China Wisdom
2 min readChina-A Nation of Discoveries and Inventions
In more than a millennium from the Qin Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty，Chinese science and technology took the lead in the world，and contributed greatly to the progress of the human civilization.Bernard，an English science historian，said，”For many centuries Chinawas one of the great centers of human civilization and science.”Joseph Needham，another English science historian，pointed out，”In many important respects the Chinese made scientific and technological inventions ahead of the legendary figures who created famous hopeful miracles’.The Chinese were abreast with the Arabs when Arabs possessed all the cultural wealth of the Western world.Between the 3rd century A.D.and the 13th century A.D.，the Chinese kept scientific knowledge at a level far above that of the western world.”
Robert Temple，a British scholar，stated in his work China-A Nation of Discoveries and Inventions:Probably over half of the inventions the modern world bases on have originated from China.Beside the four Great Chinese Inventions of compass，gunpowder，printing and paper making，many discoveries and inventions with respect to modern agriculture，navigation，petroleum industry，meteorological observation，music，decimal arithmetic，paper money，multistage rocket，submarine torpedo，poisonous gas，gun and cannon，parachute，brandy，whisky，and even the core design of steam engine were made first by the Chinese in the face of nature.These inventions have been the crystallization of Chinese wisdom.
The Four Great Inventions are the very great contributions of the Chinese people of ancient times to the development of the world’s civilization.They reflected and represented the brilliance and prosperity of the ancient Chinese civilization.
