rather than meteoritic iron. In 1972, near the city of Gaocheng in Shijiazhuang, a bronze hatchet dating back to the 14th century BC was excavated. After a scientific examination, the iron was shown to be made from meteoric iron, cast-iron artifacts are found in China before the 5th century BC, as early as the Zhou dynasty of the 6th century BC. An Iron Age culture of the Tibetan Plateau has tentatively been associated with the Zhang Zhung culture described in early Tibetan writings, around 500 BC, metalworkers in the southern state of Wu developed an iron smelting technology that would not be practiced in Europe until late medieval times. In Wu, iron smelters achieved a temperature of 1130 °C, at this temperature, iron combines with 4. 3% carbon and melts
13.
Ancient Chinese coinage
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Ancient Chinese coinage includes some of the earliest known coins. These coins, used as early as the Spring and Autumn period, the Spring and Autumn period also saw the introduction of the first metal coins, however, they were not initially round, instead being either knife shaped or spade shaped. Round metal coins with a round, and then later square hole in the center were first introduced around 350 BCE, the beginning of the Qin Dynasty, the first dynasty to unify China, saw the introduction of a standardised coinage for the whole Empire. Subsequent dynasties produced variations on these round coins throughout the imperial period, ancient Chinese coins are markedly different from coins produced in the west. Chinese coins were manufactured by being cast in molds, whereas western coins were cut and hammered or, in later times. Chinese coins were made from mixtures of metals such copper, tin and lead, from bronze, brass or iron, precious metals like gold. The ratios and purity of the coin metals varied considerably, most Chinese coins were produced with a square hole in the middle. This was used to allow collections of coins to be threaded on a rod so that the rough edges could be filed smooth. Official coin production was not always centralised, but could be spread over many mint locations throughout the country, aside from officially produced coins, private coining was common during many stages of history. Various steps were taken over time to try to combat the private coining and limit its effects, at other times private coining was tolerated. The coins varied in value throughout the history, some coins were produced in very large numbers – during the Western Han, an average of 220 million coins a year were produced. Other coins were of limited circulation and are extremely rare – only six examples of Da Quan Wu Qian from the Eastern Wu Dynasty are known to exist. Occasionally, large hoards of coins have been uncovered, the earliest coinage of China was described by Sima Qian, the great historian of c. While nothing is known about the use of shells as money, gold. They are not found in hoards, and the probability is that all these are in fact funerary items. Archaeological evidence shows that the earliest use of the spade and knife money was in the Spring, as in ancient Greece, socio-economic conditions at the time were favourable to the adoption of coinage. Inscriptions and archaeological evidence shows that cowrie shells were regarded as important objects of value in the Shang Dynasty, in the Zhou period, they are frequently referred to as gifts or rewards from kings and nobles to their subjects. Later imitations in bone, stone or bronze were used as money in some instances
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Chinese alchemy
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Pao zhi cites the pharmacological processing as used in the practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine, such as honey or wine frying and roasting with toxic metals such as mercury, lead, and arsenic. According to J. C. Cooper states that a common viewpoint is that classical Taoism was the original but was too austere, Tao Chiao fulfilled the day-to-day needs of the people. By refining bases into gold, the alchemist believed that life would be delivered if the fake or synthetic gold was ingested. The idea that gold was superior to real gold arose because the alchemists believed the combination of a variety of substances gave the final substance a spiritual value. It possesses a superior essence when compared to natural gold, gold and cinnabar were the most sought-after substances to manipulate and ingest. They were believed to have longevity and could elongate the life of the consumer, cinnabar is a mineral with a reddish-brown colour and is the most common source of mercury in nature. It was used in the search for immortality because of the significance of its colour. The colour of the cinnabar is significant to symbolic belief as well, the colour red in Chinese culture is considered to be the zenith of the colour representing the sun, fire, royalty and energy. Cinnabar could also be roasted which produced a form of silver known as quicksilver. This substance was ingested but it could also be combined with sulphur, cinnabar was the yang to quicksilvers yin. In China gold was quite rare, so it was imported from other surrounding countries. However, cinnabar could be refined in the mountains of Szechuan and Hunan Provinces in central China, although the majority of hsien elixirs were combinations of jindan, many other elixirs were formed by combining metallic bases with natural herbs or animals bi-products. The rhinoceros horn was used in medicines and elixirs and was held to have fertility-increasing abilities. Elixirs were composed of compounds such as gold and silver, but they could also be made of more lethal components like arsenic. Both the Eastern practice of alchemy and the later Western practice are remarkably similar in their methods, to be sure, the desire to create an elixir of immortality was more appealing to the Taoists, but European alchemists were not averse to seeking out formulas for various longevity-boosting substances. The secret of transmuting one element into another, specifically base metals into gold or silver, was explored by both schools for obvious reasons. Alternatively, transmutation was also a means of accruing the precious metals that were key in making life-extending elixirs, Chinese alchemy specifically was consistent in its practice from the beginning, and there was relatively little controversy among its practitioners. Definition amongst alchemists varied only in their medical prescription for the elixir of immortality or perhaps only over their names for it, in the West there were conflicts between advocates of herbal and chemical, but in China, mineral remedies were always accepted
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Traditional Chinese medicine
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It is primarily used as a complementary alternative medicine approach. TCM is widely used in China and is becoming prevalent in Europe. One of the tenets of TCM holds that the bodys vital energy circulates through channels, called meridians. Concepts of the body and of disease used in TCM reflect its ancient origins and its emphasis on dynamic processes over material structure, scientific investigation has not found histological or physiological evidence for traditional Chinese concepts such as qi, meridians, and acupuncture points. The TCM theory and practice are not based upon scientific knowledge, the effectiveness of Chinese herbal medicine remains poorly researched and documented. There are concerns over a number of toxic plants, animal parts. There are also concerns over illegal trade and transport of endangered species including rhinoceroses and tigers, a review of cost-effectiveness research for TCM found that studies had low levels of evidence, but so far have not shown benefit outcomes. Pharmaceutical research has explored the potential for creating new drugs from traditional remedies, proponents propose that research has so far missed key features of the art of TCM, such as unknown interactions between various ingredients and complex interactive biological systems. The doctrines of Chinese medicine are rooted in such as the Yellow Emperors Inner Canon and the Treatise on Cold Damage, as well as in cosmological notions such as yin-yang. Starting in the 1950s, these precepts were standardized in the Peoples Republic of China, including attempts to integrate them with modern notions of anatomy, in the 1950s, the Chinese government promoted a systematized form of TCM. TCMs view of the body places little emphasis on anatomical structures, while health is perceived as the harmonious interaction of these entities and the outside world, disease is interpreted as a disharmony in interaction. Traces of therapeutic activities in China date from the Shang dynasty, which Shang elites usually attributed to curses sent by their ancestors. There is no evidence that the Shang nobility used herbal remedies, according to a 2006 overview, the Documentation of Chinese materia medica dates back to around 1,100 BC when only dozens of drugs were first described. By the end of the 16th century, the number of drugs documented had reached close to 1,900, and by the end of the last century, published records of CMM had reached 12,800 drugs. Stone and bone found in ancient tombs led Joseph Needham to speculate that acupuncture might have been carried out in the Shang dynasty. The earliest evidence for acupuncture in this sense dates to the second or first century BC, the Yellow Emperors Inner Canon, the oldest received work of Chinese medical theory, was compiled around the first century BC on the basis of shorter texts from different medical lineages. It was also one of the first books in which the doctrines of Yinyang. The Treatise on Cold Damage Disorders and Miscellaneous Illnesses was collated by Zhang Zhongjing sometime between 196 and 220 CE, at the end of the Han dynasty
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Agriculture in China
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Agriculture is a vital industry in China, employing over 300 million farmers. China ranks first in worldwide farm output, primarily producing rice, wheat, potatoes, tomato, sorghum, peanuts, tea, millet, barley, cotton, oilseed and soybeans. Although accounting for only 10 percent of land worldwide, it produces food for 20 percent of the worlds population. The development of farming over the course of Chinas history has played a key role in supporting the growth of what is now the largest population in the world. Analysis of stone tools by Professor Liu Li and others has shown that the origins of Chinese agriculture is rooted in the pre-agricultural Paleolithic, during this time, hunter-gatherers harvested wild plants with the same tools that would later be used for millet and rice. Remains of domesticated millet have been found in northern China at Xinglonggou, Yuezhang, Dadiwan, Cishan and these sites cover a period over 6250-5050 BCE. The amount of domesticated millet eaten at these sites was proportionally quite low compared to other plants, at Xinglonggou, millet made up only 15% of all plant remains around 6200-5400 BCE, a ratio that changed to 99% by 2050-1550 BCE. Excavations at Kuahuqiao, the earliest known Neolithic site in eastern China, have documented rice cultivation 7,700 years ago, approximately half of the plant remains belonged to domesticated japonica species, whilst the other half were wild types of rice. It is possible that the people at Kuahuqiao also cultivated the wild type, finds at sites of the Hemudu Culture in Yuyao and Banpo near Xian include millet and spade-like tools made of stone and bone. Evidence of settled agriculture has been found at the Hemudu site of Tianluoshan. There is also a tradition involving agriculture in Chinese mythology. In his book Permanent Agriculture, Farmers of Forty Centuries, Professor Franklin Hiram King described and extolled the values of the farming practices of China. Due to Chinas status as a country and its severe shortage of arable land. However, throughout its history, various methods have developed or imported that enabled greater farming production. They also utilized the seed drill to improve on row farming. During the Spring and Autumn period, two revolutionary improvements in farming took place. One was the use of cast iron tools and beasts of burden to pull plows, and the other was the large-scale harnessing of rivers and development of water conservation projects. The engineer Sunshu Ao of the 6th century BC and Ximen Bao of the 5th century BC are two of the oldest hydraulic engineers from China, and their works were focused upon improving irrigation systems
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Sericulture
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Sericulture, or silk farming, is the cultivation of silkworms to produce silk. Although there are several species of silkworms, Bombyx mori is the most widely used. Silk was first produced in China as early as the Neolithic period, sericulture has become an important cottage industry in countries such as Brazil, China, France, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, and Russia. Today, China and India are the two producers, with more than 60% of the worlds annual production. According to Confucian text, the discovery of silk production dates to about 2700 BC, by about the first half of the 1st century AD it had reached ancient Khotan, by a series of interactions along the Silk Road. By 140 AD the practice had been established in India, in the 6th century the smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire led to its establishment in the Mediterranean, remaining a monopoly in the Byzantine Empire for centuries. Chinese sericulture process Silkworm larvae are fed with leaves, and, after the fourth moult, climb a twig placed near them. This process is achieved by the worm through a fluid secreted from its structural glands. The silk is a continuous filament comprising fibroin protein, secreted from two glands in the head of each larva, and a gum called sericin, which cements the filaments. The sericin is removed by placing the cocoons in hot water and this is known as the degumming process. The immersion in hot water also kills the silkworm pupae, single filaments are combined to form thread, which is drawn under tension through several guides and wound onto reels. The threads may be plied to form yarn, after drying, the raw silk is packed according to quality. The stages of production are as follows, The silk moth lays thousands of eggs, the silk moth eggs hatch to form larvae or caterpillars, known as silkworms. The larvae feed on mulberry leaves, having grown and moulted several times silkworm weaves a net to hold itself It swings its head from side to side in a figure 8 distributing the saliva that will form silk. The silk solidifies when it contacts the air, the silkworm spins approximately one mile of filament and completely encloses itself in a cocoon in about two or three days. The amount of quality silk in each cocoon is small. As a result, about 2500 silkworms are required to produce a pound of raw silk The intact cocoons are boiled, the silk is obtained by brushing the undamaged cocoon to find the outside end of the filament. The silk filaments are wound on a reel
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Chinese architecture
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Chinese architecture is a style of architecture that has taken shape in East Asia over many centuries. The structural principles of Chinese architecture have remained unchanged, the main changes being only the decorative details. Since the Tang Dynasty, Chinese architecture has had a influence on the architectural styles of Korea, Vietnam. The architecture of China is as old as Chinese civilization, throughout the 20th Century, Western-trained Chinese architects have attempted to combine traditional Chinese designs into modern architecture, with only limited success. A very important feature in Chinese architecture is its emphasis on articulation and bilateral symmetry, bilateral symmetry and the articulation of buildings are found everywhere in Chinese architecture, from palace complexes to humble farmhouses. When possible, plans for renovation and extension of a house will often try to maintain this symmetry provided that there is enough capital to do so, secondary elements are positioned either side of main structures as two wings to maintain overall bilateral symmetry. The buildings are planned to contain an even number of columns in a structure to produce an odd number of bays. With the inclusion of a door to a building in the center bay. In contrast to the buildings, Chinese gardens are an exception which tend to be asymmetrical. The principle underlying the composition is to create enduring flow. In much of traditional Chinese architecture, buildings or building complexes take up an entire property and these enclosed spaces come in two forms, the, Courtyard, The use of open courtyards is a common feature in many types of Chinese architectures. This is best exemplified in the Siheyuan, which has consisted of an empty space surrounded by buildings connected with one another either directly or through verandas. This structure is essentially an enclosed courtyard formed from the intersections of closely spaced buildings. These enclosures serve in temperature regulation and in venting the building complexes, northern courtyards are typically open and facing the south to allow the maximum exposure of the building windows and walls to the sun while keeping the cold northern winds out. Southern sky wells are relatively small and serves to collect water from the roof tops. They perform the duties as the Roman impluvium while restricting the amount of sunlight that enters the building. Sky wells also serve as vents for rising hot air, which cool air from the lower stories of the house. The projected hierarchy and importance and uses of buildings in traditional Chinese architecture are based on the placement of buildings in a property/complex
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Chinese garden
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The Chinese garden is a landscape garden style which has evolved over three thousand years. They create a miniature landscape, which is meant to express the harmony that should exist between man and nature. The earliest recorded Chinese gardens were created in the valley of the Yellow River and these gardens were large enclosed parks where the kings and nobles hunted game, or where fruit and vegetables were grown. Early inscriptions from this period, carved on tortoise shells, have three Chinese characters for garden, you, pu and yuan and you was a royal garden where birds and animals were kept, while pu was a garden for plants. During the Qin Dynasty, yuan became the character for all gardens, a famous royal garden of the late Shang dynasty was the Terrace, Pond and Park of the Spirit built by King Wenwang west of his capital city, Yin. The immaculate cranes have plumes of a brilliant white, the Emperor makes his promenade to the Pond of the Spirit, The water is full of fish, who wriggle. - translation in Jardins de Chine, ou la quête du paradis Another early royal garden was Shaqui, or the Dunes of Sand, built by the last Shang ruler, King Zhou. It was composed of a terrace, or tai, which served as an observation platform in the center of a large square park. It was described in one of the classics of Chinese literature. According to the Shiji, one of the most famous features of this garden was the Wine Pool, a large pool, big enough for several small boats, was constructed on the palace grounds, with inner linings of polished oval shaped stones from the sea shores. The pool was filled with wine. A small island was constructed in the middle of the pool, where trees were planted, King Zhou and his friends and concubines drifted in their boats, drinking the wine with their hands and eating the roasted meat from the trees. Later Chinese philosophers and historians cited this garden as an example of decadence, during the Spring and Autumn period, in 535 BC, the Terrace of Shanghua, with lavishly decorated palaces, was built by King Jing of the Zhou dynasty. In 505 BC, a more elaborate garden, the Terrace of Gusu, was begun. It was located on the side of a mountain, and included a series of terraces connected by galleries, from the highest terrace, a view extended as far as Lake Tai, the Great Lake. An ancient Chinese legend played an important part in early garden design, on this island were palaces of gold and silver, with jewels on the trees. There was no pain, no winter, wine glasses and rice bowls were always full, and fruits, in 221 BC, Ying Zheng, the King of Qin conquered other rival states and unified China under the Qin Empire, which he ruled until 210 BC. He heard the legend of the islands and sent emissaries to find the islands and bring back the elixir of immortal life, at his palace near his capital, Xianyang, he created a garden with a large lake called Lanchi gong or the Lake of the Orchids
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History of transport in China
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Transport has been a major factor in Chinas national economy. For most of the period since 1949, however, transport occupied a low priority in Chinas national development. In the twenty-five years that followed the founding of the Peoples Republic in 1949, Chinas transportation network was built into a partially modern, the drive to modernize the transport system that began in 1978 required a sharp acceleration in investment. Though despite increased investment and development in the 1980s, the sector was strained by the rapid expansion of production. As a result, the transport system constrained the pace of economic development throughout the country. In the 1980s the updating of transport systems was given priority, in the late 1980s, China had more than 140,000 highway bridges. Their length totaled almost 4,000 kilometers, inland navigation is Chinas oldest form of transport. Despite the potential advantages of water transport, it was often mismanaged or neglected in the past, beginning in 1960 the network of navigable inland waterways decreased further because of the construction of dams and irrigation works and the increasing sedimentation. But by the early 1980s, as the railroads became increasingly congested, the central government set out to overhaul the inefficient inland waterway system and called upon localities to play major roles in managing and financing most of the projects. An estimated 340,000 people and 170,000 boats were engaged in the transport business. More than 800 shipping enterprises and 60 shipping companies transported over 259 million tons of cargo on the Yangtze River, nationally, in 1985 the inland waterways carried some 434 million tons of cargo. In 1986 there were approximately 138,600 kilometers of waterways,79 percent of which were navigable. The Cihuai Canal in northern Anhui opened to navigation in 1984 and this 134-kilometer canal linking the Ying River, a major tributary of the Huai River, with the Huai Hes main course, had an annual capacity of 600,000 tons of cargo. The canal promoted the flow of goods between Anhui and neighboring provinces and helped to develop the Huai River Plain, one of Chinas major grain-producing areas, during the early 1960s, Chinas merchant marine had fewer than thirty ships. By the 1970s and 1980s, maritime shipping capabilities had greatly increased, in 1985 China established eleven shipping offices and jointly operated shipping companies in foreign countries. The fleet called at more than 400 ports in more than 100 countries, the container ship fleet also was expanding rapidly. In 1984 China had only fifteen container ships, seven more were added in 1985, and an additional twenty-two were on order. By the early 1980s, Chinese shipyards had begun to manufacture a number of ships for their own maritime fleet
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Naval history of China
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The naval history of China dates back thousands of years, with archives existing since the late Spring and Autumn period about the ancient navy of China and the various ship types used in war. China was the maritime power in the years 1405–1433, when Chinese shipbuilders began to build massive oceangoing junks. In modern times, the current Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese governments continue to maintain standing navies with the Peoples Liberation Army Navy and the Republic of China Navy, respectively. The legendary Xu Fu searching for mythical Fusang, or the setting up of the maritime Silk Road since the 2nd century BC from Hepu Commandery, drew the ancient Chinese naval maps. After the First and Second Opium Wars, which shook up the generals of the Qing dynasty, for example, medieval Chinese hulls were split into bulkhead sections so that a hull rupture only flooded a fraction of the ship and did not necessarily sink it. This was described in the book of the Song Dynasty maritime author Zhu Yu, along with the innovations described in Zhus book, there were many other improvements to nautical technology in the medieval Song period. A significant naval battle was the Battle of Lake Poyang from August 30 to October 4 of the year 1363 AD, one of the oldest known Chinese books written on naval matters was the Yuejueshu of 52 AD, attributed to the Han Dynasty scholar Yuan Kang. Many passages of Yuan Kangs book were rewritten and published in Li Fangs Imperial Reader of the Taiping Era, the preserved written passages of Yuan Kangs book were again featured in the Yuanjian Leihan encyclopedia, edited and compiled by Zhang Ying in 1701 during the Qing Dynasty. Yuan Kangs book listed various water crafts that were used for war and these classes of ships were the great wing, the little wing, the stomach striker, the castle ship, and the bridge ship. Ramming vessels were also attested to in other Chinese documents, including the Shi Ming dictionary of c.100 AD written by Liu Xi. The Chinese also used a large iron t-shaped hook connected to a spar to pin retreating ships down, as described in the Mozi book compiled in the 4th century BC. This was discussed in a dialogue between Mozi and Lu Ban in 445 BC, as the technique made standard on all Chu warships was given as the reason why the Yue navy lost in battle to Chu. The rebellion of Gongsun Shu in Sichuan province against the re-established Han Dynasty during the year 33 AD was recorded in the Book of Later Han, compiled by Fan Ye in the 5th century. Gongsun sent a force of some twenty to thirty thousand soldiers down the Yangtze River to attack the position of the Han commander Cen Peng. The castle ship design described by Yuan Kang saw continued use in Chinese naval battles after the Han period. Confronting the navy of the Chen Dynasty on the Yangtze River, during the Chinese Tang Dynasty there were some famous naval engagements, such as the Tang-Silla victory over the Korean kingdom of Baekje and Yamato Japanese forces in the Battle of Baekgang in 663. Tang Dynasty literature on warfare and ship design became more nuanced. In his Taipai Yinjing of 759 AD, Li Quan gave descriptions for several types of ships in his day
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Military history of China before 1911
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The recorded military history of China extends from about 2200 BC to the present day. Although traditional Chinese Confucian philosophy favored peaceful political solutions and showed contempt for brute military force, in addition, Chinas armies also benefited from an advanced logistics system as well as a rich strategic tradition, beginning with Sun Tzus The Art of War, that deeply influenced military thought. The military history of China stretches from roughly 2200 BC to the present day, Chinese armies were advanced and powerful, especially after the Warring States period. Composed of peasant levies, usually serfs dependent upon the king or the lord of their home state. While organized military forces had existed along with the state, few remain of these early armies. These armies were centered around the chariot-riding nobility, who played a role akin to the European Knight as they were the main fighting force of the army, bronze weapons such as spears and swords were the main equipment of both the infantry and charioteers. These armies were ill-trained and haphazardly supplied, meaning that they could not campaign for more than a few months, during the Shang and Western Zhou times, warfare was seen as an aristocratic affair, complete with protocols that may be compared to the chivalry of the European knight. States would not attack other states while mourning its ruler, ruling houses would not be completely exterminated so descendants would be left to honor their ancestors. Nevertheless, under the Shang and Zhou, these armies were able to expand Chinas territory and influence from a narrow part of the Yellow river valley to all of the North China plain. However, after the collapse of the Zhou Dynasty in 771 BC when the Xirong captured its capital Haojing, China collapsed into a plethora of small states, the competition between these states would eventually produce the professional armies that marked the Imperial Era of China. During the Spring and Autumn period, Duke Xiang of Song, after Xiang lost the battle and was being rebuked by his ministers of war, he responded, The gentleman does not inflict a second wound, nor does he capture those with gray hair. On campaigns the ancients did not obstruct those in a narrow pass, even though I am but the remnant of a destroyed state, I will not drum an attack when the other side has not yet drawn up its ranks. His minister retorted, My lord does not know battle, the power of the aristocracy was curbed and for the first time, professional generals were appointed on merit, rather than birth. For example, during the Battle of Changping the state of Qin drafted all males over 15 years of age, although most soldiers were conscripts, it was also common to select soldiers based on specific qualifications. When a man meets this requirement, his household would be exempted from all corvée labor obligations and he would also be given special tax benefits on land and housing. However, this policy made soldiers in the Wei state difficult to replace, the first recorded use of cavalry took place in the Battle of Maling, in which general Pang Juan of Wei led his division of 5,000 cavalry into a trap by Qi forces. In 307 BC, King Wuling of Zhao ordered the adoption of nomadic clothing in order to train his own division of cavalry archers and he had to be ruthless in searching for the advantage, and an organizer in integrating units under him. In 221 BC, the Qin unified China and ushered in the Imperial Era of Chinese history, although it only lasted 15 years, Qin established institutions that would last for millennia
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Science and technology of the Han dynasty
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There were great innovations in metallurgy. Smelting techniques were enhanced with inventions such as the waterwheel-powered bellows, the quality of life was improved with many Han inventions. The Han Chinese had hempen-bound bamboo scrolls to write on, yet by the 2nd century AD had invented the process which created a writing medium that was both cheap and easy to produce. The invention of the aided in the hauling of heavy loads. The maritime junk ship and stern-mounted steering rudder enabled the Chinese to venture out of waters of interior lakes and rivers. The invention of the reference for maps and raised-relief map allowed the Chinese to better navigate their terrain. In medicine, they used new herbal remedies to cure illnesses, calisthenics to keep physically fit, authorities in the capital were warned ahead of time of the direction of sudden earthquakes with the invention of the seismometer that was tripped by a vibration-sensitive pendulum device. To mark the passing of the seasons and special occasions, the Han Chinese used two variations of the calendar, which were established due to efforts in astronomy and mathematics. Hundreds of new roads and canals were built to transport, commerce, tax collection, communication. The Han-era Chinese also employed several types of bridges to cross waterways and deep gorges, such as bridges, arch bridges, simple suspension bridges. Han ruins of defensive city walls made of brick or rammed earth still stand today, if Mohism, rich in scientific thought, had rapidly grown and strengthened, the situation might have been very favorable to the development of a scientific structure. However, this did not happen because the seeds of the structure of science were never formed. During the late Eastern Han, disastrous upheavals again occurred in the process of social transformation, one can imagine the effect of this calamity on science. The most common writing mediums found in archaeological digs from ancient sites predating the Han period are shells, the written characters on these narrow flat strips of bamboo were arranged into vertical columns. Yet Chinese hempen paper of the Western Han and early Eastern Han eras was of a coarse quality, by the 3rd century, paper became one of Chinas chief writing mediums. The Han ceramics industry was upheld by private businesses as well as government agencies. Ceramics were used in domestic wares and utensils as well as materials for roof tiles. Kilns of the Han dynasty making grey pottery were able to reach firing temperatures above 1,000 °C, however, hard southern Chinese pottery made from a dense adhesive clay native only in the south was fired at even higher temperatures than grey pottery during the Han
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Science and technology of the Tang dynasty
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The popularization of woodblock printing during the Tang dynasty made the written word available to greater audiences. The extent of woodblock printing is attested to by one of the worlds oldest surviving printed documents, a copy of the Diamond Sutra found at Dunhuang is the earliest surviving full-length book printed at regular size, complete with illustrations embedded within the text and dated precisely to 868. Among the earliest documents to be printed were Buddhist texts as well as calendars, the latter essential for calculating and marking which days were auspicious and which days were not. The first known book on the game was called the Yezi Gexi and was allegedly written by a Tang woman. However, Ouyang claimed the leaves were pages of a book for a game played with dice. In any case, Ouyang asserted that the rules for the game were lost by 1067 and it may be that the first pack of cards ever printed was a 32-card Chinese domino pack, in whose cards all 21 combinations of a pair of dice are depicted. According to the Gui Tian Lu, an 11th-century Chinese text redacted, domino cards were printed during the Tang dynasty, there is difficulty distinguishing paper cards and gaming tiles in many early sources as the Chinese word pái is used to describe both. Playing cards are paper pái while tiles are called bone pái, paper playing cards and the woodblocks to print them are unambiguously attested in 1294. William Henry Wilkinson suggests that the first cards may have been actual paper currency which were both the tools of gaming and the stakes being played for, as in trading card games. As using paper money was inconvenient and risky, they were substituted by play money known as money cards, one of the earliest games in which we know the rules is Madiao, a trick-taking game, which dates to the Ming Dynasty. 15th century scholar Lu Rong described it is as being played with 38 money cards divided into four suits,9 in coins,9 in strings of coins,9 in myriads, and 11 in tens of myriads. The two latter suits had Water Margin characters instead of pips on them with Chinese ideograms to mark their rank, the suit of coins is in reverse order with 9 of coins being the lowest going up to 1 of coins as the high card. Inverted ranking is also found in the Vietnamese game of Tổ tôm, the money-suited system is based on denominations of currency and not on the pips or pictures. This is why there is no tenth rank as that would create a new suit, a simplified deck is still in use by Hakka players, where every suit has just nine cards in progressive ranking, replacing pips and pictures with labels. Another type of modern deck keeps the traditional images but drops the highest suit, the designs on modern Mahjong tiles likely evolved from this pack. Technology during the Tang period was built also upon the precedents of the past, the mechanical gear systems of Zhang Heng and Ma Jun gave the Tang engineer, astronomer, and monk Yi Xing inspiration when he invented the worlds first clockwork escapement mechanism in 725. This was used alongside a clepsydra clock and waterwheel to power a rotating armillary sphere in representation of astronomical observation. Yi Xings device also had a mechanically timed bell that was struck every year, and a drum that was struck automatically every quarter-hour, essentially
25.
Science and technology of the Song dynasty
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The Song dynasty provided some of the most significant technological advances in Chinese history, many of which came from talented statesmen drafted by the government through imperial examinations. The ingenuity of advanced mechanical engineering had a tradition in China. The application of movable type printing advanced the already widespread use of printing to educate and amuse Confucian students. Notable advances in engineering, nautics, and metallurgy were made in Song China. These advances, along with the introduction of paper-printed money, helped revolutionize, polymath geniuses – that is, people knowledgeable across an encyclopaedic range of topics – such as Shen Kuo and Su Song embodied the spirit of early empirical science and technology in the Song era. This allowed sailors to navigate the seas more accurately with the magnetic needle compass, Shen was made famous for his written description of Bi Sheng, the inventor of movable type printing. Shen was also interested in geology, as he formulated a theory of geomorphology, along with his colleague Wei Pu in the Bureau of Astronomy, Shen used cosmological hypotheses when describing the variations of planetary motion, including retrogradation. One of Shens greatest achievements, aided by Wei Pu, was correcting the error by diligently recording and plotting the moons orbital path three times a night over a period of five years. Unfortunately Shen had many political rivals at court who were determined to sabotage his work, the court fully accepted their corrections to lunar and solar error, but only partially adopted Shen and Weis corrected plotting of the planetary orbital paths and various speeds. This treatise included many medicinal applications, including the use of ephedrin as a pharmaceutical drug, however, Su was most famous for his hydraulic-powered astronomical clock tower, crowned with a mechanically driven armillary sphere, which was erected in the capital city of Kaifeng in the year 1088. Sus clock tower employed the escapement mechanism two centuries before it was applied in clocks of Europe, sus clock tower also featured the earliest known endless power-transmitting chain drive in the world, as outlined in his horological treatise of 1092. On a court mission to inspect a frontier region, Shen Kuo once made a map of wood and glue-soaked sawdust to show the mountains, roads, rivers. Shen Kuo also experimented with camera obscura, only a few decades after the first to do so, there were many other important figures in the Song era besides Shen Kuo and Su Song, many of whom contributed greatly to the technological innovations of the time period. The Song Shi states, The odometer. is painted red, with pictures of flowers and birds on the four sides, and constructed in two storeys, handsomely adorned with carvings. At the completion of every li, the figure of a man in the lower storey strikes a drum, at the completion of every ten li. The carriage-pole ends in a phoenix-head, and the carriage is drawn by four horses, the escort was formerly of 18 men, but in the 4th year of the Yongxi reign period the emperor Taizong increased it to 30. When the upper horizontal wheel has made 1 revolution, the carriage will have gone 10 li, the number of wheels used, great and small, is 8 inches in all, with a total of 285 teeth. Thus the motion is transmitted as if by the links of a chain, in the Song period, the odometer device was combined with the south-pointing chariot device, which was probably first invented by the ancient Chinese mechanical engineer Ma Jun
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Science and technology in China
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This is about the contemporary Peoples Republic of China. Science and technology in China redirects here, for times predating 1949, see History of science and technology in China. Science and technology have developed rapidly in the Peoples Republic of China during the 1990s to 2010s, China is now increasingly targeting indigenous innovation and aims to reform remaining weaknesses. China was a leader in science and technology until the early years of the Qing Dynasty. Chinese discoveries and Chinese innovations such as papermaking, printing, the compass, Chinese activity started to decrease in the fourteenth century. Unlike in Europe scientists did not attempt to reduce observations of nature to mathematical laws and they did not form a community with criticisms. There was a concentration on literature, arts, and public administration while science. The causes of this Great Divergence continue to be debated, one factor is argued to be the imperial examination system which removed the incentives for Chinese intellectuals to learn mathematics or to conduct experimentation. After being defeated repeatedly by Western nations in the 19th century, Chinese reformers began promoting modern science, after the Communist victory in 1949 science and technology research was organized based on the model of the Soviet Union. Researchers should work as collectives for society rather than as individuals seeking recognition, many studied in the Soviet Union which also transferred technology. The Cultural revolution, which sought to remove perceived bourgeois influences and attitudes, caused large negative effects, after Mao Zedongs death, S&T was established as one of the Four Modernizations in 1976. The new leader Deng Xiaoping, and architect of the Chinese economic reform, was a promoter of S&T. The Soviet inspired system was gradually reformed. Media began promoting the value of S&T, scientific thinking, the third and fourth generations of leaders came almost exclusively from technical backgrounds. The State Council of the Peoples Republic of China in 1995 issued the Decision on Accelerating S&T Development which described planned Science & Technology development for the coming decades. It described S&T as the productive force and affecting economic development, social progress, national strength. S&T should become closely associated with market needs, not only Soviet style institutes should do research but also universities and private industries. State institutions should form joint ventures with Chinese or foreign venture capital in order for S&T developments to reach the industry, S&T personal should become more occupationally mobile, pay should be linked to economic results, and age and seniority should become less important for personal decisions
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Chinese space program
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The space program of the Peoples Republic of China is directed by the China National Space Administration. Its technological roots can be traced back to the late 1950s and this achievement made China the third country to independently send humans into space. Plans currently include a permanent Chinese space station in 2020 and crewed expeditions to the Moon, officials have articulated long term ambitions to exploit Earth-Moon space for industrial development. The goal would be the construction of space-based solar power satellites that would beam energy back to Earth, additionally, he wanted China to gain status among the worlds powers that—as he felt—did not respect him. From this, he decided instead to implement his new plan with the Republic of China as China. The Chinese nuclear weapons program was designated by the codename of 02, the Academy started the development of the first ballistic missile program, adopted on March 1,1956 and known as the first Twelve-Year-Plan for Chinese aerospace. This goal would be achieved in three phases, developing sounding rockets first, then launching small satellites and in the final phase, large satellites. The construction of Chinas first missile test base, code-named Base 20, started in April 1958, the first Chinese missile was built in October 1958 as a reverse-engineered copy of the Soviet R-2 short-range ballistic missile, itself an upgraded version of a German V-2 rocket. Its range was 590 km, weighing 20.5 tons and propelled with liquid oxygen, Chinas first ever T-7 sounding rocket was successfully launched from the Nanhui launch site on February 19,1960. China started to develop ballistic missiles in July 1960, with an increased range double that of the R-2. As a consequence, all Soviet technological assistance was abruptly withdrawn after the 1960 Sino-Soviet split, only 17 days after the last Soviet expert had left China, the first Soviet built R-2 rocket fueled with Chinese-made propellant was launched with success on September 10,1960. Due to Cold War tension, Mao decided in December 1963 that China should develop missile defence system capacity, during a conference held on February 2,1964, directive 640 was adopted. The first successful launch of a Chinese 1059 SRBM missile copy of the R-2 was conducted two months later on November 5,1960. The missile was also designated DF-1, the first DF-2 MRBM was tested on March 21,1962, but failed. Development eventually continued with the redesigned DF-2A MRBM which was tested on June 29,1964. It would enter service by the end of 1966, the first successful launch and recovery of a T-7A sounding rocket carrying a biological experiment was on July 19,1964 from Base 603 in Shanxi Province, farther away from Chinas northern border. On December 26,1966, China tested its first indigenously developed DF-3 intermediate-range ballistic missile with success, the DF-3 was a single-stage, single-warhead missile with a maximum range of 2500 km. The development of the DF-4 IRBM began in 1967 in parallel with the single-stage DF-3, in March 1967, development started on the JL-1 submarine-launched ballistic missile to accompany the Type 092 ballistic missile submarine also in development
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Alternative medicine
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Alternative therapies or diagnoses are not part of medicine or science-based healthcare systems. Contrary to popular belief, significant expense is paid to test alternative medicine, almost none show any effect beyond that of false treatment. Alternative treatments are neither the same as experimental medicine, nor traditional medicine — although the latter, Alternative medicine has grown in popularity and is used by a significant percentage of the population in many countries. While it has rebranded itself, from quackery to complementary or integrative medicine—it promotes essentially the same practices. Newer proponents often suggest alternative medicine be used together with medical treatment. Despite being illegal to market alternative therapies for treatment in most of the developed world. Alternative therapies are based on religion, tradition, superstition, belief in supernatural energies, pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, fraud. Regulation and licensing of alternative medicine and health care providers varies between and within countries, Alternative medicine is criticized for being based on misleading statements, quackery, pseudoscience, antiscience, fraud, or poor scientific methodology. Promoting alternative medicine has been called dangerous and unethical, testing alternative medicine that has no scientific basis has been called a waste of scarce research resources. It has been suggested that the very idea of any alternative treatment that works is paradoxical. Practitioners of complementary medicine usually discuss and advise patients as to available alternative therapies, patients often express interest in mind-body complementary therapies because they offer a non-drug approach to treating some health conditions. In addition to the underpinnings of the popularity of alternative medicine. One of the most critical is the placebo effect—a well-established observation in medicine, CAMs popularity may be related to other factors that Edzard Ernst mentioned in an interview in The Independent, Why is it so popular, then. Ernst blames the providers, customers and the doctors whose neglect, there are 40 million websites and 39.9 million tell lies, sometimes outrageous lies. They mislead cancer patients, who are encouraged not only to pay their last penny, at the same time, people are gullible. It needs gullibility for the industry to succeed and it doesnt make me popular with the public, but its the truth. An analysis of the reasons why this is so points towards the relationship as a key factor. Providers of CAM tend to build better therapeutic relationships than mainstream healthcare professionals, in turn, this implies that much of the popularity of CAM is a poignant criticism of the failure of mainstream healthcare
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Quackery
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Quackery is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. The term quack is a form of the archaic term quacksalver, from Dutch. In the Middle Ages the term quack meant shouting, the quacksalvers sold their wares on the market shouting in a loud voice. Common elements of general quackery include questionable diagnoses using questionable diagnostic tests, as well as untested or refuted treatments, quackery is often described as health fraud with the salient characteristic of aggressive promotion. To be both quackery and fraud, the quack must know they are misrepresenting the benefits and risks of the services offered. This definition would include questionable ideas as well as products and services. In line with this definition, the word fraud would be reserved only for situations in which deliberate deception is involved, unproven, usually ineffective, and sometimes dangerous medicines and treatments have been peddled throughout human history. Theatrical performances were given to enhance the credibility of purported medicines. Even where no fraud was intended, quack remedies often contained no effective ingredients whatsoever, some remedies contained substances such as opium, alcohol and honey, which would have given symptomatic relief but had no curative properties. Some would have addictive qualities to entice the buyer to return, the few effective remedies sold by quacks included emetics, laxatives and diuretics. However, knowledge of appropriate uses and dosages was limited, R. W. Donnell coined the phrase quackademic medicine to describe this attention given to alternative medicine by academia. Referring to the Flexner Report, he said that medical education needs a good Flexnerian housecleaning, for example, David Gorski criticized Brian M. Daffys Elixir and Turlingtons Balsam were among the first products that used branding and mass marketing to create and maintain markets. A similar process occurred in countries of Europe around the same time, for example with the marketing of Eau de Cologne as a cure-all medicine by Johann Maria Farina. The number of internationally marketed quack medicines increased in the later 18th century, by 1830, British parliamentary records list over 1,300 different proprietary medicines, the majority of which were quack cures by modern standards. A Dutch organisation that opposes quackery, Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij was founded in 1881 and it has published its magazine Nederlands Tijdschrift tegen de Kwakzalverij ever since. In these early years the VtdK played a part in the professionalisation of medicine and its efforts in the public debate helped to make the Netherlands one of the first countries with governmental drug regulation. In 1909, in an attempt to stop the sale of quack medicines and this publication was originally a series of articles published in the British Medical Journal between 1904 and 1909. The publication was composed of 20 chapters, organising the work by sections according to the ailments the medicines claimed to treat, the book did lead to the end of some of the quack cures, but some survived the book by several decades
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History of alternative medicine
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It includes the histories of complementary medicine and of integrative medicine. Examples are Traditional Chinese medicine and the Ayurvedic medicine of India, homeopathy was developed prior to discovery of the basic principles of chemistry, which proved homeopathic remedies contained nothing but water. Practices such as chiropractic and osteopathic, each considered to be irregular by the establishment, also opposed each other. The description of non-conventional medicine as alternative reinforces both its marginality and the centrality of official medicine, in countries such as India and China traditional systems of medicine, in conjunction with Western biomedical science, may be considered conventional and mainstream. This would introduce a new line of division based upon medical validity, prior to the nineteenth century European medical training and practice was ostensibly self-regulated through a variety of antique corporations, guilds or colleges. Among regular practitioners, university trained physicians formed a medical elite while provincial surgeons and apothecaries, in Old Regime France, licenses for medical practitioners were granted by the medical faculties of the major universities, such as the Paris Faculty of Medicine. Access was restricted and successful candidates, amongst other requirements, had to pass examinations, in the Austrian Empire medical licences were granted by the Universities of Prague and Vienna. Amongst the German states the top physicians were academically qualified and typically attached to medical colleges associated with the royal court, outside of these formal medical structures there were myriad other medical practitioners, often termed irregulars, plying a range of services and goods. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries regular and irregular medical practitioners became more clearly differentiated throughout much of Europe, in part, this was achieved through processes of state-sanctioned medical regulation. The different types of regulatory medical markets created across nineteenth-century Europe, where states had traditionally enjoyed strong, centralised power, such as in the German states, government more easily assumed control of the medical regulation. This process was complicated in Britain by the enduring existence of the historical medical colleges. A similar process is observable in America from the 1870s but this was facilitated by the absence of medical corporations, throughout the nineteenth century, however, most Western states converged in the creation of legally delimited and semi-protected medical markets. While offering state protection to licensed doctors and establishing a monopoly in principal it did not, however. The variety of medical systems which developed during this period can be approximately categorised according to the form of treatment advocated. Non-conventional medicine might define health in terms of concepts of balance, mesmerism is the medical system proposed in the late eighteenth century by the Viennese-trained physician, Franz Anton Mesmer, for whom it is named. Animal magnetism was but one of series of postulated subtle fluids and substances, such as caloric, phlogiston, magnetism, and electricity, which then suffused the scientific literature. It also reflected Mesmers doctoral thesis, De Planatarum Influxu, which had investigated the impact of the effect of planetary movements on fluid-filled bodily tissues. His focus on magnetism and the potential of magnets was derived from his reading of Paracelsus, Athanasius Kircher
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History of medicine
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The history of medicine, as practiced by trained professionals, shows how societies have changed in their approach to illness and disease from ancient times to the present. Early medical traditions include those of Babylon, China, Egypt, Greece, Rest of Africa, the Greeks introduced the concepts of medical diagnosis, prognosis, and advanced medical ethics. The Hippocratic Oath, still taken by doctors up to today, was written in Greece in the 5th century BCE, in the medieval age, surgical practices inherited from the ancient masters were improved and then systematized in Rogeriuss The Practice of Surgery. Universities began systematic training of physicians around the years 1220 in Italy, during the Renaissance, understanding of anatomy improved, and the microscope was invented. The germ theory of disease in the 19th century led to cures for many infectious diseases, military doctors advanced the methods of trauma treatment and surgery. Public health measures were developed especially in the 19th century as the growth of cities required systematic sanitary measures. Advanced research centers opened in the early 20th century, often connected with major hospitals, the mid-20th century was characterized by new biological treatments, such as antibiotics. These advancements, along with developments in chemistry, genetics, Medicine was heavily professionalized in the 20th century, and new careers opened to women as nurses and as physicians. The 21st century is characterized by highly advanced research involving numerous fields of science, although there is no record to establish when plants were first used for medicinal purposes, the use of plants as healing agents, as well as clays and soils is ancient. Over time through emulation of the behavior of fauna a medicinal knowledge base developed and passed between generations, as tribal culture specialized specific castes, shamans and apothecaries fulfilled the role of healer. The first known dentistry dates to about 7,000 B. C. E. in Baluchistan, the first known trepanning operation was carried out about 5,000 B. C. E. in Ensisheim, France. The earliest known surgery, an amputation was carried out about 4,900 B. C. E. in Buthiers-Bulancourt, Ancient Egypt developed a large, varied and fruitful medical tradition. Herodotus described the Egyptians as the healthiest of all men, next to the Libyans, because of the dry climate, according to him, the practice of medicine is so specialized among them that each physician is a healer of one disease and no more. Although Egyptian medicine, to an extent, dealt with the supernatural, it eventually developed a practical use in the fields of anatomy, public health. Medical information in the Edwin Smith Papyrus may date to a time as early as 3000 BC, the Edwin Smith Papyrus is regarded as a copy of several earlier works and was written c.1600 BC. It is an ancient textbook on surgery almost completely devoid of magical thinking and describes in detail the examination, diagnosis, treatment. The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus treats womens complaints, including problems with conception, thirty four cases detailing diagnosis and treatment survive, some of them fragmentarily. Dating to 1800 BCE, it is the oldest surviving text of any kind
32.
Pseudoscience
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Pseudoscience consists of claims, beliefs, or practices presented as being plausible scientifically, but which are not justifiable by the scientific method. The term pseudoscience is often considered pejorative because it suggests something is being presented as science inaccurately or even deceptively, accordingly, those termed as practicing or advocating pseudoscience often dispute the characterization. The demarcation between science and pseudoscience has philosophical and scientific implications, differentiating science from pseudoscience has practical implications in the case of health care, expert testimony, environmental policies, and science education. The word pseudoscience is derived from the Greek root pseudo meaning false and the English word science, an earlier recorded use of the term was during 1843 by the French physiologist François Magendie. From time to time, though, the usage of the word occurred in a formal, technical manner around a perceived threat to individual and institutional security in a social and cultural setting. A number of principles are accepted by scientists as standards for determining whether a body of knowledge, method. Experimental results should be reproducible and verified by other researchers, statistical quantification of significance, confidence, and error are also important tools for the scientific method. During the mid-20th century, Karl Popper emphasized the criterion of falsifiability to distinguish science from nonscience, falsifiability means a result can be disproved. For example, a statement such as God exists may be true or false, Popper used astrology and psychoanalysis as examples of pseudoscience and Einsteins theory of relativity as an example of science. The point is made there is no physical test to refute the claim of the presence of this dragon. No matter what test you think you can devise, there is then a reason why this does not apply to the invisible dragon, sagan concludes, Now, whats the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all. During 1942, Robert K. Merton identified a set of five norms which he characterized as what makes a real science, If any of the norms were violated, Merton considered the enterprise to be nonscience. These are not broadly accepted by the scientific community and his norms were, Originality, The tests and research done must present something new to the scientific community. Detachment, The scientists reasons for practicing this science must be simply for the expansion of their knowledge, the scientists should not have personal reasons to expect certain results. Universality, No person should be able to easily obtain the information of a test than another person. Social class, religion, ethnicity, or any other factors should not be factors in someones ability to receive or perform a type of science. Skepticism, Scientific facts must not be based on faith, one should always question every case and argument and constantly check for errors or invalid claims. Public accessibility, Any scientific knowledge one obtains should be available to everyone
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Skeptical movement
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The skeptical movement is a modern social movement promoting the idea of scientific skepticism. The process followed is referred to as skeptical inquiry. Medical quackery was also targeted by such as the Dutch Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij. The Belgian Comité Para has been deemed the oldest broad mandate skeptical organization, using that organization as a template, in 1976, Paul Kurtz and Marcello Truzzi founded the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry in Amherst, New York. The North American skeptical organization, which provides journals and publications, Scientific skepticism is different from philosophical skepticism, which questions our ability to claim any knowledge about the nature of the world and how we perceive it. Methodological skepticism, a process of being skeptical about the truth of ones beliefs, is similar. The New Skepticism described by Paul Kurtz is scientific skepticism, for example, Robert K. Merton asserts that all ideas must be tested and are subject to rigorous, structured community scrutiny. According to Hammer, the forebears of the modern skeptical movement are rather to be found among the many writers throughout history who have argued against beliefs they did not share. Skepticism values method over any particular conclusion, Skepticism is a provisional approach to claims. It is the application of reason to any and all ideas—no sacred cows allowed, in other words, skepticism is a method, not a position. With regard to the social movement, Loxton refers to other movements already promoting humanism, atheism, rationalism, science education. He saw the demand for the new movement of people called skeptics — being based on a lack of interest by the scientific community to address paranormal. In line with Kendrick Frazier, he describes the movement as a surrogate in that area for institutional science, the movement in so far set up a distinct field of study and provided an organizational structure, while long-standing genre of individual skeptical activities lacked such a community and background. However, skeptical organizations do typically tend to have education and promotion among their goals. Scientific skeptics maintain that empirical investigation of reality leads to the truth, Scientific skeptics attempt to evaluate claims based on verifiability and falsifiability and discourage accepting claims on faith or anecdotal evidence. Skeptics often focus their criticism on claims they consider to be implausible, Skepticism in general may be deemed part of the scientific method, for instance an experimental result is not regarded as established until it can be shown to be repeatable independently. Some leaders of the movement, including Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins, the movement has had issues with sexism. It was raised in a 1985 skeptic newsletter by Mary Coulman and this became known as Elevatorgate, based on Watsons discussion about being propositioned in a hotel elevator in the early morning after a skeptic event
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Acupressure
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Acupressure is an alternative medicine technique similar in principle to acupuncture. It is based on the concept of energy which flows through meridians in the body. In treatment, physical pressure is applied to points with the aim of clearing blockages in these meridians. Pressure may be applied by hand, by elbow, or with various devices, like many alternative medicines, it may benefit from a placebo effect. According to Quackwatch, acupressure is a practice and its practitioners use irrational methods. Acupoints used in treatment may or may not be in the area of the body as the targeted symptom. Many East Asian martial arts also make extensive study and use of acupressure for self-defense, the points or combinations of points are said to be used to manipulate or incapacitate an opponent. The authors of this systematic review concluded that this review of trials from the past decade did not provide rigorous support for the efficacy of acupressure for symptom management. Well-designed, randomized controlled studies are needed to determine the utility, the Cochrane Collaboration reviewed the use of P6 for nausea and vomiting, and found it to be effective for reducing post-operative nausea, but not vomiting. EBM reviewer Bandolier said that P6 in two studies showed 52% of patients with control having a success, compared with 75% with P6, clinical use of acupressure frequently relies on the conceptual framework of traditional Chinese medicine. There is no physically verifiable anatomical or histological basis for the existence of points or meridians. Proponents reply that TCM is a system that continues to have practical relevance. Acupuncturists tend to perceive TCM concepts in functional rather than structural terms, any benefit from acupressure may derive from the placebo effect. There are several different instruments for applying nonspecific pressure by rubbing, rolling, the acuball is a small ball made of rubber with protuberances that is heatable. It is used to pressure and relieve muscle and joint pain. The energy roller is a cylinder with protuberances. It is held between the hands and rolled back and forth to apply acupressure, the foot roller is a round, cylindrical roller with protuberances. It is placed on the floor and the foot is rolled back, the power mat is a mat with small pyramid-shaped bumps that you walk on
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Anthroposophic medicine
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Anthroposophic medicine is a form of alternative medicine. Devised in the 1920s by Rudolf Steiner in conjunction with Ita Wegman, anthroposophical medicine is based on occult notions and draws on Steiners spiritual philosophy, practitioners employ a variety of treatment techniques based upon anthroposophic precepts, including massage, exercise, counselling, and substances. Many drug preparations used in medicine are ultra-diluted substances, similar to those used in homeopathy. Homeopathic remedies are not medically effective and are considered harmless, except when used as a substitute for a scientifically proven. In certain European countries, people with cancer are sometimes prescribed remedies made from specially harvested mistletoe, some anthroposophic doctors oppose childhood vaccination, and this has led to preventable outbreaks of disease. Professor of complementary medicine Edzard Ernst and other critics have characterized anthroposophic medicine as having no basis in science, pseudoscientific, Anthroposophic medicine departs from fundamental biological principles in several respects. For example, it claims that the heart does not pump blood, Anthroposophic medicine also proposes that a patients past lives may influence their illness and that the course of an illness is subject to karmic destiny. In 1921, Ita Wegman opened the first anthroposophic medical clinic, now known as the Klinik Arlesheim, in Arlesheim, Wegman was soon joined by a number of other doctors. They then began to train the first anthroposophic nurses for the clinic, at Wegmans request, Steiner regularly visited the clinic and suggested treatment regimes for particular patients. Between 1920 and 1925, he gave several series of lectures on medicine. In 1925, Wegman and Steiner wrote the first book on the approach to medicine. The clinic expanded and soon opened a branch in Ascona, Wegman lectured widely, visiting the Netherlands and England particularly frequently, and an increasing number of doctors began to include the anthroposophic approach in their practices. A cancer clinic, the Lukas Clinic, opened in Arlesheim in 1963, the press described the appointment as a death sentence and the perception that pseudoscience was being taught damaged the universitys reputation, bringing it close to financial collapse. It was ultimately saved by an injection from Software AG. In 2006, anthroposophical medicine was practised in 80 countries.5 million of endowment, Edzard Ernst commented that any decent university should even consider an anthroposophical medicine unit seems incomprehensible. The fact that it would be backed by people who have a financial interest in this approach makes it even worse. The Universitys governance and nominations committee eventually decided not to proceed with the appointment, the categorization of anthroposophical medicine is complex since in part it complements conventional medicine, and in part it substitutes for it. In 2008, Ernst wrote that it was being promoted as an extension to conventional medicine, on this basis, Steiner proposed associations between four postulated dimensions of the human body, plants, minerals, and the cosmos
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Eugenics
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Eugenics is a set of beliefs and practices that aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population. The exact definition of eugenics has been a matter of debate since the term was coined, frederick Osborns 1937 journal article Development of a Eugenic Philosophy framed it as a social philosophy—that is, a philosophy with implications for social order. That definition is not universally accepted, osborn advocated for higher rates of sexual reproduction among people with desired traits, or reduced rates of sexual reproduction and sterilization of people with less-desired or undesired traits. Alternatively, gene selection rather than people selection has recently been made possible through advances in genome editing, in this period, eugenic ideas were espoused across the political spectrum. Consequently, many countries adopted eugenic policies with the intent to improve the quality of stock of their countries. S. Furthermore, negative eugenics in particular is considered by many to be a violation of human rights. Another criticism is that eugenic policies eventually lead to a loss of genetic diversity, the concept of positive eugenics to produce better human beings has existed at least since Plato suggested selective mating to produce a guardian class. The idea of eugenics to decrease the birth of inferior human beings has existed at least since William Goodell advocated the castration. Galton had read his half-cousin Charles Darwins theory of evolution, which sought to explain the development of plant and animal species, based on his biographical studies, Galton believed that desirable human qualities were hereditary traits, though Darwin strongly disagreed with this elaboration of his theory. In 1883, one year after Darwins death, Galton gave his research a name, with the introduction of genetics, eugenics relied on an ideology of genetic determinism in which human character was due to genes, unaffected by education or living conditions. Many of the early geneticists were not Darwinians, and evolution theory was not needed for eugenics policies based on genetic determinism, throughout its recent history, eugenics has remained controversial. Eugenics became a discipline at many colleges and universities and received funding from many sources. Both sought support from leading clergymen and modified their message to meet religious ideals, in 1909 the Anglican clergymen William Inge and James Peile both wrote for the British Eugenics Education Society. Inge was a speaker at the 1921 International Eugenics Conference. Three International Eugenics Conferences presented a global venue for eugenists with meetings in 1912 in London, Eugenic policies were first implemented in the early 1900s in the United States. It also took root in France, Germany, and Great Britain, later, in the 1920s and 30s, the eugenic policy of sterilizing certain mental patients was implemented in other countries including Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Japan and Sweden. In addition to being practiced in a number of countries, eugenics was internationally organized through the International Federation of Eugenics Organizations, politically, the movement advocated measures such as sterilization laws. In its moral dimension, eugenics rejected the doctrine that all beings are born equal
37.
Animal magnetism
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He believed that the force could have physical effects, including healing. He tried persistently but without success to achieve recognition of his theories. The theory attracted numerous followers in Europe and the United States and was popular into the 19th century, practitioners were often known as magnetizers, rather than mesmerists. For about 75 years from its beginnings in 1779 it was an important specialty in medicine, hundreds of books were written on the subject between 1766 and 1925. Today it is almost entirely forgotten, the terms magnetizer and mesmerizer have been applied to people who study and practice animal magnetism. The magnetiser and the hypnotist is, the first uses animal magnetism, the etymology of the word magnetizer comes from the French magnetiseur, which in turn is derived from the French verb magnetiser. The term refers to an individual who has the power to manipulate the magnetic fluid with effects upon other people present that were regarded as analogous to magnetic effects. This sense of the term is found, for example, in the expression of Antoine Joseph Gorsas, at the time, some magnetizers attempted to channel what they thought was a magnetic fluid, and sometimes they attempted this with a laying on of hands. Reported effects included various feelings, intense heat, trembling, trances, many practitioners took a scientific approach, such as Joseph Philippe François Deleuze, a French physician, anatomist, gynecologist, and physicist. One of his pupils was Théodore Léger, who wrote that the label mesmerism was most improper, the commission included Majault, Benjamin Franklin, Jean Sylvain Bailly, J. B. Le Roy, Sallin, Jean Darcet, de Borey, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, Antoine Lavoisier, Poissonnier, Caille, Mauduyt de la Varenne, Andry, and de Jussieu. The report says, Among the conclusions were, Abbé Faria was one of the disciples of Franz Anton Mesmer who continued with Mesmers work following the conclusions of the Royal Commission. Hypnotism, a designation coined by the Scottish surgeon, James Braid, originates in Braids the response to an exhibition of animal magnetism, by Charles Lafontaine, in Manchester. The purpose of the treatment was to shock the body into convulsion in order to remove obstructions in the system that were causing sicknesses. A patient under crisis was believed to be able to see through the body and find the cause of illness, the Marquis of Puységurs miraculous healing of a young man named Victor in 1784 was attributed to, and used as evidence in support of, this crisis treatment. The Marquis was allegedly able to hypnotize Victor and, while hypnotized, Victor was said to have been able to speak articulately, jacob Melo discusses in his books some mechanisms by which the perceived effects of animal magnetism have been claimed to operate. The study of animal magnetism spurred the creation of the Societies of Harmony in France, doctor John Bell was a member of the Philosophical Harmonic Society of Paris, and was certified by the society to lecture and teach on animal magnetism in England. Popularization of animal magnetism was denounced and ridiculed by newspaper journals, many deemed animal magnetism to be nothing more than a theatrical falsity or quackery. ”The novelist and playwrighter Elizabeth Inchbald wrote the farce Animal Magnetism in the late 1780s
38.
Naturopathy
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Naturopathy or naturopathic medicine is a form of pseudoscientific, alternative medicine that employs an array of practices branded as natural, non-invasive, and as promoting self-healing. The ideology and methods of naturopathy are based on vitalism and self-healing, Naturopathic practitioners generally recommend against modern medical practices, including but not limited to medical testing, drugs, vaccinations, and surgery. Instead, study and practice are focused on unscientific notions, often leading naturaphic doctors to diagnoses, Naturopathic medicine is considered by the medical profession to be ineffective and possibly harmful, raising ethical issues about its practice. Over the years, many practitioners of medicine have been found criminally liable in the courts of law around the world. In some countries, it is an offense for naturopaths. Naturopathic doctors are actively pushing for recognition in the U. S. The term naturopathy was created from natura and pathos to suggest natural healing, naturopaths claim the ancient Greek Father of Medicine, Hippocrates, as the first advocate of naturopathic medicine, before the term existed. Naturopathy has its roots in the 19th-century Natural Cure movement of Europe, in Scotland, Thomas Allinson started advocating his Hygienic Medicine in the 1880s, promoting a natural diet and exercise with avoidance of tobacco and overwork. The term naturopathy was coined in 1895 by John Scheel, and purchased by Benedict Lust, Lust had been schooled in hydrotherapy and other natural health practices in Germany by Father Sebastian Kneipp, Kneipp sent Lust to the United States to spread his drugless methods. He described the body in spiritual and vitalistic terms with absolute reliance upon the forces of mans nature. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the first known use of naturopathy in print is from 1901, from 1901, Lust founded the American School of Naturopathy in New York. In 1902, the original North American Kneipp Societies were discontinued and renamed Naturopathic Societies, in September 1919, the Naturopathic Society of America was dissolved and Benedict Lust founded the American Naturopathic Association to supplant it. Naturopaths became licensed under naturopathic or drugless practitioner laws in 25 states in the first three decades of the twentieth century, Naturopathy was adopted by many chiropractors, and several schools offered both Doctor of Naturopathy and Doctor of Chiropractic degrees. Estimates of the number of naturopathic schools active in the United States during this period vary from one to two dozen. After a period of growth, naturopathy went into decline for several decades after the 1930s. In 1910, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching published the Flexner Report, the advent of penicillin and other miracle drugs and the consequent popularity of modern medicine also contributed to naturopathys decline. In the 1940s and 1950s, a broadening in scope of practice laws led many chiropractic schools to drop their ND degrees, from 1940 to 1963, the American Medical Association campaigned against heterodox medical systems. By 1958, practice of naturopathy was licensed in five states
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Orgone
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Orgone is a pseudoscientific and spiritual concept described as an esoteric energy or hypothetical universal life force, originally proposed in the 1930s by Wilhelm Reich. Orgone was seen as a massless, omnipresent substance, similar to luminiferous aether and it could allegedly coalesce to create organization on all scales, from the smallest microscopic units—called bions in orgone theory—to macroscopic structures like organisms, clouds, or even galaxies. Reich stated that deficits or constrictions in bodily orgone were at the root of many diseases, Reich designed special orgone accumulators—devices ostensibly collecting and storing orgone energy from the environment—for improvement of general health or even for weather control. Ultimately, the U. S. Reich rescinded the claim that accumulator could provide orgastic potency, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health lists orgone as a type of putative energy. There is no support for the concept of orgone in medicine or the physical sciences. The concept of orgone belongs to Reichs later work, after he immigrated to the US and he was expelled from the Institute of Psycho-analysis because of these disagreements over the nature of the libido and his increasingly political stance. He was forced to leave Germany very soon after Hitler came to power, Reich took an increasingly bioenergetic view of libido, perhaps influenced by his tutor Paul Kammerer and another biologist, Otto Heinrich Warburg. As a psycho-analyst Reich aligned such theories with the Freudian libido and he wrote in his best known book, The Function of the Orgasm, Between 1919 and 1921, I became familiar with Drieschs Philosophie des Organischen and his Ordnungslehre. Drieschs contention seemed incontestable to me and he argued that, in the sphere of the life function, the whole could be developed from a part, whereas a machine could not be made from a screw. However, I couldnt quite accept the transcendentalism of the life principle, seventeen years later I was able to resolve the contradiction on the basis of a formula pertaining to the function of energy. Drieschs theory was always present in my mind when I thought about vitalism, the vague feeling I had about the irrational nature of his assumption turned out to be justified in the end. The concept of orgone was the result of work in the psycho-physiology of libido. After his migration to the US, Reich began to speculate about biological development and evolution and this led him to the conception of bions, self-luminescent sub-cellular vesicles that he believed were observable in decaying materials, and presumably present universally. Orgone was closely associated with sexuality, Reich, following Freud, the term itself was chosen to share a root with the word orgasm, which both Reich and Freud took to be a fundamental expression of psychological health. In at least some cases, Reichs experimental techniques do not appear to have been very careful, Reich was concerned with experimental verification from other scientists. Through these experiments I regard the matter as completely solved, he wrote to Reich on 7 February 1941, upon further correspondence from Reich, Einstein replied that he could not devote any further time to the matter and asked that his name not be misused for advertising purposes. Orgone and its concepts were quickly denounced in the post-World War II American press. He was, as the New York Times later put it, the psychoanalytical community of the time saw his approach to healing diseases as quackery of the worst sort, partly because of his comments about UFOs
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Parapsychology
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It is identified as pseudoscience by the overwhelming majority of mainstream scientists. Parapsychology research is conducted by private institutions in several countries and funded through private donations. Most papers about parapsychology are published in a number of niche journals. Parapsychology has been criticised for continuing investigation despite being unable to provide convincing evidence for the existence of any psychic phenomena after more than a century of research and it has been noted that most academics do not take the claims of parapsychology seriously. Para is from Greek, and means beside, closely related to, the term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the psychical research in order to indicate a significant shift toward experimental methodology. The term originates from the Greek, παρά para meaning alongside, in parapsychology, psi is the unknown factor in extrasensory perception and psychokinesis experiences that is not explained by known physical or biological mechanisms. The term is derived from the Greek ψ psi, 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet, the term was coined by biologist Berthold P. Wiesner, and first used by psychologist Robert Thouless in a 1942 article published in the British Journal of Psychology. The Parapsychological Association divides psi into two categories, psi-gamma for extrasensory perception and psi-kappa for psychokinesis. In popular culture, psi has become more and more synonymous with special psychic, mental, in 1853, the chemist Robert Hare conducted experiments with mediums and reported positive results. Other researchers such as Frank Podmore highlighted flaws in his experiments, agenor de Gasparin conducted early experiments into table-tipping. Over a period of five months in 1853 he declared the experiments a success being the result of an ectenic force, critics noted that the conditions were insufficient to prevent trickery. For example the knees of the sitters may have been employed to move the table and no experimenter was watching above, the German astrophysicist Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner tested the medium Henry Slade in 1877. According to Zöllner some of the experiments were a success, however, flaws in the experiments were discovered and critics have suggested that Slade was a fraud who performed trickery in the experiments. The Society for Psychical Research was founded in London in 1882 and its formation was the first systematic effort to organize scientists and scholars to investigate paranormal phenomena. Early membership included philosophers, scholars, scientists, educators and politicians, such as Henry Sidgwick, Arthur Balfour, William Crookes, Rufus Osgood Mason and Nobel Laureate Charles Richet. Presidents of the Society included, in addition to Richet, Eleanor Sidgwick and William James, and subsequently Nobel Laureates Henri Bergson and Lord Rayleigh, and philosopher C. D. Broad. Areas of study included telepathy, hypnotism, Reichenbachs phenomena, apparitions, hauntings, in the 1880s the Society investigated apparitional experiences and hallucinations in the sane
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Quotations related to Traditional Chinese medicine at Wikiquote
