Talk:List of Chinese inventions

Fixed Rudder vs. simple stern oar

User:Gun Powder Ma, I am sorry to say that I defended you earlier above and am now thoroughly disappointed in you. Everything you do here on Wikipedia now is questionable (in regards to egregiously misrepresenting your sources). I thought you were of higher integrity than this, and this is something I will hold you accountable for. And furthermore, I find it funny that this is all a petty jab at List of Chinese inventions.

For anyone who can access JSTOR, look to Plate 1 of this link here. It brings you to:

Harbour and River Boats of Ancient Rome Lionel Casson The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 55, No. 1/2, Parts 1 and 2 (1965), pp. 31-39

From this picture, Gun Powder Ma took the liberty of using a picture of a Roman tugboat that clearly shows a man operating a steering oar, NOT a fixed rudder, at the back of a Roman tugboat. The caption says absolutely nothing about a rudder, which was Gun Powder Ma's sly, non-scholarly-based interpretation of the picture. It reads: "Tugboat on a tomb plaque of Hadriatic date from the Isola Sacra."

That's it.

Just earlier, Gun Powder Ma tried a similar trick in the article for umbrella, by stating the Greeks and Romans had the collapsible umbrella and instead of citing a published source, he chose the route of original research once again and found two tiny, hazy, indistinguishable pictures that clearly did not show anything of a collapsible mechanism. Look here and here. And even if they did (which they don't), Gun Powder Ma assumes he has the authority of a published source to make such a claim; I don't think so, not on my watch, no way.

I rest my case.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:26, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Even with this source:

Egyptian Seagoing Ships R. O. Faulkner The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 26, (Feb., 1941), pp. 3-9

Gun Powder Ma managed to misrepresent his source again! The source specifically states that the Egyptian ships of the 6th dynasty used a, quote, "steering-paddle" pivoted on the rudder-post but fixed to the hull of the ship by rope. It says nothing about the actual rudder being used and has this to say:

In most river boats of this period there was but a single steering-paddle fixed right on the stern, hinting at the way in which the true rudder ultimately developed.

And Gun Powder Ma seriously thought he could pass this off as a valid reason to say the Egyptians had the stern-post rudder. Unbelievable.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:50, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into the case Pericles and presenting the evidence to light. It is indeed quite pathetic when someone's "contributions" only serve to compromise the quality of an outstanding article. 70.24.138.211 (talk) 01:56, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

You're very welcome. I can't access it through Google Books (although I will look for it in my university library right now), but I have no doubt that Gun Powder Ma also misrepresented the source Egyptian Treasures from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo by Francesco Tiradritti. You better come clean about this first, Gun Powder Ma, because I will access this book and I will get to the bottom of yet another source you supposedly represented accurately.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:16, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Through his own citation, I was able to read Mott's article.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:32, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Well after reading some of his or her past edits and posts on CHF, it seems clear that this user has some sort of agenda to debase the contributions of the Chinese. I will be keeping a close watch from now on as this sort of deplorable prejudice has no place on Wikipedia. 70.24.138.211 (talk) 02:33, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I could care less what his petty personal prejudices are; I am more concerned with the fact that he was completely dishonest in using his sources, has shredded apart his own credibility as an editor here, and, as you put it, compromised this article's quality by loading it with what Penn and Teller would call, well, you know what.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:47, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree but clearly his distorted views are causing him to add (misrepresented) junk to this article and I would not be surprised if this sort of behavior was carried out in other articles. 70.24.138.211 (talk) 02:57, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I added the definition by Mott over at rudder. Mott says explicitly two things: 1. A steering oar can be called a stern mounted rudder (page 2f.). 2. That the Chinese stern mounted rudder was not fixed to the sternpost, that is the ship (p. 92). Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Sub-sections in alphabetical order

Since some people have been ignoring the first sentence of the "other inventions" section, I took the liberty of clarifying where any and all items are to be inserted into the list by making clear letter sub-sections for all entries to fit under. If someone objects, please raise concerns here, but DO NOT revert my edit until things are discussed here and consensus reached. I think it makes the contents box rather large in the beginning of the article, but to be fair it won't get any larger than that since all the letters in the alphabet are now in place as sub-sections.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Lol. Surprise Surprise. It was Gun Power Ma who messed it up most recently. Guess he was too busy getting his point across. [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.71.45.145 (talk) 20:26, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it was a remnant of one of Gun Powder's edits that made me realize this article needed letter sub-sections.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 00:28, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

New material

I added some new entries recently, including equal temperament, Gaussian elimination, Chinese remainder theorem, Cavalieri's principle and the Civil service examinations.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 00:28, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Good work Pericles! I'm wondering if noodles are a Chinese invention. I was just reading up on it and thought you might know more about it or have books possibly discussing this. "The first written account of noodles is from the East Han Dynasty between AD 25 and 220. In October 2005, the oldest noodles yet discovered were found at the Lajia site (Qijia culture) along the Yellow River in Qinghai, China. The 4,000-year-old noodles appear to have been made from foxtail millet and broomcorn millet.[1]" Nature reported that the world's oldest noodles have been unearthed in China. [2] 70.24.168.206 (talk) 01:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

This is fairly recent, so I was actually unaware of this find. Thanks for finding this, I'll add it to the list.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

This part from zither seems relevant: "The earliest known instrument of the zither family is a Chinese guqin found in the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng dating from 433 BC, featuring tuning pegs, a bridge and goose-like feet." I don't have access to the journal article but maybe you could verify this. [3] Thanks and keep up the good work. 70.24.138.30 (talk) 05:16, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a subscription either. The article doens't appear to be available on JSTOR, which I do have access to. It's a pity; oh well, something else will pop up that we can use. In the meantime, though go (board game), liubo, xiangqi, and guqin have been added to the list.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 05:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I just added milü, Zu Chongzhi's approximation for pi in the 5th century that was the most accurate in the world.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

In what way is a refinement of PI an invention? I think you have totally lost any concept about what the page is actually about. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

This page (and the term "invention" in general) isn't merely about physical technology. Like the other entries dealing with mathematics, I would certainly consider the original formula for pi as an invention, just how I would consider milü an invention, and just how I would consider the discovery of equal temperament an invention. The social construction of the civil service examinations was also a profound invention, yet it isn't classified as a mechanical device. I wouldn't dare say that Socrates' invention of the Socratic Method was not an invention, simply because it is an abstract idea.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:03, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I also just added Guo Shoujing's calendar, which is pretty much identical with the Gregorian calendar.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for the great contributions in the last few days. Apparently there's a new biography on Needham called The Man Who Loved China that lists more than 260 Chinese inventions and discoveries identified by SCC. I'm not sure if there's a complete list of inventions in SCC itself but this might be a good source for uncovering other monumental discoveries and inventions. 76.69.60.67 (talk) 13:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC) A couple of lists: [4], [5] Many presumably may not be Chinese firsts but maybe I'll try to get my hands on the sources cited to see if they are indeed Chinese inventions.

Thanks.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:02, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I was surprised this wasn't already on the list but fireworks are one of the more well known Chinese inventions. Could you add it to the list? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.69.60.67 (talk) 00:58, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

It's done, thanks for reminding me!--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The first list in the link you provided had many errors, if it is assuming they are ALL things which originated in China first, let alone inventions that may have diffused across the Asian continent via China. For example, the paddle-wheel ship was not invented in China until the 8th century, whereas it was previously invented in the Greco-Roman world centuries beforehand.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks man. I had a hunch that the list may have had erroneous mentions or been overly generous with the inclusions which is why I wanted to check the sources cited before jumping to conclusions. Nevertheless, it still useful in helping to identify legitimate inventions that are missing from this list. 76.69.60.67 (talk) 04:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

• Fishing reel: "The earliest known illustration of a fishing reel is from Chinese paintings and records beginning about 1195 A.D." - trying to find a reliable source for this but no luck so far.
• Playing cards
• Anti-malaria drug / first reference to malaria?
• Mouth organ
• Clockwork
• Crop rotation
• Handguns

SCC should have more details about those inventions.76.69.60.67 (talk) 04:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I not only added a new entry for fishing reel, but I also scanned Image:Angler on a Wintry Lake, by Ma Yuan, 1195.jpg from Joseph Needham's SCC, Volume 4, Part 2, Mechanical Engineering.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

As for the playing cards, not sure. If you look at the second item in the list of "other inventions," that will answer your question about the anti-malarial drug (that entry has been there for a while, surprised you didn't notice). Not sure about the mouth organ. Is clockwork really necessary? I already have escapement and chain drive listed in that regard. Crop rotation, that is associated highly with the seed drill entry already in the article. As for handguns, I think the entry on the hand cannon already in the article is sufficient.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I just added cuju and chuiwan to the list in regards to more recreational activities, since the only ones I had before weren't physical sports, but board games (i.e. go board game, liubo, and xiangqi).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 08:17, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Awesome. I particularly like that image. The list above was supposed to be discussed in SCC and I assumed you had access to the series and could look it up. You're completely right about antimalarial, clockwork, crop roation, handguns. I was a bit too hasty in suggesting them. In any case, if you have access to the SCC series maybe you could have a quick scan for the rest. This is becoming quite the definitive list! 70.24.137.80 (talk) 12:47, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, the only reason why I was able to scan the picture of the fishing reel is because it was a two-dimensional painting; you are not allowed to scan others' photographs of three-dimensional objects, because they have artistic license to them (since it is their "artistic" interpretation of the object in question). Therefore, only flat textiles and paintings and drawings are allowed to be scanned; if you want a 3-D object, you have to take the picture yourself and upload it! Don't know if you were aware of that. Besides that, all the pictures in Needham's books are in black-and-white; personally, I would rather acquire color photographs to scan; in fact, if I can find a color photograph version of Ma Yuan's painting, then I will upload a new version immediately over the version you see now.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:08, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

You misunderstood me. I could've been more clear but by "scan" I did not mean digitally scanning images. Instead, I meant quickly glancing over sections in SCC that touch on the inventions I listed above (specifically playing card and mouth organ but also others that you may come upon) so we can keep improving and adding to the list of inventions. I wish I had access to the massive SCC series so I could look this up myself but unfortunately my local library does not seem to have a copy available. 70.24.137.80 (talk) 18:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I'll look for them, but I don't own every volume of Needham's work (although I do have about 85% of them, lol). However, I am at work right now, and shouldn't even be typing this! Lol. Oh well, I'm allowed to take lots of breaks anyways (doing encoding for a website). Cheers.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I haven't found playing cards or any one of the Chinese mouth organs just yet in Needham's work, but I recently expanded the entry on raised-relief map and created a new entry for the surveying tool Jacob's staff.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 04:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh well. Thanks for checking and adding new entries to the list. Might be in the 15% of the series you don't have lol. I'm learning a lot everyday about Chinese contributions through this list. I'm also considering purchasing that biography on Needham to have that full list that I can examine further and for some light reading. If I do, I'll post inventions that can be added to this list. Keep up the great work! 70.24.137.80 (talk) 06:04, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

No problem, just added field mill (carriage).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 08:53, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I just added two more items, Mechanical theater, carriage-driven and Puppet theater, waterwheel-powered.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 09:41, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I finally found information for the playing card! I added a new picture too.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:26, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Was looking through the list and noticed that a Y invention was still missing. Yo-yo: "The yo-yo is thought to have originated in China, most likely traveling from there to Greece where it is first mentioned in historical records from c.500 B.C. These records describe toys made out of wood, metal, or painted terra cotta (clay). The terra cotta disks were used to ceremonially offer the toys of youth to certain gods when a child came of age—discs of other materials were used for actual play. Philippine historical records indicate that 16th century hunters hiding in trees used a rock tied to a cord up to 20 feet in length to throw at wild animals beneath them—the cord enabling retrieval of the rock after missed attempts. Some have theorized that this was the basis of the yo-yo, but it is more likely that the yo-yo traveled from China not only to Greece, but also to the Philippines.[1]" Hope someone can look into this more deeper and add it to the list. Nirvana888 (talk) 08:21, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Good suggestion. I looked around and so far couldn't find anything substantial in terms of scholarly sources.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 12:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

In fact, I keep reading that it probably originated in China, but that one of its oldest depictions comes from a Greek vase dated c. 500 BC.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 12:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Stern mounted rudder

Why did you remove the material? Is the Egyptian stern mounted rudder preceding any Chinese evidence by two thousand years not enough? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 14:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Either you're being a smartass or you truly scanned through this page too fast to notice an entire section explaining why your edits have been removed. You intentionally lied with the sources you used and now you're playing coy? I don't trust you worth two cents, pal. Not until you quote WORD FOR WORD what the sources say here, on the talk page. I will also be checking the new sources which you have just added; if the Egyptians had the rudder (NOT simply the steering oar placed at the stern of the ship) then I have certainly come across no scholar who has made this statement. In fact, it would be the discovery of the century that everyone would hear about, because it would trump the Chinese invention by more than a thousand years. Something that big does not go unnoticed.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Just for the record, I wasn't the one to remove your material. In fact, I fixed your references earlier so they conformed with the citation-and-referencing style chosen for this article, which you have repeatedly ignored (maybe out of spite?).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I added the definition by Mott over at rudder. Mott says explicitly two things: 1. A steering oar can be called a stern mounted rudder (page 2f.). 2. That the Chinese stern mounted rudder was not fixed to the sternpost, that is the ship (p. 92). I am following the Wiki etiquette and wont address your repeated ad hominem attacks, other than telling you that this page is now under scrutiny (please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents). Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

If you define a steering oar as a rudder, then the source you just recently added by William F. Edgerton (i.e. "Ancient Egyptian Steering Gear") would conform to what you are saying. But I will quote R.O. Faulkner as I have above (a source that you added, by the way):

In most river boats of this period there was but a single steering-paddle fixed right on the stern, hinting at the way in which the true rudder ultimately developed.

Notice the phrase "true rudder" as opposed to the steering paddle (or oar) fixed to the stern. Is R.O. Faulkner disagreeing with Mott about the definition of a rudder?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Moreover, are you using Mott's definition of the rudder to justify William F. Edgerton's article and other sources as evidence of the Egyptian rudder? In that case, you would be putting words into Edgerton's mouth, because he never says the Egyptians used the rudder; he says they used the steering oar. So far, it is only Mott who makes the inference about the steering oar being a rudder, correct? In that case, I think using Mott to speak for other sources in your rebuttal of the rudder section (of this article) would be misrepresenting other sources (aside from Mott). In fact, I think you should make it absolutely clear that when Mott says steering oar he is referring to a rudder.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:14, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Gun Powder Ma's writing

I noticed that you're employing Mott's definition of rudder into other works, those who have a different definition other than Mott ones. I am removing it from the article.

DEPOSIT:

However, the ancient Egyptian use of stern-mounted rudders can be traced back to the VI dynasty (2350-2200 BC), predating the Chinese evidence by more than two millenia. The first literary evidence to Egyptian stern mounted rudder comes from Herodot (484-424 BC). By the first half of the 1st century AD, Roman reliefs also depict single stern rudders employed on a fairly wide range of vessels. Since the use of a single rudder from the stern was not a new idea, the inventive element of the Chinese rudder design remains limited to its specific method of attachment, a method which, however, which was not copied by other seafaring peoples who kept each to their own manner of rudder attachment.

Anpersonalaccount (talk) 17:19, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Mott quote

"That the Chinese stern mounted rudder was not fixed to the sternpost, that is the ship." - Gun Powder Ma.

So? The Chinese rudder was still fixed to the stern of the ship via block and tackle or socket-and-jaws; you are merely saying that the later European pintle-and-gudgeon wasn't used. You also neglect to mention one of Mott's greater points: the pintle-and-gudgeon rudder did not supercede the quarter-rudder (i.e. fixed to the sides of ships) until the 13th century AD. And about your statement: "A steering oar can be called a stern mounted rudder", let's examine what Mott says. Page 2-3 of his article:

Concerning rudders mounted on the stern, the locution pintle-and-gudgeon rudder was chosen for the northern European mounting system because it both describes the method of attachment and implies attachment to the sternpost. The technology which eventually replaced the quarter-rudder was the pintle-and-gudgeon system, so that the use of the term is appropriate as well as accurate. The term stern-mounted rudder is too broad a definition. The Chinese for centuries used a rudder mounted on the stern, but they did not utilize pintles and gudgeons, and, in fact, their ships did not have a sternpost to which to attach them. The term could equally apply to a steering oar hung from the stern of a boat. (Mott, pp. 2-3)

He says the the term "stern-mounted rudder" can be equally applied to the concept of a steering oar that is hung from the stern of a boat (like seen in the Egyptian and Roman models), yet you fail to notice here that he does not call the Chinese rudder a "steering oar;" he says "the Chinese for centuries used a rudder mounted on the stern", that is by block and tackle or socket-and-jaws, which was not employed by the Egyptian and Roman steering oars as seen in Edgerton's article noted above.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Needham quote, a steering oar IS NOT a rudder

Apparently Mott, if he truly does classify the steering oar as a "rudder," is ignorant of an old scholarly discussion about the many differences between a steering oar and a rudder, which Needham points out here on pages 627 to 628 of Volume 4, Part 3, Civil Engineering and Nautics in the passage I will quote below:

In the West, the terminology of the successive stages in direction-control presents little difficulty. First there were steering-oars or quarter-paddles, or occasionally stern-sweeps centrally fixed, then came rudder-shaped paddles permanently attached to one of the stern quarters, and lastly the stern-post rudder itself, hung on pintle and gudgeon. When a Lincoln MS of +1263 differentiates tolls between 'navi cum handerother' and 'navi cum helmerother' we can guess pretty well what was meant...

A classical monograph was devoted to the invention of the stern-post rudder by des Noëttes (2). He claimed that because of the weakness of the steering-oar a cardinal limiting factor to nautical development existed before the beginning of the +13th century. Until that turning point the capacity of ships was restricted to about 50 tons. Lack of maneuvrability also kept them slow, and the fact that in heavy weather any kind of steering-oar would inevitably take charge, interfering with the handling of the sails, meant that ships were constrained to keep within the reach of shelter and could not venture to any extent on ocean passages. The chief critic of des Noëttes, la Roërie (1,2) maintained that the stern-post rudder had little or no advantage over the steering-oar, but the consensus of qualified nautical opinion crystallised almost unanimously against him, though des Noëttes, who was admittedly a landsman, often failed to receive the credit which he deserved.

The steering-oar, however, has always remained of value in rapid rivers and narrow landlocked waters, hence its continued in use in China today. To respond to the rudder, a boat must have way on her, must, in other words, be moving relatively to the surrounding water, for otherwise there is no streamline flow to be diverted. But when descending rapids, a boat may be moving at almost the same speed as the water, and in such a case it is highly advantageous to have a long stern-sweep, so long that its effects depends not on streamline flow but on reaction to water resistance, just as in the case of an ordinary oar. The lever, in such a stern-sweep, is much longer on each side of the fulcrum than it is in the rudder. Imparting to the boats stern a strong transverse movement, it can equally be well used for turning the vessel about when stationary in a lake or harbour. We have already seen several examples...of the massive stern-sweeps of Chinese river ships.

Is there anything else that needs to be said about Mott's bogus classification at this point? If so I'd love to hear is, Gun Powder Ma.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Is "bogus" the way to disqualify other sources? Needham's 40-year-old findings are outdated. Mott's source is far better worked out (a dissertation), more recent (1990s), and he has a maritime knowledge, a trained biochemist like Needham could only dream of. Since Mott explicitly refutes Needham, and has not been explicitly refuted by anybody else on this, Mott represents now the scholarly consensus. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:15, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, that's not a legitimate response to this passage here. So far you've waved one sentence around as an excuse to say steering oars are rudders, and I've shown an entire three paragraphs from Needham discussing why a steering oar is not a rudder, including the work of two other scholars on the matter.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:02, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually it does have its places on the rudder, however Gun Powder Ma, I just don't get right about your insists over the crossbow. Please reply. Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

No, a steering oar IS NOT a rudder. They are two completely different things with two completely different sets of advantages; one is pristine for rapid narrow passages, while the other is not and is more capabale of handling an ocean- or sea-going vessel. Gun Powder Ma has absolutely no idea what he is talking about, and he raises up a total of two sentences from Mott's article to claim a steering oar is a rudder. Pathetic.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:21, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Other scholars' input

Aside from Mott classifying a steering oar under the umbrella term of a "stern-mounted rudder", I will dedicate this sub-section to scholars (besides Needham, Noëttes, and la Roërie above) who say to the contrary, that China had the rudder long before it was ever seen in Europe (or Egypt for that matter), and that a steering oar IS NOT a rudder. Here's some for starters:

• Page 123 of Leo Block's To Harness the Wind (2003, Naval Institute Press).

• Page 64 to 70 of Vassilios Christides' New Light on the Transmission of Chinese Naval Technology to the Mediterranean World: The Single Rudder (1996, New York: Routledge)

• Page 152 of Leo Suryadinata's Admiral Zheng He & Southeast Asia, Chung Chee Kit's chapter (2005, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies)

• Page 103 to 104 of K.S Tom's Echoes from Old China (1989, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press)

• Page 191 of Paul Johnstone and Sean McGrail's The Sea-craft of Prehistory (1988, New York: Routledge)

• Page 156 of Samuel Adrian Miles Adshead's China in World History: Third Edition (2000, New York: St. Martin's Press)

• Pages 122–123 of Frank Ross' Oracle Bones, Stars, and Wheelbarrows: Ancient Chinese Science and Technology (1982, New York: Houghton Mifflin)

• Page 93 of John Fairbank and Merle Goldman's China: A New History (1998, Cambridge: Harvard University Press)

--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

That won't help. Evidence to the contrary has to be addressed in the specific sections. This is not a Needham festival, this is an encyclopedia, although you might have failed to notice the difference a long time ago. And if the constant, unilateral reverts by your socket puppets adjutants continue, I am seriously considering about making a request for rethinking the whole statuts of the article. The obsessive behaviour of some becomes has become disgrace to Wikipedia. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Gun Powder Ma, I am the one who removed it (see above). Because you said something about definition, and such definition needs to make clear before it reinserted. So cool down and discuss the content not personal. Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 14:22, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so, Gun Powder Ma. It's called scholarly consensus, a word you just slung around after reading two sentences in Mott's article that you think may refute Needham and others' work. I find it funny that you still don't know the difference between a steering oar and a rudder. In fact, I'd like to hear you explain to me the difference! Bet you can't (and that's a challenge).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Here's a gem by Leo Block in his description (from the book cited above ^) of ancient Phoenicia in the Medterranean world which shows that the steering oar, not the rudder, was used before it was invented by China (Pages 8 to 9):

A single sail tends to turn a vessel in an upwind or downwind direction, and rudder action is required to steer a straight course. A steering oar was used at this time because the rudder had not yet been invented. With a single sail, a frequent movement of the steering oar was required to steer a straight course; this slowed down the vessel because a steering oar (or rudder) course correction acts like a break. The second sail, located forward, could be trimmed to offset the turning tendency of the main sail and minimize the need for course corrections by the steering oar, which would have substantially improved sail performance.

In the book edited by Leo Suryadinata I just showed above, in the chapter by Chung Chee Kit, has another interesting passage about the steering oar and rudder that refutes Mott:

Until the 12th century AD rudders were unknown in the West. Like the compass, it was introduced through contacts with Chinese sailors. On the other hand, the stern rudder that we are so familiar with had been used at least from the Han Dynasty. Early Western ships steered using a "steering oar" or "steering board". These are ineffective for larger vessels, and require a great physical effort to handle. Without the introduction of the stern rudder to Europe, it is unlikely that the great voyages of discovery of Columbus and Diaz could be conducted.

Although I completely disagree with his point about transmission and agree with Mott that the Chinese rudder was not attached in the same way as the Arab rudder (hence no transmission to Europe), he does bring up the essential point that a steering oar is meant for small river vessels, while the true rudder is used for large ships which can easily steer on the pounding sea. Here again, another scholar brings up the fact that a steering oar is not a rudder. And this source isn't "outdated" like Needham or Noëttes' work.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:17, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Hah! Here is another gem from K.S. Tom's book about the difference between the steering oar and rudder, which I have listed and linked above as well. You really backed the wrong horse this time, Gun Powder Ma.

Ancient water craft were primarily navigated through the use of oars held at an angle in the water, usually at the rear of the vessel. To steer their vessels more effectively, the Chinese invented the stern-post rudder. This rudder, fixed at the center of the stern, pivoted on an axis and could be turned in either direction to steer the vessel. On the evidence of references contained in writings dating from the fifth and sixth centuries, it used to be assumed that the first stern-post rudder was invented sometime in the fifth century. But in 1958, the Academy Sinica and the Kwangtung Provincial Museum jointly excavated several Late Han tombs in the city of Canton. These tombs, dating from the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D., contained many clay funerary figures, including an assemblage of beautiful pottery depicting in great detail the central axial stern-post rudder. Since earlier funerary ship models from the Chou dynasty and Early Han all show the use of steering oars, it seems safe to conclude that the stern-post rudder was invented in the 1st century AD. In Europe, the stern-post rudder did not come into use until the end of the twelfth century. By then the Chinese had improved the rudder in several ways...

Then he goes on to talk about the balanced rudder of the 11th century and the fenestrated rudder soon after, both of which were not adopted in the West until the 18th and 19th centuries, respectively. Any questions, Gun Powder Ma?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't feel like quoting anymore, so you can look at Paul Johnstone and Sean McGrail's linked page above for yet another set of scholars who say the steering oar is not a rudder; in fact, the Chinese used the steering oar before they used the rudder. You truly backed yourself into a corner, Gun Powder Ma.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:40, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Click on the S.A.M. Adshead link above for yet another scholar who not only says the steering oar is not a rudder, but that it was first invented in China and did not appear in Europe until about 1180.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Yet another source from Frank Ross, who says the steering oar is not a rudder, that the rudder first appeared in China, and that it did not exist in Europe until about 1180.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:52, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Yet another source by Fairbank and Goldman, published by Harvard University Press, mind you, which states that the Chinese first invented the rudder while Europe still used the quote "inefficient" steering oar.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:51, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Mott: Stern mounted rudders and steering oars

Lawrence V. Mott, The Development of the Rudder, A.D. 100-1337: A Technological Tale, Thesis May 1991, Texas A&M University explicitly refutes in his in-depth anaylsis of the rudder Needham's claims about the Chinese invention of rudder. Below, he makes it abundantly clear that

• the concept of mounting a rudder on the stern was long known before it first appeared in China
• that the Chinese version of the stern mounted rudder did not spread to other seafaring cultures.
• that the Egyptian tomb models show a "rudder put at the stern"

It has been argued by Needham (1971:651-52) that the concept of mounting the rudder on the stern came from China and was transmitted to the Arabs by Chinese sailors. He has also suggested that the idea may have been carried to the Baltic by Russian traders (Needham, 1971:651). Concerning this last suggestion, the problem is one of transmission. As was noted in the last chapter, verbal transmission is not very reliable, and the simple idea of mounting a rudder from the stern was not new in itself. With regards to the transmission of the sternpost-mounted rudder to the Indian Ocean, while the concept of mounting the rudder on the stern may have come from Chinese traders, it was so modified and changed that it hardly resembles its origins except in the grossest sense. As noted by Needham (1971:653), Chinese vessels did not have a sternpost to which the rudder could be attached. Instead, it was suspended and held in place by an elaborate system of tackle. The idea of attaching the rudder to the sternpost in a relatively permanent fashion, therefore, must have been an Arab invention independent of the Chinese. Also, whereas the Chinese used tillers, Arab vessels used lines to control the rudder and did not adopt the tiller until the arrival of the Portuguese (Bowen, 1963:304; Ministry of Info, of Oman, 1981:112). This raises the question as to why the Arab sailors did not adopt the more effective tiller and yet borrowed the idea of a stern-mounted rudder. The above shows that the only actual concept which can be claimed to have been transmitted from the Chinese is the idea of a stern-mounted rudder, and not its method of attachment nor the manner in which it was controlled. Since that idea of putting a rudder on the stern can be traced back to the models found in Egyptian tombs, the need to have the concept brought into the Middle East is questionable at best. There is no evidence to support the contention that the sternpost-mounted rudder came from China, and no need to call on exterior sources for its introduction into the Mediterranean. While there is virtually no evidence to suggest that the sternpost-mounted rudder was introduced from China,…

Here, Mott states again explicitly that steering oars can be called stern mounted rudders (p.2f.):

The term stern-mounted rudder is too broad a definition. The Chinese for centuries used a rudder mounted on the stern, but they did not utilize pintles and gudgeons and, in fact, their ships did not have a sternpost to which to attach them. The term could equally apply to a steering oar hung from the stern of a boat.

So, the question is what should the Chinese have invented? You can remove the passage now. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Gun Powder Ma, I noticed that is just Mott that made this defintion, is anymore scholars that support this defintion? Thanks! Anpersonalaccount (talk) 14:07, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Anpersonalaccount, I noticed that is just Needham that made this defintion, is anymore scholars that support this defintion? Thanks! You can go go for the various reviews of Mott's thesis, none of which point critically at the definition. Also note that other languages actually do not make a distinction between a stern mounted steering oar and a stern mounted rudder. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Gun Powder Ma, I don't like trolling thanks. I am asking a question, so please reply it. Did needham made this defintion? Probably? We should look out for other sources to prove this. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:39, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

"RUDDER: Part of the steering apparatus of a boat or ship that is fastened outside the hull, usually at the stern." In the following the article also deals with different types of steering oars. SOURCE: rudder.Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 7, 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD .

Needy relies on Richard Lefebvre des Noëttes'research which is today widely regarded as outdated. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:48, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Clutching at straws? How does Noëttes being "old" make a steering oar suddenly a rudder? Look at the other sources I posted for God's sake, all of them published in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:31, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Show me where Encyclopedia Britannica explicitly states that a steering oar is a rudder. Let me guess, you can't find that! Because it doesn't exist. So what if another article deals with steering oars, how does that suddenly make them a rudder!? You have lost it.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:57, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Gun Powder Ma, thanks for your reply, I will check out the sources you provided - Encyclopædia Britannica, is there any link to it? Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:43, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Gun Powder Ma, I had found the link to it, its seem that you right about it. But I noticed that Noëttes's research should be left alone and not connecting it to needham, because is not too obvious and is part of Wiki's researching. Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 17:31, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I guess it is also included in the 2008 edition. The entry "rudder" quite evidently deals with steering oars, hence the term steering oar is widely regarded to be subsumed under rudder - as Mott, whose treatment of the matter far outdoes the clowns Pericles quoted, already made clear. And Needham relies indeed heavily and explicitly on the 1930s research by LeFebvre, as the quoted passage above perfectly shows. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:05, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

"Quite evidently" in your own mind, Gun Powder Ma, if you can't show me a single explicit sentence from any other source besides Mott that says a steering oar is a rudder, then why all of this effort on your part to prop up two sentences by Mott? Needham discussed Noette in one paragraph, and then made his own explanation about the steering oar and rudder. You are truly out of your element today, if not every day. Calling the other authors "clowns" is not a legitimate rebuttal. Can anyone guess who's winning this argument by sheer scholarly consensus? Oh, and Gun Powder Ma, you still haven't responded to my challenge of taking a boat out onto the Pacific Ocean armed only with a steering oar and not a rudder. Oops! I guess you couldn't tell the difference, so you'd wind up using a steering oar anyway. Poor chap, you'd be lost at sea within a day, like just another "Bermuda Triangle" disappearance.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:11, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Does the Encyclopedia Britannica says about needham's and LeFebvre's research? Is there a url link to the Encyclopedia Britannica you provided? Also Gun, discuss the content not personal about this! Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 17:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Quite evidently, Gun Power, you are deliberately trying to push this anti-China agenda our yours into this article. On top of that, your arguments and your single sketchy source hold no merit. I think an admin might have to be called in if you continue to mess up this article in order to push a POV. 70.24.136.76 (talk) 17:35, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Hold your horses

Since that idea of putting a rudder on the stern can be traced back to the models found in Egyptian tombs, the need to have the concept brought into the Middle East is questionable at best.

Well, since the "scholar" Mott has already called a "steering oar" a "rudder", he can say that the Egyptian idea of mounting any sort of steering system on the stern was a direct ancestor to the development of the rudder in the West. Are you so sure he is not talking about an ancestor to the rudder from Egypt; even Mott himself talks on page 2-3 about the difficulties of etymology for different steering systems. So far this passage you have pulled seems to me more significant in stripping Needham's claim about the transmission of the Chinese rudder via the Arabs, as Mott has justly described here in the differences between the Arab and Chinese steering systems (i.e. one has tackle and no sternpost because the junk ship has no sternpost, let alone a keel, and the Arab rudder lacked the Chinese tiller and instead used lines). In that respect, Mott is right.

I think you better find other scholars who support Mott's "position" (which you've seemed to loosely glean from two sentences, which, quite frankly, doesn't hold a whole lot of water compared to what I'm about to find).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:14, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Especially considering the fact I noted above in regards to Needham's passage about the steering oar being fit only for narrow rapid-water transport. I'd like to see you, Gun Powder Ma, take a boat out onto the Pacific Ocean with no rudder but a steering oar, and tell me how it went! That is if you came back alive.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Anyone who knows anything about nautics knows that a steering oar is not fit for a large vessel meant for seafaring; only a rudder is. K.S. Tom, Needham, Chung, Adshead, Johnstone, McGrail, Ross, and Noëttes make this explicitly clear, which makes those two ambiguous sentences by Mott seem strange indeed, if not taken out of context by Gun Powder Ma.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:57, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

LOL! Now that's real a challenge!

Seems a bit awkward to me that the Mott rebuttal is placed right at the onset of the rudder section. Wouldn't it be better placed at the end? 70.24.137.80 (talk) 18:43, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't matter really. Whether it's placed at the beginning or the end, either way Mott makes a complete fool of himself and goes against scholarly consensus.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:26, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Seriously, Gun Powder. Do we really need to include a fringe view (from a Masters student) that may support a conclusion that is squarely against the scholarly consensus? Unless you can prove that your view is more accepted within academic circles I suggest that the Mott part be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.24.136.76 (talk) 15:22, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I think this debate can finally be terminated. See the article rudder for the quote I added by Leo Block about yet another fundamental difference between a steering oar and a rudder (in fact, if you look above, I posted the quote here as well, and included some of the quote in this article).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:21, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Revert

Gun Powder Ma! Why did you revert all the new additions?! You are degrading the quality of this article all to fulfill your agenda. 70.24.137.80 (talk) 12:57, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Dear socket puppet misuser, could you explain me why for the fifth time my material was removed? By the likes of you? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

LOL. First of all, it was not me who removed your material. Secondly, can you explain why you have repeatedly failed to address Pericles' evidence that you are misrepresenting your sources and yet continue to reinserted your inaccurate material?

Hi, Gun Powder Ma, I am the one who removed it. Would you kindly wait for discussion before making such revert? Anpersonalaccount (talk) 14:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

adding contrary or conflicting evidence for crossbows

How is it contrary or conflicting? Would Gun Powder Ma care to explain it? Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

What is your problem? Why do you revert all the time? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I dont, however Gun Powder Ma, would you mind stop making the cross out? Maybe you could also express yourself on how are those being contrary or conflicting? Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Gun Powder Ma, contemporary invention in elsewhere really doesn't needs to be mentions here, also regrading on "A detailed description of the gastraphetes, along with a drawing, is found in Heron's technical treatise Belopoeica" I don't think that Duncan Campbell is prefering to the drawing of Belopoeica, its stated there as (Author's drawing).

DESPOIT:

However, in a cross comparison with a contemporary civilization which created an early crossbow, evidence for Greek handheld crossbows can be regarded roughly contemporanous: according to the inventor Hero of Alexandria (fl. 1st c. AD), who referred to the now lost works of the 3rd century BC engineer Ctesibius, a handheld crossbow, called the gastraphetes (belly shooter), preceded in Greece the invention of mechanical arrow firing catapult (katapeltikon) in 399 BC, as described by the historian Diodorus Siculus. A detailed description of the gastraphetes, along with a drawing, is found in Heron's technical treatise Belopoeica.< Duncan Campbell: Greek and Roman Artillery 399 BC-AD 363, Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2003, ISBN 1841766348, p.4</ref>

Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:50, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

As for the "gastraphetes" crossbow, whether it was large or small is merely speculation, since Heron omitted any description of its dimensions, according to Campbell in the picture caption of page 4. Campbell himself speculates that it was roughly a meter in length. Also, should Ctesibius be mentioned? Considering the fact that his work no longer exists, though Heron alleges he was using a faithful copy of Ctesibius' work. The gastraphetes must have been extremely heavy (much heavier than the Chinese crossbow, which could be wielded on horseback), since it had to be set up on a wall or on a portable prop.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:16, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

PI

How is achieving a refinement of pi an invention? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Let me repeat what I've already stated above in response to this exact same question of yours:

This page (and the term "invention" in general) isn't merely about physical technology. Like the other entries dealing with mathematics, I would certainly consider the original formula for pi as an invention, just how I would consider milü an invention, and just how I would consider the discovery of equal temperament an invention. The social construction of the civil service examinations was also a profound invention, yet it isn't classified as a mechanical device. I wouldn't dare say that Socrates' invention of the Socratic Method was not an invention, simply because it is an abstract idea.

--Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:14, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Your definition is OR, plain and simple. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Gun Powder Ma, I am thinking it is fine to include it to the bullet. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 18:19, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• 1. How can PI be invented?
• 2. Even if the term is fitting (which is not), then PI was 'invented' in a scientific manner by Archimedes, who first made a mathematical calculation.
• 3. If we term any new calculation of PI an 'invention', then dozens of people have invented PI over time. The inclusion is, sorry, non-sensical. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:31, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Gun Powder Ma, in that cases it would be a dozen of people invented over the time, and the PI here are one of them! Plus you should discussed this earlier. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:35, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The invention is the best rational approximation of π with a denominator of four digits or less, Gun Powder Ma. Do you really have nothing else better to do than argue over pi? Considering how you removed that entry without consensus on your side and got into a revert edit war with anpersonalaccount (once again).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:16, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and on pages 144 to 145 of Robert K. G. Temple's book Genius of China (1986), the "refined value of pi" is listed and described as just one of many inventions. So at least one scholar considers it an "invention".--Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:24, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Holy %$@!ing rusted metal, Batman!

Dude, read the entry for "Mechanical cup-bearers and wine-pourers on automatic-traveling boats"! OMFG. Elite. Period. I'm glad I'm finding all of this obscure crazy shit.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:14, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Look for the other entries I recently added on mechanics, including automatic opening doors and the wine server shaped as an artificial mountain with a lake.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 08:57, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Not only does this article have 395 citations, I just counted 156 references used. That's incredible. I don't want this article to become too much bigger, but there's just so many inventions left to cover! Damn you Chinese for being so clever. Lol.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 09:11, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

WOWOW! Some really jaw-dropping, fascinating stuff. I suppose once the article gets too big we can consider and try to include the more significant inventions. But once again, I'm thoroughly impressed. This article has really come a long way in a short period of time. 70.24.136.76 (talk) 15:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Did you see the new playing cards entry, by the way? Since you asked to have it added.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:08, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Sure did. Nice picture too. 70.24.136.76 (talk) 18:27, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Recently, I've added pinhole camera, free reed aerophone, gimbal, maglev wind power generators, military strategy treatise, and zoetrope. Good stuff.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I just added the match, gas cylinder and natural gas as fuel.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:14, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I just recently added entries for circadian rhythm, deficiency diseases, and diabetes.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:46, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I just added negative numbers, decimal fractions, and the use of thyroid hormones to cure goiter.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:33, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Another update: I just added leeboard and tofu.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 23:05, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Come and go, Gun Powder Ma

Hey, Gun Powder Ma, if you don't reply the questions that people put forwarded, as you seems to came in and left without discussion with others and inserted your materials, if that is so your edits will be removed. Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 19:27, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, he certainly will have nothing else to say about a steering oar being a rudder, will you now Gun Powder Ma? I don't really mind his edits to crossbow, since the Greeks (at least by the age of Roman domination) did possess the crossbow fairly early, early enough to raise questions.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:23, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Are you aware that the two of you have reverted out each of my sourced additions so far? On what grounds? You behave as if you own the article. You make explicitly a bold claim for worlds first inventions in all cases, and therefore the inclusion of material to the contrary is not only perfectly acceptable, because outright necessary as there is a mountain of scholarship which contradicts Needhams 30-40 year old findings on which much of the article rests. Please stop your disruptive behaviour now. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:19, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Gun Powder Ma, I think we should also discuss on the content than personal! I dont know what you are saying, but the page shown that you neither failed to follow the content or discuss the matter with others and simply left. Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:08, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Well. On second thought, actually I didn't reverted your additions, I simply moved them here, so please don't remove info like you did here Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 18:19, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

All of this sounds pretty vague, Gun Powder Ma, are we talking specifically about the rudder now? Because I think Leo Block's book (2003) just tore Mott's definition of a steering oar as a rudder a "new one", if you know what I mean. Block's description is also in line with Needham and Noettes; sometimes, Gun Powder Ma, you can't beat a golden oldie.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:29, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Mott has been useful in one major regard though: he dismantled Needham's jumpy speculation about the spread of the idea of the stern rudder from the Chinese; since the Arab, European, and Chinese systems of attachment were so incredibly different, transmission of a Chinese rudder across the Arab world to Europe quite frankly doesn't make sense. Then again, Needham never asserts direct links in these cases, he always speculates (perhaps too much speculation for his own good, since the evidence is not there).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:32, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

As of now, there are 111 citations from Needham's sources out of a total of 408 citations, roughly a fourth of the cited material in this article. Although that is certainly a lion's share, Needham's work was rather extensive (in VII volumes with multiple books or "parts" for each), and 3/4 of this entire article represents scholarly sources other than Needham's volumes.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:11, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Gun Powder Ma, you did not return for discuss! This is my last words, Gun Powder Ma, since you failed to discuss matters before making editing, you have misrepresent your source twice, relying on fringe definition to support your inclusion, that's more than enough the reason for me to revert it, just a note for you! Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 21:33, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Gun Powder Ma inclusion been removed

Hello, Gun Powder Ma since you failed to response others in this discussion board, your inclusion has been removed, because we do not know what those are suppose to mean unless you could explain yourself.

DEPOSIT:

Lawrence V. Mott, who defines a steering oar as a rudder, states the ancient Egyptian use of stern-mounted rudders can be traced back to the 6th dynasty (2350-2200 BC), predating the Chinese evidence by more than two millenia. By the first half of the 1st century AD, Roman reliefs also depict single stern rudders employed on a fairly wide range of vessels. Mott states that the method of attachment for rudders in the Arab, Chinese, and European worlds differed from each other, leading him to doubt the spread of the Chinese system of attachment by socket-and-jaws or block and tackle (versus European pintle-and-gudgeon invented by c. 1180 AD).

Anpersonalaccount (talk) 11:56, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Dude, what are you doing? Most of that isn't even Gun Powder Ma's writing. The Chinese having block and tackle or socket-and-jaws rudder attachment and the Europeans having a pintle-and-gudgeon rudder attachment is entirely correct. Mott is justified in stating that. Gun Powder Ma writes that the Romans had "rudders" because Gun Powder Ma (like Mott in an entire whopping two sentences) defines a steering oar as a rudder, which happens to be absolutely false, ask anyone who is an expert in nautical history and technology. I'm at least adding back the description about the methods of attachment.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:05, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey dude, thanks for the clarification, I wonder why Gun Powder Ma failed to explain himself on that one. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 18:05, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Gun Powder Ma, why are you changing the source again to Liu Han: “Northern Dynasties Tomb Figures of Armored Horse and Rider”, do you even have the pdf? Because it is obviously from Dien's citation. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 14:59, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

What datas do we missed over rudder or crossbow?

Hello, please stop reverting again, please, we will be blocked!

I am curious when Gun Powder Ma said his edit was regularly removed, I wanna says is that the 4 citiations he used for Mott's defintion came from other works and on Roman sterm rudder is the same, namely William F. Edgerton (1927), R. O. Faulkner (1941), Francesco Tiradritti (1999), Mohamed Ata (2007), Lionel Casson (1965) and Tilmann Bechert (1982), see [6] [7] [8] [9]. The same is crossbow, the only thing that missed there is the mentions of Belopoeica's drawing and Ctesibius. As I see crossbow had already mentions over Ancient Greek technology, so I think it would be much better to expand it at over there! Also I found a source for crossbow drawing from The Bow in Culture, Music and Surgery, AS Craftsman's Tool and Weapon, it says:

Richard Kinseher

The oldest preserved drawings of crossbows in Europe can be found in the Bible of Haimo of Auxerre (around 840 A.D.). The pictures show bows with tapered ends, fit into the stock. The stock has a groove to guide the arrow and a lever-type trigger. Unfortunately the catch of notch is not recognizable very exact.

Since the drawing already appeared on 1st century edition of Belopoeica, why is there another oldest drawing in a bible? Earlier I ask "I don't think that Duncan Campbell is prefering to the drawing of Belopoeica" Becuase its stated there as (Author's drawing). Thank you Anpersonalaccount (talk) 10:53, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Heron's Belopoeica had a drawing of a gastraphetes crossbow; didn't it just offer a written description?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:11, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Lol, that was what I thought! Is all written at the caption and not the page paragraph. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:17, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

It seem that there's more than one listed as (Author's drawing), on page 4, page 6, page 8 and page 39. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Plus, consider the worn-and-torn nature of the centuries-old papyrus scrolls that Heron would have written on; there certainly wouldn't be illustrations as detailed as this from a 1st century book.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:50, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, hope tht satisfy everybody, since error had been pointed out, Lol. I think the problem -- happened to be on the word "Author's drawing" which Gun Powder Ma took it as an original MS drawing. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:30, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I added some contents at gastraphetes relevant for the history of the crossbow as portrayed in this article. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:29, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Let's have a vote to retain or rename the article

Neolithic issue

I think what Gun Powder Ma says has merit. However, I think the later Neolithic cultures and a handful of bronze age cultures preceding the Shang Dynasty can be directly tied with the Shang, and that items such as lacquer are still significant even though it dates the earliest known lacquer (shards) to the Hemudu culture (earliest well-preserved items are argued to come from the Lower Xiajiadian culture or as late as the Western Zhou Dynasty). I'd like to see what the consensus here is, so in regards to renaming this article "List of inventions in China", implying that Neolithic items may or may not be included in the near future, please provide your vote in bullet form (i.e. " * ") below, with either Support or Oppose.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:30, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. I think the article's name should be retained, but that only late Neolithic and early Bronze Age culture inventions should be included in this article, since they can be directly tied with the Chinese civilization of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. That means conditionally scrapping the following entries: "Urn, pottery burial", "Salt, use of", "Rice, cultivation of", "Oar, rowing", "Millet, cultivation of", "Fermented beverage", "Drum, alligator hide", and "Coffin, rectangular wooden", but only these items.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:45, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. Ever since your addition over the lead, I believe those are somehow indicated already. Those scrapping would be equivalent to censorship. But I think moving it to List of Inventions in China would be much better, since "Chinese" only existed from about 200 BC or later. I believe List of Indian inventions share the similiar problems too. There's another way to solve it, that is creating two sections for pre and post-Shang items. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:49, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

"There's another way to solve it, that is creating two sections for pre and post-Shang items." <-- That's a great idea! I Support that idea completely.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:18, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Same to me as well, I am thinking this is much better like several China-related articles such as History of China. Alphabetical order would or would not be retain for these sections, but I think if we could retain the alphabetical order it would be much better. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 17:29, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

We should keep it in alphabetical order. We'll see how everyone will vote, but I like this idea so much (of explicitly splitting Neolithic and post Shang age inventions) that I will transform the article now according to this standard. Of course, everything can be changed if necessary, but for now I think you have come up with the best possible idea.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:07, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey PericlesofAthens, take a look at edition here, how is it? Thank you Anpersonalaccount (talk) 19:01, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

That would be fine if it weren't for the fact that all the pictures that should be in pre-Shang are located back in the post-Shang sub-section. Besides that one little problem, I wouldn't be opposed to such an organization.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:26, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Lol, I don't think TOC8 support two dozen of alphabetical orders, the second TOC8 one keep finding its route to the top. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 19:47, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

• Support Pre/post-Shang sections. This also allows the reader to have some sense of the chronology of the early/late inventions. I wonder what would be the equivalent of Shang (start of civilization) in India? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.24.139.57 (talk) 22:09, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I think you get me wrong, I was saying there are items similarly invented before Indus civilization over the List of Indian inventions. But that does not implied both articles should had the same timeline. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 22:47, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

• Remove Pre-Xia sections, including Neolithic cultures sections. Shang should be definitely in, Pre-Xia sections (before about 2000-2500 BC) definitely out. The point is the artcile has no title to prejudice a historical definition which collides the common definition of China. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:29, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello, there is no common definition of China just about everyway, you name it one and it can be simply dismissed it with another reason. Also there is nothing for the entries here belongs to the sections between Xia-Shang 2000-1500 BC either. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 18:10, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

• OPPOSE The title "list of inventions in China", is unclear from a grammatical point of view. This would imply that the inventions are IN China, but not necessarily FROM China. The main problem with the move would be the effect on users. An average user with little in-depth knowledge of Chinese pre-history would be most likely to search for "Chinese Inventions" when looking for this information. Wikipedia is here to educate such readers, not as a think tank. --Brideshead (talk) 18:19, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Good points; I see now how that title would be ambiguous.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:58, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose As above, I think "list of inventions in China" sounds ungrammatical, and is ambiguous. However, I think the pre-Shang section needs to make clear that it is ambiguous whether the pre-Shang peoples should be considered 'Chinese'. lk (talk) 06:42, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll see what I can find in terms of a scholar/scholars discussing Han Chinese civilization and identity.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:46, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I agreed it need to make clear, however I think similiar should had been done on Shang and later section, because I seriously doubt both Shang and Zhou should be technically considered as Chinese. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 06:50, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment As a side note, before the 1500's, no one would have considered themselves 'Chinese', (referring probably to the Chin Dynasty; 221 - 206 BC). Instead, they would have considered themselves and their ancestors inhabitants of Chung Kuo, the middle country. In that sense, even pre-Shang peoples may have considered themselves inhabitants of Chung Kuo. lk (talk) 06:51, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it should be more like 1800's for the timeline, but let leave this debate alone, because is gonna be very long, overall this isn't really a discussion board for this. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 07:00, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, the idea of Zhongguo 中國 was obviously believed in the Shang and Zhou, who were surrounded by nothing but nomadic peoples lacking a sedentary tradition like the Shang and Zhou people (spare some tribes to the far south and southwest). Yet it is legitimate to say that the Han Chinese cultural identity did not even coalesce until the Western Han Dynasty. Before then, as most of you here probably know, the people of "China" were (and to a large extent still are) divided regionally by linguistics and dialects, systems of writing, social and religious customs, cooking and food varieties, etc. The people of Warring States Chu did not consider themselves the same people as the people of Warring States Qin. Heck, even during the Western Han Dynasty, with the eastern half of the empire ruled by semi-autonomous kingdoms, people still did not think entirely in terms of "Han Chinese" identity; at least for the nobility, who held true to the old noble traditions of when their regions were inedependent states. This is all so loaded that it becomes difficult to carve up this article into relevant sections. We could easily separate everything as "before Han Dynasty" and "Han Dynasty and after" considering the facts of Han ethnic identity I noted above.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:35, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

The whole long post above actually says what I already mentioned, but even Han was not really used as like "Han Chinese" during Han Dynasty or so. Overall, I think is rather unnecessary to have such concept. For that I totally agreed on Brideshead, because Wikipedia isn't really built for the minority semi-experts but majority lay-readers. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 08:03, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree; it is best to keep it simple.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:00, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I think that both in time and geographically, what is 'Chinese' is hard to define. And that anything pre-Waring States is arguably not Chinese, but where to draw the line? I would lean on being inclusive, with a note explaining a bit about the issues. On a totally unrelated note, until the 1800s or so most 'Han Chinese' actually referred to themselves as 'Tang people', not 'Han'. lk (talk) 04:12, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Another good point; even overseas Chinese enclaves and communities in premodern times were referred to as "Tang", like as "Tang people street" and such. Question is, where to include something like this in the article, if anywhere? I think since "Chinese" is hard to define, this article shouldn't have to shoulder the responsibility of giving an in-depth analysis on the history of "Chinese" ethnic identity. There's already a mountain of material to cover as it is.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:22, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it needs to be mentioned on this page at all, just mentioned it to point out the ambiguousness (is that a word?) of the term 'Chinese'. I stick with my original view, be inclusive, but note the ambiguity about whether the pre-Shang peoples should be considered 'Chinese'. (And if it ever comes up, same goes for geography and ethnicity, Mongolians, Manchurians, etc....) lk (talk) 11:33, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, as I already mentioned above, both sections Shang and later and pre-Shang shared the similarly issue on this ambiguousness term. I suggesting it to be done over the lead, since we already have articles to deal with that. I think we could exclude the Mongolian and Manchu term (e.g. this beg the question when exactly these identities were formed as we're dealing here). Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:06, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Inventions versus Discoveries issue

If you look at the section below, user Mr. Vernon has brought up an interesting point. In regards to renaming this article, since some items on the list can be considered invented "ideas", "discoveries", and "concepts" rather than actual physical things (such as climate change, sunspots, and observation of comet tails pointing away from the sun), should this article be renamed "List of Chinese inventions and discoveries"? Something to ponder.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:03, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Scratch that; I just created List of Chinese discoveries.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:20, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

The Solar Wind is an invention?

The Chinese certainly didn't invent the Solar Wind (unless you think they also invented the Sun.) Why is this listed as an invention?

If you want to list discoveries, have a separate Chinese Discoveries article, or change the name of this one. But it's not correct to list the solar wind as an "invention." --Mr. Vernon (talk) 05:54, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough; but how to rename this passage? "Comet tails always point away from the sun" sounds too loaded.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 05:56, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Looking at some other items, such as climate change and sunspots, maybe this article could benefit from being renamed "List of Chinese inventions and discoveries". What do others think?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 05:57, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

This also begs the question: is an "invention" merely a physical object or physical concept which is invented, or can you also invent an idea? Notice the ambiguity of the title of this article, which is not "List of technologies originated in China" and such.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 05:58, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

The definition of invention here says: "An invention is a new form, composition of matter, device, or process." An invention doesn't have to be technological (examples would be new forms of music, art, etc. as listed in the Wikipedia article.) A discovery is finding something that already exists. Personally, I think you'd be better off having two articles, as there is a big difference between "discovery" and "invention", and combining the two doesn't serve much of a purpose other than confusion. --Mr. Vernon (talk) 06:19, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

That's an excellent point. I think I will create a new article now for a number of items on this list then.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:25, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Looking forward to reading it! --Mr. Vernon (talk) 06:26, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Well now you can: look at List of Chinese discoveries. I guess the splitting off of this material was bound to happen sooner or later.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:20, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Yo-yo

Does yo-yo have to be listed in this article? Yo-Yo#History -60.242.157.200 (talk) 12:05, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I looked around for some decent scholarly sources that might say something about the yo-yo, and found nothing really substantial. Maybe if I come across a source that is worthy, I will add the yo-yo. Apparently, the Greeks have a strong competing claim.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:21, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Congrats

Congrats Pericles of Athens, this article owns!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.71.50.13 (talk) 18:34, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:49, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality and factual accuracy of a number of claims

Concerning the explicit claim that "The list below contains these and other inventions which first appeared in China", I find a number of inventions contentious on different grounds:

• 1. Why is material from Pre-historic China, that is from the time when China was not China, included under the lemma List of Chinese inventions"? Does this article accepts limits to the concept of China? If not, then the lemma should be changed to "List of inventions from what is China today". If so, then please give reliable sources which extend the definition of China to the various Pre-Shang neolithic cultures. Please discuss this material with the editors of China and History of China, so that we do have a common definition here.
• 2. For a number of items, inluding crossbows and trip hammers there is contemporanous evidence in other parts of the world? Why is the material constantly removed by the same two 'contributors'? I do not post the sources here, as the sourced material can be found at the respective articles.
• 3: Please give authors who cite (and give reason for) defining a refinement of PI as an invention. Since there were in history several dozens mathematicians calculating ever more precise PI, does that mean that PI has several dozens inventors? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:06, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello, please look over the discussion above. We have material from Pre-historic China over the History of China as well. Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:58, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Aside from crossbow which had been discussed above, I don't see how contemporanous evidence of trip hammer in elsewhere was being removed. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:04, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Just to aviod any confusion, the sourced material which can be found at the respective articles were in fact added recently by Gun Powder Ma (see [10] [11] [12]). Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:22, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

• 1. I would like to have some quotes from scientific sources which make a point of linking these inventions specifically to "the Chinese", instead of teh common view that these were Neolithic, pre-Chinese cultures. Because if these proto-Chinese inventions were indeed Chinese, why is the Chinese intellectual discourse so modest and speaks only of 5000 years of China's history, and not of 7000 or 9000 years?
• 2.a.Trip hammer has been removed by you on 11 August 2008.
• 2.b. Crossbow. The claim is that the Chinese invented first the crossbow, hand-held. However, the Greek gastraphetes has been defined by six authors as a "hand-held crossbow". Since three further authors date the gastraphetes before 421 BC, that is at the time when also the first Chinese crossbow-like weapons appeared, the relevant passage has to be rephrased accordingly.

A few English language quotes: That the gastraphetes was a hand-held crossbow:

• The non-torsion catapult, or gastraphetes ("bellybow": see fig. I), invented by engineers in the employ of Dionysios of Syracuse in 399 B.C., was similar in principle to a Mediaeval crossbow. The propulsive power was provided by a laminate bow mounted horizontally on a long wooden stock. The earliest catapults were probably small enough to be hand-held.

Josiah Ober: Early Artillery Towers: Messenia, Boiotia, Attica, Megarid, American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 91, No. 4. (1987), S. 569-604 (569)

• Artillery was invented at Syracuse in 399 B.C. in the form of the gastraphetes, a mechanised version of the hand-bow, which followed the same basic lines as the later crossbow.

M.J.T. Lewis: When was Biton?, Mnemosyne, Vol. 52, No. 2 (1999), pp. 159-168 (159)

Heron also describes the crossbow, which he calls the gastraphetes or "belly weapon." Other writers called it the cheirobalista or manuballista, "hand catapult." The crossbow might be defined as a small portable flexion dart thrower.

L. Sprague de Camp: Master Gunner Apollonios, Technology and Culture, Vol. 2, No. 3 (1961), pp. 240-244 (241)

That is was invented before 421 BC:

• Hans Michael Schellenberg: “Diodor von Sizilien 14,42,1 und die Erfindung der Artillerie im Mittelmeerraum“, Frankfurter Elektronische Rundschau zur Altertumskunde, Vol. 3 (2006), pp.14-23 (18f.)
• Duncan Campbell: Greek and Roman Artillery 399 BC-AD 363, Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2003, ISBN 1841766348, p.3ff.
• Peter Kingsley: Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1995, p.150ff. (dates Zorphyros to the late 5th c. BC)

2.c. rudder: That a steering oar is rudder is explicitly stated by:

• Lawrence V. Mott, The Development of the Rudder, A.D. 100-1337: A Technological Tale, Thesis May 1991, Texas A&M University, p.84, 95f.
• Timothy J. Runyan: “Review of The Development of the Rudder: A Technological Tale“, Speculum, Vol. 74, No. 4, (1999), pp. 1096-1098 (1098)
• rudder.Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 7, 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD
• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology: rudder †steering oar OE.; steering-gear mounted in a boat or ship

3.You did not address my question in what way a refinement of PI comlies with the definition that "An invention is a new form, composition of matter, device, or process"?

Please do not remove the tag again until these matters are resolved. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:29, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Gun Powder Ma, we have this dicussion before over the pre-historic materials, and is still on-going, I believe PericlesofAthens had provide this source for the PI. As for Rudder, Crossbow, Trip Hammers, its all been discussed above, you need to look over to the talks! (talk) 17:34, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, I think you have misunderstood over the term prehistory and history itself, there were never such a long course of history in China (9000 / 7000 / 5000), and this is explicitly stated under the History of China. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 17:42, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I did so. Thanks that you address the specific points - underpinned with multiple sources - I made above. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:43, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Gun Powder Ma, I had noticed that you're repeating your questions on this discussion board over the time, plus you had never join in the discussion at all earlier nor provide an anwser to all PericlesofAthens's posts here. In fact this whole long post by you was the same repeating question and sources over time! Anpersonalaccount (talk) 17:45, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

This is not true, but what I noticed is that you only recently registered a few days at Wikipedia to undo my edits. Are you also active at other pages? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:48, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Gun Powder Ma, please address to the questions put forward by me and PericlesofAthens's posts above. As for crossbow, yes, I do know about 421 BC invention, but that's based on Heron's texts. Also I don't think that this can be taken as contemporanous evidence at all. I do think that, as stated long ago here, contemporary invention in elsewhere really doesn't needs to be mentions here. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 17:52, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

2.a.Trip hammer has been removed by you on 11 August 2008.

I removed this because you removed huge chunk of sourced material on PI from the article, thus I reverted it (which included your additions at the same time). That's why! Anpersonalaccount (talk) 18:00, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Who says that it must be "contemporanous evidence"? Excavating crossbow bolts 2000 years later, the method on which the Chinese claim rests, is neither contemporanous evidence, and rests on the interpretation of archaeologists. The authenticity of Heron's account, who relied on Ctesibius, is not disputed by modern scholarship. If you do not believe his account, do so by giving scientific sources which say so, not by POV criteria. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Gun Powder Ma, would you mind to toned down a little. I know what you said, but so far I am not saying Heron's account is being dispute, I am saying these ain't contemporanous evidence at all for the claim of 421 invention! Anpersonalaccount (talk) 18:26, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I removed gimbal, as Sarton, G.: A History of Science, The Norton Library, Vol. 2., 1970: p.343-350 describes an even earlier example by Philo of Byzantium (280-220 BC). Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Please be rational. I removed the claim, because there are older gimbals than that. By that method I merely followed the method Pericles established when he removed caliper one week ago. Your attempt at discrediting my changes as "vandalism" are disgusting. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:26, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Gun Powder Ma, I already told you to discuss the content not personal, now you're making personal attack. I don't know if you know this but Philo's evidence on gimbal is being disputed, it is mentioned under Needham volume. So I think the gimbal here still can be keep. Thanks. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 18:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Could you quote the relevant source? Because I have two sources here giving squarely teh credit to Philo of Byzantium. You can insert Needham's claim and add a template for the time being. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:34, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes I will, but I do not have the sources right now, would you please don't remove anything first? Thank you Anpersonalaccount (talk) 18:36, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

If someone believes some of the article's content is problematic, then it's quite alright to add a tag like {{totallydisputed}} or {{unbalanced}}. Unless there is some malicious purpose behind the addition of these tags (which there isn't), then they shouldn't be removed. Stick to discussion here, instead of reverting each other on the article. If you guys continue to revert each other, you may be blocked. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 18:39, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Nishkid64, to be more clearer, Gun Powder Ma is actually adding more than 4 tags once at a time! He talks about the outdated research (see LeFebvre on above discussion) which used here, while he is in fact using it himself over the article at the same time! Anpersonalaccount (talk) 18:47, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

In fact, the whole questions (over this section) he raised has been dealed with in the past, and he had been silent about it, or simply ignored it! So I think the tagging is not suited at all. Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 18:55, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Alright Gun Powder Ma, I found the sources about gimbal from Needham on page 231 which you previously asked:

Joseph Needham:

Was the invention an Alexandrian one? The 56th chapter of the Pneumatica of Phion of Byzantium (c. -220) describes an ink-well enclosed in a prismatic box with a hole in each face, any one of which could be used since he ring-suspension within would keep the ink-well the right way up. The statement ends by saying that the design follows an old Jewish pattern for incense-burners. This in itself is suspicious, for it does not sound quite the kind of remark which one of the earlier Alexandrians would have made; moreover, the whole passage is found only in the Arabic MS, translated by Carra de Vaux and not in the Latin MSS, translated by Schmidt and de Rochas d' Aiglun. Furthermore, the description seems out of place among so many devoted purely to pneumatic devices. Sarton, therefore, cautions (footnote f. (I), vol. i, p. 195. Drachmann (2), pp 67ff., strongly concurs.) that it may be an interpolation of later Arabic compilers, perhaps as late as the +13th century.

Sorry for that it took days. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 21:40, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Gimbal (I want a quote from Sarton)

I removed gimbal, as Sarton, G.: A History of Science, The Norton Library, Vol. 2., 1970: p.343-350 describes an even earlier example by Philo of Byzantium (280-220 BC). Gun Powder Ma

Can you provide a decent quotation please? I do not see this article over at JSTOR from 1970, although I do see a George Sarton article "A History of Science" from the year 1919. Also, Robert Temple's Genius of China, published first in 1986, says the Chinese first invented the gimbal.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:42, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Could you in turn provide a decent qutation from Needham's refutation of the Greek claim? Temple only relied on Needham and is FULL of errors. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 18:58, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure Needham even mentions the Greeks using a gimbal, but I could have a look. Hold on. In the meantime, please provide a quotation to validate the claim for Philo of Byzantium.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:59, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

As you can SEE here, Temple only relied on Needham, how do we know that? Even if is Needham', I don't see how we should simply dismissed it. Yet again this is often the way how he argue over a point. And in fact he failed to discuss the matters on content other than personal like the post he replied below. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 19:03, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Temple summarized Needham's research for a wider public, he did not do extensively research himself. The problem is that your edits are not only disruptive, but also disinformed. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:12, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Gun Powder Ma, I did not made the edits, if you noticed it was not me that added Gimbal over the article. I don't know if Temple summarized on Needham's research, but so far this is pure guess, and even if its truth, we can't simply dismissed published sources like this. Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 19:16, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Sure, he condensed the research, but in many ways he upgraded many outdated claims by Needham. For example, look to my recent edits for the mechanical driving belt; it was not the 11th century, as Needham claimed, it was the 1st century BC.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:19, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

In fact is not just about Temple, if you look over the article rudder [13], what he is doing was dragging all independent scholars (including LeFebvre' research previously he posted) to Needham! Which is very dispute. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 19:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

AH! I found it. Here is what Needham says of Philo of Byzantium (page 236 of Volume 4, Part 2):

To sum up, therefore, we are faced in this instance with a situation we shall encounter again, in which conclusions as to the origins of an invention are rendered a little difficult by the dubious authenticity of the first European reference. If we adopt the cautious view and regard the gimbals of Philon of Byzantium as a late Arabic interpolation, then the credit is Ting Huan's (or Fang Feng's), and it is not unlikely that the role of the Arabs was to transmit the device from further east. This seems plausible in any case on account of the Thang reference from the +7th to the +10th century. But the gimbal suspension was already in Europe by the 9th. The mention of the Jews in the Philon passage may indeed possibly imply that the apparatus was transmitted westwards through Jewish rather than Arab circles.

Needham speculates that it was a "late Arab interpolation" in their interpretation of Philo's ancient texts. Now this is interesting. Has this been solved by Sarton?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:10, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I provided my end of the bargain. It's time for you to cough yours up and show us the goods, Gun Powder Ma.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:22, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Uncle Needham has been known to speculate a lot as long as it serves his (sinocentric) viewpoints, as you may have noticed. So, we can make a note that he at least accepts that Philo describes a true gimbal.

The Arabic interpolation referred only to a specific part of Philo's works, and even here this view has been recently refuted. Andrew Wilson: „Machines, Power and the Ancient Economy”, The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol 92. (2002), pp. 1-32 (7):

Michael Lewis' recent study, Millstone and Hammer, argues that many of these new devices were invented in the mid-third century B.C., probably at Alexandria. Evidence for this comes from the Pneumatics of Philo of Byzantium, a work surviving only in Arabic translation. Philo visited Alexandria around the middle of the third century B.C., and evidently met Ctesibius, but his Pneumatics seems to date from a little later, perhaps the 230s B.C., after he had left Alexandria. The Arabic versions of the Pneumatics seem also to include material excerpted from Philo's lost Hydragogia or his Mechanics. Many of the sections dealing with water-lifting devices, water-powered automata, and even mentioning water-mills, have tended to be rejected by modern scholars as Arabic intrusions, on no better grounds than that the ancient world was not thought capable of such inventions at that date. Lewis in fact demonstrates that the letter sequences used to number details on the illustrations show that the relevant chapters are translations of the Greek and not Arabic intrusions; they lack the Arabic letter waw, used for the numeral 6 in new Arabic works, and many include yy translating the Greek 1, which is not used in letter series in Greek works after the time of Christ. According to chapters which on the evidence of their illustration letter sequences can be regarded as Greek, 'Philo seems to know of the bucket chain, overshot wheel, and perhaps the noria and the saqiya drive'. But in a section whose authenticity has never been questioned, Philo....

If the Greek priority is further questioned, I would like to have a more recent source which addresses the general reevaluation of Philon's works. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. But that quotation does not specifically address the gimbal. Is the gimbal featured in the part of his text that is proven by Lewis to be authentically ancient Greek? And not a later Arab interpolation. That is what you need to find, Gun Powder Ma, in order to rightfully delete gimbal from this article.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:29, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Only the Pneumatics from above was derived from an Arabic source, and as such contentious. the other works come either from Greek or Latin source or are lost (such as the harbour treatise). See Philo of Byzantium. If you feel like 50-year-old research by your uncle still warrants an entry in an encyclopdia, do so by providing up to date research. Even Needy says "If we adopt the cautious view...", so there is hardly any reason here to trumpet a Chinese invention. Btw Sarton's is a book from 1970. I gave you the pages, look it up, if you are interested in the truth. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:06, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Gun Powder, I think we should discuss the content and not personal! Those comment are not necessary at all! Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 20:08, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

It is obviously being disputed, this was why I suggest the Gimbal to be keep under the article with mentions of Greek over the bullet, kinda like rudder. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 19:43, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Wait a minute, Gun Powder Ma, you cited "Andrew Wilson: „Machines, Power and the Ancient Economy”, The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol 92. (2002), pp. 1-32", not Sarton's article! Have you EVEN READ HIS article?!?! Do you even have access to it? Please, please tell me you have and you do (respectively). Otherwise, how could you be unable to quote it?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:53, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Um, we're all waiting Gun Powder...any day now would suffice.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:01, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I answered you on my talk page, and your attempt to shift the credit for the invention of the gimbal to the Chinese by ignoring squarely Needy's qualification is another sad case of intellectual dishonesty. I will provide you the quote in time, since Philon's work is unfortunately not online yet. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:16, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't ignore Needham's discussion of Philon at all; he mentioned Philo in the second to last paragraph of the last page of a fifteen page discussion (starting on page 228). If anything, Needham shoved Philo to the back of the line, which I didn't bother getting to, since I stopped after reading about 10 pages of the same thing over and over (i.e., after tons of examples).

And furthermore, I KNEW IT! I had a hunch you didn't read Sarton's article. You call me intellectually dishonest? That's funny. Considering the fact your itchy trigger-finger deleted gimbal at the drop of a hat when you merely suspected that it was invented by Philo. It only proves quite well why you are here, doesn't it?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I found Sarton's book

I took the liberty of going to the library to find the truth of the matter, and although it was translated by the Arabs much later, and the Greek version no longer exists, Sarton does in fact assert the gimbal was first invented by Philon for an ink pot. Although Gun Powder Ma did not consult the source himself, he did bring it to light, which I thank him for. Here is the quotation from pages 349 to 350 of Sarton's book (1959 original, not 1970):

One of the most curious items in the Philonian collection of apparatus and gadgets is an octagonal inkpot which has an opening on each side; one can turn it around, put one's pen in any hole and have it inked. This is made possible because the inkpot itself inside of its octagonal house is hung in gimbals. Philon invented what we now call the Cardan's suspension as applied to the ship's compass and barometer, or anything that must keep the same position in spite of outside motions. Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576) may have reinvented that clever trick, but Philon had invented it eighteen centuries before. The gimbals were known to the Chinese as early as the Han Dynasty and they were described also in the Mappae clavicula (VIII-2). The first description of a compass suspended in gimbals occurs in a Spanish book by martin Chaves, Breve compendio de la esfera y de la arte de navigar.

These Chinese, medieval, and sixteenth-century rediscoveries may be independent, or objects mounted in gimbals may have passed from hand to hand. The tradition might very well have been (as so many technical traditions are) manual instead of literary. We do not expect the men of Han to have heard of Philon, but some real gimbals may have reached them, as objects of virtue or curiosity.

On page 347, Sarton writes of the Arab-translated Pneumatica, which the gimbals appeared:

The most interesting of Philon's genuine writings is the Pneumaticas, whose influence was considerable. Out of 65 chapters in the Arabic text, only 16 exist in the Latin text, and it has been argued that the Arabic text contained Arabic interpolations. It is difficult to hold that the medieval Latin text is closer to the Greek original, because it was derived from an Arabic translation, as is proved by the basmala at the beginning. Arabic interpolations are possible, because the Arabic writers were fascinated by this subject, but the substance was already available in Greek, and we may safely assume that the Arabic version represents essentially the ancient original.

So Needham assumes one thing, and Sarton assumes another. Somewhere in between is the truth, but that is not for this article or us amateurs to decide. I will keep gimbals here but include Sarton's input on equal footing with Needham, since neither of the two are entirely correct or incorrect in their assumptions (they are, after all, assumptions).

• Sarton, George. (1959). A History of Science: Hellenistic Science and Culture in the Last Three Centuries B.C. New York: The Norton Library, Norton & Company Inc. SBN 393005267.

That should wrap this discussion up.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:21, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and as for the date of the Arabic version on page 349:

It is possible that the Arabic translation (edited by Carra de Vaux in 1902) was preceded by Armenian and Persian versions which are lost. The translator is not named and this suggests that he belonged to the early period of Arabic translators, the age of Caliph al-Ma'mūn (IX-1).

That is all.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Arab Interpolation vs. Authenticity

True, it is not up for us to decide who is right, but certainly we have an obligation to stress which author represents current scholarship. I will look up in time Lewis' stance on the Arab interpolations from 1997. If that view has not been contradicted by someone else in the meantime, there is no reason to serve the reader Needham's 50 year old assumptions on par with modern research, is it? Thx for looking into the matter. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:06, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

No, finding one more scholar does not equal scholarly consensus, it just equals one more scholar's view. Adding Lewis is fine, but disregarding Needham is not, especially since I know you won't make a concerted effort to find scholars who might disagree with Lewis.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:57, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

John Peter Oleson provides a good description of the scholarly debate (i.e. of those who support/reject partial Arab interpolation) in his work published in 1984. It's a work which is 24 years of age, but still more recent than Sarton and Needham, and shows the debate is still going on. Let's see what Lewis has to say.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:57, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Gun Powder Ma, Needham works were at least published in the 1980s, it shouldn't be consider as a 50 year old assumptions, that's nothing compare with what you had previously offered here. There is every reason to serve the reader with his research. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 19:08, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Could you point me to the exact page? "Gimbal" give no hits. Lewis has long reacted to Oleson's qualms:

What, are you unable to open the link? Page 234.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:28, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

• "Three quibbles arise. 0. is hampered in dealing with the beginnings of the technology by his doubts about Philo's Pneumatica, which survives only in Arabic. Being more convinced (for reasons too long to rehearse here) of its authenticity, I would prefer to see Philo's machines, including some which 0. completely rejects, brought more firmly into the discussion." (Review in The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 76 (1986), pp. 2298)
• He is supported in that by Sarton, and explicitly by Andrew Wilson. So far Lewis and Wilson have the last word. Come up with more recent research which tackles Lewis foundings of the Greek letters in the Pneumatics. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:31, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok then, I'm on it.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:28, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

As late as 2004, Lucio Russo and Silvio Levy write on page 76 of The Forgotten Revolution]:

Unfortunately, no work of Strato or Ctesibius has survived. Apart from some indirect references, our knowledge of this ancient science is based essentially on the Pneumatica of Philo of Byzantium, who continued Ctesibius' investigations, and on the homonymous and much later work by Heron (first century A.D.). The work that bears Philo's name is represented by an Arabic text in 65 chapters, describing as many devices, and by Latin manuscripts. The latter match the first 21 chapters of the Arabic text, albeit with notable omissions; it is reasonable to assume that this material was written by Philo, though our texts are very corrupt. By contrast, the part we have only in Arabic must be a compilation from heterogenous sources, because it is highly uneven in terms of technical sophistication and subject matter."

In other words, since some devices show far more "technical sophistication" than others, Russo and Levy suspect that the Arab translators mixed and added materials with Philo's original to make a hybrid text which is not 100% authentic to Philo's original.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:42, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Milu (refinement of pi)

What Zu created was an invention. He invented a process, specifically an algorithm, for reaching a solution that was the most accurate value for pi with a denominator of up to four digits. Case closed. Quit arguing about this item, it will not be removed.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Wake up. Wiki is not your blog, you are in no position to dictate what comes into the article and what not. I want a quote which specifically calls the found algorithm an "invention" in no unsure terms. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:01, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

And Wikipedia is not your POV playground. As you said yourself above, a process is considered an invention. An algorithm is considered a process (unless of course, you do not understand what an algorithm is). Zu's invention was an algorithm. Is this too hard for you to understand?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:15, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Please quote the source from which you draw the assertion that that particular refinement of PI was an invention. Is that too hard for you to provide? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 19:25, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Determining an algorithm to define pi is a process. Among its many definitions, an invention can mean a new process. Could you give me a quick summary (I'd rather not read the entire discussion above) why you're arguing this point? Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 19:33, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

On page 101, Needham discusses how Zhao Yuchin (fl. 1300) verified Zu's value of pi "by the continued use of inscribed polygons with up to 16,384 sides, confirmed that Tsu's value was very accurate." The Free Dictionary defines an algorithm as "A step-by-step problem-solving procedure, especially an established, recursive computational procedure for solving a problem in a finite number of steps." Zu's continued use of inscribed polygons with up to 16,384 sides was a "step-by-step problem-solving procedure." Needham doesn't explicitly state it was an "invention" because he doesn't have to; I'm sure he, like anyone else, would have assumed his readers would understand that an algorithm is a process, and that a process is an invention.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:46, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

So most of these mathematician were inventors, too? Needham does not say explicitly that is was an "invention", and we know that he would be very quick to do that, if he saw any grounds. You know what? Try to contact J J O'Connor and E F Robertson from that page on PI and ask them about their opinion whether Zu's value of pi outright qualifies as an invention or not. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:27, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Sure they are all inventors, if every single one created a new algorithm to reach a better approximation of pi.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:31, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Gun Powder Ma, you're now offering your own commentary as to why Needham might not have explicitly mentioned "inventor" in his works. This amounts to original research. You'll need a better argument than that to contest Zu's determination of pi. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 20:39, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

But Needham did not call it an "invention", which is the main point, if we accept that the burden of proof lies with those who make the invention claim, not those who oppose this view. But you know what. I am trying to contact the two above the next few days. When they reply, I will post the email conversation here in public. Alright? ;-) Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 21:11, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello, does the two authors mentioned above actualy published their thought about this? I don't see how email could used as citation. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 21:16, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

@GunPowderMa: Um, ok? What exactly does that prove? That you are obsessed with pi and are intent on doing your own original research?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the funniest thing about all of this is that you still don't know what an algorithm is; otherwise, this conversation wouldn't even exist.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:29, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Pericles, stick to this dispute instead of commenting on Gun Powder Ma's intelligence. From WP:NPA: "Comment on content, not on the contributor." Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 12:28, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Tsu Chung-Chih did not invent a new method, but just had greater stamina in employing Archimedes' "general method", hence this was not an invention.

The first rigorous mathematical calculation of the value of π was due to Archimedes of Syracuse (ca. 250 BC), who used a geometrical scheme based on inscribed and circumscribed polygons to obtain the bounds 310 71 < π < 31 7 , or in other words 3.1408 . . . < π < 3.1428 . . . [11]. No one was able to improve on Archimedes’ method for many centuries, although a number of persons used this general method to obtain more accurate approximations. For example, the astronomer Ptolemy, who lived in Alexandria in 150 AD, used the value 3 17 120 = 3.141666 . . ., and the fifth century Chinese mathematician Tsu Chung- Chih used a variation of Archimedes’ method to compute π correct to seven digits, a level not obtained in Europe until the 1500s

David H. Bailey, Jonathan M. Borwein, Peter B. Borwein, Simon Plouffe: “The Quest for Pi”, Mathematical Intelligencer, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1997), pp. 50–57 (50f.) Gun Powder Ma (talk) 02:03, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Crossbow

Alright, Gun Powder Ma, the Greeks had a handheld crossbow, but the earliest surviving literary description of it comes from the 1st century AD, long after China, and there is no archaeological evidence for the gastraphetes crossbow, unlike the Chinese crossbow. Furthermore, Campbell (as I've already noted in the article) states that the gastraphetes would have been quite large and bulky, thus necessitating a prop to keep it up. Hardly sounds like the light-weight handheld crossbow seen in medieval Europe, let alone the light-weight Chinese handheld crossbow of antiquity. You can include your little sources which speculate here and there about 5th century BC origins, but the fact remains (and should remain explicitly clear): there is no literary evidence in the West until the 1st century AD, and certainly no archaeological evidence that early. Period.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:25, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Your view is clear POV and does not reflect the published scholarship. Please stick to that: Above are half a dozen scholars which say expressis verbis that

• A. the gastraphetes was a crossbow
• B. it was a hand-held weapon (Campbell also says this verbatim in the caption below the drawing of the gastraphetes on p.5-6)

None of them adopts your personal view that the gastraphetes should be dated to the 1st century AD, because it was first mentioned then. Instead, all scholars go with Heron and assume a date of invention prior to 399 BC or 421 BC. If you disagree with that conclusion, do so with published sources, not your POV criteria. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:14, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Sure, they all put full faith in Heron (which seems a little strange, don't you think? Why no suspicion or doubt or questioning?), but that still does not change the fact that his material is the oldest surviving from the West which describes a crossbow; hence, I don't mind you adding speculation on origins, as long as the former is mentioned.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:00, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Gun Powder Ma, there is a consistent on refering sources in the list over here, and since it is are relying on Hero's texts, the date should be clear. So why are we relying the different standards and treatment for Heron? Anpersonalaccount (talk) 17:48, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

It says here in the caption below the drawing of the gastraphetes on page 4:

Duncan Campbell

Heron drew his desciption of the gastraphetes from the work of Ctesibius, who worked in Alexandria around 275 BC. Unfortunately, Heron omits all measurements, but as a hand weapon the gastraphetes was probably slightly shorter than a metre. (Author's drawing).

And this does not exactly relfect what he says from the main text on page 4:

With the bow at full draw, the weapon could be lifted into a firing position. This must usually have involved propping it on a wall, given the weight and bulk of the machine; otherwise, the archer would have required a portable prop, similar to those used by musketeers in the 17th century.

On the whole, it is estimated to be an oversized hand-held weapon. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 18:11, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I corresponded with Duncan, and he said the prop is not to be found in Heron, but was his suggestion, because Heron said the gastraphetes was large. We have no reached a point in the discussion, when you no longer can simply refute half a dozen sources which call the gastraphetes a "hand-held crossbow", including Duncan himself in his Osprey book. You either change that crossbow section now accordingly, or it is going to be changed. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:23, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Gun Powder Ma, I am not sure I used to be threated. But as I already said, crossbow section here in fact dealing mainly on the Chinese crossbow, and I believe there are edits makes by you that go by the way into crossbow article, so Heron shouldn't be the focus point here. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:26, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

He should not be the focus here at all, but you should get your facts right and not reintroduce wrong statements for weeks in the article. Fact is that a single author suggests that the gastraphetes rested on a prop, and that all authors agree it was a hand-held crossbow. It is nonsense to claim the Chinese crossbow was a true one, while the gastraphetes some kind of hybrid or whatever. Actually, in a strict sense, neither deserves the title, since the term "crossbow" refers to the medieval European weapon. So either, you do not use the term at all in connection with Chin. 'crossbows', or with both the Greek and Chin. variant. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:42, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Gun Powder Ma, I am not the one who introduce prop into the article. I not disputing it was not a hand held weapon. As for the term crossbow, actually in all books (not necessary even scholarly ones) it does refer to Chinese crossbow and sometimes even gastraphetes, it is not limited to medieval European weapon nowadays anymore. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:45, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Trip Hammer

Since the Roman invention of the trip hammer is seemingly simultaneous with the Chinese (i.e. 1st century AD), simply mentioning both will suffice. Since there is no clear answer as to who had it first, the model already in place in this article seems to be the most sufficient. There is nothing wrong with adding trip hammer to the list of original Roman achievements in Roman articles, so long as the competing claim in China is mentioned like it is here.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:25, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

D'accord. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:15, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Rudder vs. Steering oar

Not only have I collected a litany of scholars who say a steering oar is not a rudder and that the latter first appeared in China by the 1st century AD, but the quote I provided by Leo Block (2003) has totally and utterly destroyed Mott's ambiguous classification (in a whopping two sentences given by Mott I might add; yeah, he gave a real "expert" opinion in that amount of space). In other words, a steering oar IS NOT a rudder, for the umpteenth time. For anyone not familiar with what I'm talking about, look to the sections above on this talk page or simply visit the page on the rudder.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:34, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't have any problems with including Mott's bizarre and unfounded two-sentence fringe theory in this article (as seen very clearly in the passage for rudder here in this article), but if you think I am being "unbalanced" (that's your choice of tag) by simply citing scholars who disagree with Mott (and you), then you need to pick up a dictionary and find out what "unbalanced" means.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:34, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

And if this Timothy J. Runyan (a reviewer of Mott's article) is just as oblivious as to what a rudder or a steering oar is, then sure, tack him on to the list of one scholar (Mott) who supports the position that a steering oar is a rudder (a lot of good that will do). Oh, and by the way, isn't that kind of like saying a horse-drawn cart performs like a Ferrari? Well, since you still haven't figured out the difference between the two, I guess you couldn't really gauge that.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:44, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

By the way, since you cited a reviewer of Mott's article, what does this Timothy J Runyan actually have to say about Mott's vof the steering oar as a rudder? Quote please?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:15, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

A little less agitation, a little more substance please. Your addition of French sources (LeFebvres), although you do evidently not speak French, did not help your credibility. Mott is a perfectly solid source, a very positively reviewed dissertation which treats exclusively the history of the rudder. Who could ask for more? The current article does not reflect properly that

• Encyclopedia Britannica and the Oxford Dictionary classify a steering oar as a rudder (do YOU have the authority to contradict their encyclopedian entries?)
• Mott and his reviewers who classify a steering oar as a rudder and explicitly refutes the Chinese claim on the basis that the different Eurpean, Arab and Chinese rudder system are actually incomparable (and thus nonsense to maintain a Chinese priority of "the rudder")
• other Western languages such as French, Spanish and German which actually do not differ between a stern mounted steering oar and a stern mounted rudder (making your view an Anglicism, if at all, anyway)

Speaking in technical terms: The Roman and Egyptian steering gear are stern-mounted, and they both have a tiller. This means that their stern-mounted rudders were median and axial. The only thing which they had apparently not (though there are some border cases) was a vertical attachment. So, my proposal is: We credit the Chinese with the invention of the median, axial AND vertical rudder. To credit them wholesale with the invention of THE rudder is nonsense, for the reason alone that the quarter RUDDER was known by then all over the world for over 2000 years. Start to do your homework here. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:33, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

If you're so confident about these sources agreeing with Mott, then why don't you add quotes from these sources like you have for Mott, hmmmmm??? That would perhaps put us all at ease about your claims; even then, it still wouldn't change the fact that many disagree with Mott. Period.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:04, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, how many online dictionaries do we need for streeing oar to be rudder? It seem that this defintion should be expand over the main article than here. With this saying, I am suggesting rudder to change its name here, but excluding the wholesale addition of defintion over it. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 18:47, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

The Sea-craft of Prehistory, p.191: McGrail defines the junk rudder as "median, vertical, and axial". The only new element was the verticality, since the Roman and Egyptian stern mounted rudder were also median (in a line with the keel), and axial (turning around its axis through the use of a tiller which the Egyptians had invented as far back as the 3rd millenium, see rudder for sources). hence, by exclusion, only the vertical element was new in junks, since earlier stern mounted rudders were mostly oblique attached to the ship hull. This gives the Chinese the credit for a stern-mounted rudder, vertical, axial, median. Nothing more, nothing less. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:19, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Gun Powder Ma, I agreed with vertical axial rudder as define under The Sea-craft of Prehistory, Stern-mounted rudder, vertical, axial, median is rather too long and that's is based upon Mott's definition isn't it? Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:28, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Is it ok for you when I am waiting for the other user, who provides at least sources, while you only do the reverts here (nice division of labour btw)? In the meanwhile you can explain why would like a short defintion rather than a correct definition? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:12, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Wait, is this another ad hominem attack again? And for your information, I am not the one who makes the reverts, it was you actually! Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:14, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Gun Powder Ma says:

This gives the Chinese the credit for a stern-mounted rudder, vertical, axial, median. Nothing more, nothing less.

That is your interpretation of McGrail's text; on that very same page he states that the Chinese tackle rudder preceded the European pintle-and-gudgeon rudder by a millennium, stressing the fact that Europe had no form of rudder until roughly a thousand years later. Try next time to cite a source which does not fully contradict you.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:40, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Gun Powder Ma says:

Encyclopedia Britannica and the Oxford Dictionary classify a steering oar as a rudder (do YOU have the authority to contradict their encyclopedian entries?

No (I do not represent a published source), but Block, Adshead, Tom, Fairbank, Goldman, Needham, Noëttes, etc. certainly do have the authority to contradict an encyclopedia. In fact, how are we so sure they are contradicting Britannica and Oxford to begin with? Considering how you've continually failed to provide us with a quote from either of them (did you really consult them)? I want to see in no ambiguous terms how they say a steering oar is a rudder. I also want to see what Timothy J. Runyan says in his review of Mott's article, right here, right now, right on this talk page, and if you can't provide quotes from sources you allegedly consulted, then everything you claim is thrown into suspicion. So far both of us have provided quotes here on the talk page in a fair manner, but with this issue on the rudder, all you've been able to show are two sentences by Mott. That's not very convincing, and thus far you have not shown any source which would refute Leo Block's assessment that a steering oar requires frequent movement for course correction which acts like a break (thus making it less efficient to operate while also slowing the vessel down) whereas a true rudder is not burdened by this at all, and does not require the forward sail on a two-sail vessel to be trimmed in order to aid in course correction. Face it, unless you show us a source which claims a steering oar is capable of doing what a rudder can, you are left flapping in the breeze with nothing to wear but Mott's two sentences.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:40, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I think vertical axial rudder is O.K, though stern-mounted rudder, vertical, axial, median maybe more informative but is long, or should we need a poll on this? Which is the best thing, SINCE the term is disputed. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 20:48, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Block was of no use to me, since you quote him totally out of context, just to get the spin to the Chinese rudder. I mean, the brief passage does not even tell the reader whether the "steering oar" was mounted on the quarters or the stern. Actually, it could only be quarter rudders, since I am not aware of any stern mounted steering gear with the Phoenicians. So, what you actually trying to do is, proving by reference to a quarter rudder the difference between a stern-mounted rudder and steering oar. I am sorry, but you have to count me out on that. It does not make sense.

I am starting to give you sources, when you come around and realize that the difference between "rudder" and "steering oar" is only an English one anyway. And even here I have given two super respectable sources to show that rudders can mean steering gears. You insist on Chinese priority of the rudder, although it has been by now abundantly clear that teh different rudder types had little more in common than being mounted on the stern.

To address the brevity thing: you could also go with vertical stern-mounted rudder, I think. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 01:01, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

So, how about those quotes? Hmm...I don't see any yet. I wonder where they are? Seriously, I'm starting to think you really didn't consult those encyclopedias.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:55, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

This bullet naming should have been changed to ocean-going rudder, honestly the term that's having now stern-mounted rudder, vertical, axial ae not very clear for most of the readers. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 17:57, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Still waiting for those quotes, Gun Powder Ma...you can't expect me to take you seriously when you can't even substantiate your claims with evidence.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Escapement

The essence of my addition to escapement:

Both techniques used escapements, but these have only the name in common. The Chinese one worked intermittently; the European, in discrete but continuous beats. Both systems used gravity as the prime mover, but the action was very different. In the mechanical clock, the falling weight exerted a continuous and even force on the train, which the escapement alternately held back and released at a rhythm constrained by the controller. Ingeniously, the very force that turned the scape wheel then slowed it and pushed it part of the way back . . . In other words, a unidirectional force produced a self-reversing action— about one step back for three steps forward. In the Chinese timekeeper, however, the force exerted varied, the weight in each successive bucket building until sufficient to tip the release and lift the stop that held the wheel in place. This allowed the wheel to turn some ten degrees and bring the next bucket under the stream of water while the stop fell back . . . In the Chinese clock, then unidirectional force produced unidirectional motion.(David Landes: “Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World”, rev. and enlarged edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 0674002822, p.18f.)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gun Powder Ma (talk • contribs) 13:47, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. That was a good find.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:05, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

It was not. Needham loved to blow Chinese contributions out of proportion, as several authors have explicitly said so, so you always find level-headed scholars who held his sinocentristic claims at bay. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:11, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, but not particularly with the escapement; here is what Needham says of Su Song's escapement on page 462 of Volume 4, Part 2:

The whole design is strangely reminiscent of the familiar anchor escapement of the late +17th century, since the driving-wheel is also a scape-wheel and the 'pallets' are inserted alternatively at two points on its circumference separated by 90° or less, rather than the 180° of the crown-wheel. Although the solution of the problem by chain and linkwork has a certain medieval cumbrousness, the operation is elegant and the performance accurate to an unexpected degree. It certainly far exceeded the inventive capacity of contemporary Europe, that other culture-area where a purely mechanical escapement would later appear. In the Chinese water-wheel linkwork device the action of the arrest and release is brought about not by mechanical oscillation but by the force of gravity exerted periodically as a continuous steady flow of liquid fills containers of limited size. This type of escapement had remained quite unknown to historians of technology until the elucidation of Su Sung's text. Its peculiar interest lies in the fact that it constitutes an intermediate stage or 'missing link' between the time-measuring properties of liquid flow and those of mechanical oscillation. It thus unites, under the significant sign of the millwright's art, the clepsydra and the mechanical clock in one continuous line of evolution.

The Chinese never created a purely mechanical clock, thus their "evolution" was nipped in the bud. As written in the following 12th century, though, clocks still had "revolving and snapping springs" which operated clock jack figurines to sound gongs (striking clock) as in Su Song's clock. So some mechanical expertise continued to live on.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:18, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Magnet

On what grounds was the compass reference by Li Shu-hua removed? The newer research does not contradict Li Shu-hua's observation. In fact, it stresses his point, since the wording demonstartes that the passage does NOT contain a reference to a magnet.

• "However, it should be pointed out that in the Louen-heng text, on which Tchang Yin-lin and Wang Tchen-touo based their hypothesis, there is no explicit mention of a magnet." Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:03, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
• Original text (180): "On peut remarquer que dans le texte du Louen-heng il n'y a pas de mention explicite d'aimant. Pour arriver au résultat ci-dessus indiqué, on est oblige de poser quelques hypotheses." Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:22, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Twas not I who removed this. Anpersonalaccount maybe? In any case, I remember restoring a citation from him in the picture caption to the right.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:06, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Gun Powder Ma, how could a word like magnet appeared over in the ancient texts by the way? The word magnet, which according to this article came from Greek word "magnesian stone". Anpersonalaccount (talk) 17:46, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps he means the Chinese word (i.e., 攝石) for magnet? In any case, we should not expect Wang Chong to have truly understood what magnetism was; he simply described the effects of the geomancy ladle and bowl.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:01, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, we shall look out sources on this. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 20:09, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I just added and replaced the old source with a better ones! Lol Anpersonalaccount (talk) 17:35, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Could you tell me what lead you to simply remove a scholarly view from a peer-reviewed scientific journal such as Isis? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:45, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Gun Powder Ma, because magnet did appeared in the texts, and that contradict Li Shu-hua's observation as you said above. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:50, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Li Shua states "there is no explicit mention of a magnet", hence it contradicts what you claim above. Without further sources, it is not up to you to decide which opinion is correct. What are doing actually at Wikipedia? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:06, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey Gun Powder Ma, why are you questioning my edits anyway? I said the texts did have mention of magnet, even Needham said this, I don't know what Li Shua-hua trying to said, but that's a dated research. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:09, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You do not know the passage, you cannot even read French, but find the passage "out-dated". Please provide then scholarly quotes who explicitly refute Li Shua's opinion outdated, because I find little reason to held Needham's linguistic abilities to hold higher than that of a native Chinese speaker. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 16:15, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You do not know the passage even more, worst is that you actually think you could read French. Li Shua-hua also said magnet was made in Guiguzi (see compass). I don't need to provide quote that refute Li Shua-hua are dated, because it is dated to 1954, please use common sense! And what you find about Needham's abilities doesn't meant a thing at all! Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:18, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Despite Wang Chong's description of the ladle pointing south when on the bowl, I think what Li Shu-hua is saying is that this does not necessarily prove that magnetism was involved, since Wang Chong did not actually explicitly mention the Chinese phrase for "magnet". Therefore, Li Shu-hua shouldn't be constantly removed from the article; what he says is in fact correct, Wang Chong does not say "magnet", although he does describe what magnetism will essentially do, which is the next best thing.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:24, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Urm actually no, the texts did have mentions of 磁石, which is still uses to refer magnet and magnetite nowadays, not just how magnetism work. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 18:32, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, in that case, since you, Gun Powder Ma, have already consulted this source, what is Li Shu-hua's reasoning as to why Wang Chong's description should not be considered a description of magnetism?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:23, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, the source said there is no mention of a magnet, which I believe must have a reason, although it may had omitted it. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 19:27, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Just found out that Li Shu-hua, p. 176 also cited Lun Heng saying "A lodestone attracts a needle", this phrase actually came from ch. 47 (including another 3 on the same ch.), maybe he don't consider 磁石 as a technical term for magnet but lodestone/magnesian stone. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 19:34, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I changed it to includes both opinions. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 19:46, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Open-spandrel segmental arch bridge

The problem is, Pericles, that you have no idea what an open-spandrel is. When Temple wrote the pyramids were a cube, you would ask for a published source saying otherwise, even though it only needs a glance to tell otherwise. The pic shows evidently that each single spandrel of the bridge is filled, not a single one is open, hence either Temple was wrong or you just misrepresent him, probably something of both as so often. Your stance is absurd, and I am running a bit out of patience with such intransingence now...Gun Powder Ma (talk) 15:09, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Gun Powder Ma, how could you judge a single spandrel of the bridge by looking into the photo, are you offering your POV here? Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:25, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Here is what Temple says on page 69:

A conceptual breakthrough occurred when a Chinese engineer was the first to realize that an arch did not have to be a semi-circle. A bridge could be built which was based not on the traditional semi-circular arch but on what is known as a segmental arch. The way to envisage this is to imagine a gigantic circle embedded in the ground, of which only the tip shows above ground level. This tip is a segment of a circle, and the arch it forms is a segmental arch. Such an arch forms the central arch of the bridge in Plate 43 (i.e., he shows the Zhaozhou Bridge). Bridges built in this way take less material and are stronger than ones built as semi-circular arches.

He then goes on to describe the Zhaozhou Bridge, of course. On the picture caption of the next page (70), he shows the Lugou Bridge and writes:

The so-called 'Marco Polo Bridge' just west of Peking (Beijing), spanning the Yung-ting river. It is China's greatest segmental arch bridge, built in 1189 and consisting of a succession of eleven segmental arches with a total span of 700 feet.

On page 71 he writes again:

The greatest segmental arch bridge in China is the famous 'Marco Polo Bridge', often so named because Polo described it at length. Just west of Peking (Beijing), it is often visited by tourists. It crosses the Yung-ting river at the small town of Lu-kou-ch'iao, and is 700 feet in length, consisting of a series of eleven segmental arches extending one after the another across the river, each with an average span of 62 feet. It was built in 1189 and is still heavily used by modern truck and buss traffic. Marco Polo though this bridge 'the finest in the world'. He was delighted by the elaborate carved balustrade, consisting of 283 marble lion heads, all different, and he enthused about how ten mounted men could ride abreast across it without the slightest inconvenience. This bridge may be seen in Plate 44.

So, Gun Powder Ma, this is how I "misrepresent" my sources so often. I will amend the passage in the article to say simply "segmental arch" bridge in regards to Lugou; by the way, I simply said that Zhaozhou "influenced" the design of the Lugou Bridge, not that the Luguou Bridge is "open" instead of "filled". It is you who are "misrepresenting" me, and it is I who should be losing patience.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:50, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You misrepresent the sources because you do not seemt to understand them when you go on paraphrasing books in your lap into helpless Wikipedia. Now this is really not a complicated case. You credit the Chinese with the open-spandrel segmental arch bridge (not the segmental arch bridge which was invented by the Romans), but yet you proceed to write that the closed-spandrel Lugou bridge was "influenced" by this design, which just does not fit, whatever quotes taken out of context you try to amass behind statements. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:49, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Diophantus

I removed sources for Diophantus who had active as early as 150 BC, wikipedia has his article, so it is better to mentioned it over there in regard of his life. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 16:27, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

This is strange; 150 BC? If we can't even tell which century he lived in, how could we be so sure he didn't live until after the 3rd century AD either (i.e., up until the 5th century when he is mentioned, of course)?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:55, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe even the mentions of him in 5th century is disputes or fake as well. All we know 150 BC-500 AD is when he supposed to be lived. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 19:09, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

150 BC to 350 BC, in fact. Btw I find it interesting that the two of you insist so strongly on Heron's "contemporary" evidence, while you are quick to date a book which from 263 AD to the second century BC. Nice double standard, which helps you to face up the Indian and Greek evidence which may well be earlier than the Chinese... Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:42, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you pay attention to anything? Evidence for the full book title of the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art goes back to 179 AD. Try again.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:51, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Plus, Liu Hui commented on the Nine Chapters in 263; he did not write the text. In contrast to the Indian manuscript and the ambiguous dating of Diophantus, at least we know Liu Hui was a man of the Wei Dynasty in the 3rd century AD.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:20, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Comparison of Chinese dynastic eras, uneven levels of innovation

For anyone who might also be interested, I have noticed over the long three months of expanding this article that there is a trend of significantly disproportionate amount of innovations allotted to each era of Chinese history. I tallied up all the significant original innovations mentioned in this article and this is what I have found as of now (updated September 10, 2008):

• Shang Dynasty = 1
• Zhou Dynasty/Warring States Period = 24
• Qin Dynasty = 2
• Han Dynasty = 34
• Three Kingdoms = 5
• Jin Dynasty (265-420) = 1
• Southern and Northern Dynasties = 10
• Sui Dynasty = 5
• Tang Dynasty = 11
• Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period = 5
• Song Dynasty/Jin Dynasty, 1115-1234 = 20
• Yuan Dynasty = 7
• Ming Dynasty = 6
• Qing Dynasty = 2
• Republic of China/People's Republic of China = 3
• Total = 135

Notice how the Han Dynasty holds the lion's share of these. I read a comment by Nathan Sivin in one of his articles recently on his observation that most of the polymaths of Chinese history were strangely bunched together in two eras: the Eastern Han and Northern Song periods. Does anyone know of any scholar who addresses the unequal amount of innovation in regards to different eras of Chinese history? Thanks.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 13:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Did you just happen to read the passage in passing? Because there are only two entries that actually fit into Shang's category by the way. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 13:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

By my count, chopsticks, dagger-axe, guqin, and tea as a drink.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, after recalculation it seems that Eastern Han holds about 15 amount of innovation that's it. Not sure about Northern Song, maybe because of Shen Kuo and etc, but many of the Song innovations actually owe to previous dynasties. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 13:54, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but Han Dynasty overall (including Western) was 33. In regards to the Song Dynasty, Su Song counts for a couple items on the list, namely chain drive and oldest printed star maps.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I not sure about Han Dynasty overall as I did not count them, but I counted Eastern Han were 15 of them. As for tea, it was not an ancient Chinese drink until much later during the Han Dynasty or later. Guqin cannot be consider as Shang innovation, it is just a nominal claim or statement on paper (without much evidence just like the linguistic evidence for wheelbarrow) that's it. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:03, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Tea was consumed in non-drink form in Yunnan as far back as the mid 2nd millennium BC, according to Heiss (2007), 4–6, but not as a liquid drink until the Han Dynasty. I have changed the Shang entry to 3 and Han to 34.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, so you made a mistake, well that's ok. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough about the guqin, as well, although some sort of musical zither instrument (a primitive predecessor to the qin perhaps?) must have existed in the Shang for that's when its character first appears.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I guess so too, although I had not read about the origin of qin character, but I believe there are many explanation on that particular character through google. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:26, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. Clearly, there are still many inventions that have not yet been added to the list so the proportion of inventions may change considerably. Also, it would probably be more accurate to consider how long each period was; perhaps do invention/years of period. Keep up the good work. 130.113.81.33 (talk) 00:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I know I must be missing tons of things from modern China, but regardless, look at the Han Dynasty compared to the Ming or Qing dynasties so far and the desparity between them in terms of the sheer number of 100% original inventions. From what I've heard other sinologists assert, it's because pre-modern technology became so efficient by the Qing Dynasty that there was no drive or impetus for further improvement. The enormous manpower was always available to complete tasks needed by the state and China did not have the burden of heated competition with numerous and compacted neighboring states like in Europe. But the latter certainly wouldn't explain the Han Dynasty, which produced invention after invention regardless of it being the biggest kid on the block (after they broke the power of the Xiongnu Empire and severed the heqin agreement, of course). And even this model would assume that most inventions are driven by exterior competition; most inventions are driven simply by domestic practicality.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:09, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Good point Pericles. I'm with you that different periods produced varying levels of innovation. 130.113.81.33 (talk) 01:54, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Additions

I just added Mahjong and Chinese dominoes to the list to include more original games the Chinese invented. However, looking over the list I can't help but be a little concerned about the length of this article now, which is almost 300 KB overall (about 290 KB overall right now). Given it is a list article and not a normal article, but we should be thinking ahead since this problem isn't going to go away by itself. Any thoughts on how to reduce the size of this article? We could make a separate article for List of Neolithic inventions in China and link it as a main article for that section, no? Make some suggestions people, because I don't think the additions (not just by me) are going to stop anytime soon.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 23:45, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Its not so much the number of inventions but your level of detail that makes the articles both excellent and long. My suggestion: Divide Chinese inventions into three or four sections (whole articles) based on time periods.

• List of Chinese inventions (YYYY BC- YY CE). Based on the 'origin'.
• List of Chinese inventions (YY CE - YYY CE)
• List of Chinese inventions (YYY CE - YYYY CE)
• List of Chinese inventions (Modern Period)

Connect them through a template at the bottom of the page (I can make one). Have a dablink at the top of the page for those who only glance. Another advice is that use an image stack at the top as the stack at sections creates gigantic spaces somewhat souring the otherwise good reading experience. Good thinking though, shorter articles mean people read more of it and people here (in India and other developing countries) may enjoy more if the article is shorter and compatible with their slower internet speeds eg. this article.

JSR (talk) 06:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

That is a great idea! But let's hold onto that idea and see what others have to say. I'd like to get everyone's input on this. Plus, with the desparity of inventions during certain periods, I think another good suggestion would be to make separate articles on inventions according to alphabetical order, such as List of Chinese inventions, A to F, or something like that.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, keep in mind that it is this article which is a featured article, and it should retain a significant amount of material due to its higher status.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:49, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I think is pretty hard to divide them into different articles base upon timesets, there are several innovations involved in hint/actual invention/actual date, for exampe there are many origins for Mahjong, and I remeber there was a manual on Mahjong written during the Song Dynasty. Thus whenever a new evidence shown up, category A's entry could result from removal and moved to B, the sames goes with refs, which takes time to maintain. What Pericles of Athens suggested was good, which I had once thought before, List of Chinese inventions, A to F? That would means there would be more than two articles. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 14:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we could try out List of Chinese modified inventions for rubber, chain drive, auto door etc, which could greatly reduce the article size (I counted it), but that's a subject for debate as well. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 14:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking about having sections in this article titled "List of Chinese inventions, A-F" and "List of Chinese inventions, G-M" and "List of Chinese inventions, N-Z", and having main article links posted at the top of each section which would look like this in the edit:

{{main|List of Chinese inventions, A-F}} and so forth.

But instead of just having blank sections with links, I was thinking about actually listing the inventions for each section but moving the large descriptions for each invention to these separate main articles. Once again this is something in the making, nothing definite as of now, just something to consider if this article gets any bigger.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I see, something like the article of Song Dynasty which you've done, I think that's a good idea as well, since this article is getting bigger. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 14:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

It's pretty much the same idea as applied to the Song articles, but instead of creating branch articles based on subject (such as culture, technology, economy, etc.) this will be based solely on alphabetical order. I think splitting up this article by types of invention or by era of time are ok suggestions, but since this is already in alphabetical order, I see the latter as the best model for splitting this article up, WHEN AND IF we split this article up. After all, nothing is 'sealed in stone' here, so to speak.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I see the alphabetical order is much better because it is much easier and better to maintain, why waste time on thinking when there is already an available way to solve it. Why Mahjong should be placed at XXX era article and not YYY era article, although it first appeared on XXX text in XXX era, but real Mahjong did not appeared or became popular until YYY era. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. Some items are hard to definitively date, such as Jacob's staff and Mahjong.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:54, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Anpersonalaccount's suggestion. I was thinking about suggesting something similar about splitting the article by alphabet. I think listing in alphabetic order is a lot easier than listing by subject or chronological order. Jagged 85 (talk) 21:56, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

the CHINAgreat wall

i use this subjet because my uncle and his girlfriend EVA wong the were working for alana persintation on china and beging for fun they used two computers one was was my uncels computer theb other competer was mine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.244.251.239 (talk) 22:33, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

A few problems with tofu!

Hi everybody! I'm a new editor, but maybe I can contribute a few things here. So let's start with a... soft target :). There are a few unclear points and some contradictions in the tofu section, but I don't want to edit them out without asking for permission.
1. In the middle of the first sentence, we have references to "Liu (1999), 166" and "Liu (1999), 166-67." Could the redundant first one be removed?
2. It's not clear if the note to Liu (1999) after "It is believed that tofu was consumed in other Asian countries like Japan by the Tang Dynasty (618–907), yet it was not introduced to the West until modern times" is meant to explain a) the transmission of tofu to the West or b) the presence of tofu in Japan in the Tang dynasty. How can we clarify?
3. Concerning the same sentence: "It is believed..." is a conveniently impersonal formulation, but the presence of tofu in Japan in Tang times is supported by neither documentary nor archeological evidence, since the earliest mention of tofu anywhere is still in Tao Gu's 10th-century compilation. Should the sentence just be removed?
4. Speaking of Tao Gu: the Chinese title of his Records of the Extraordinary is Qingyi lu 清異錄. Should it be added in? If so, in what format?
5. Another contradiction: right after we say that tofu is not mentioned in any source until the 10th century (and that the invention of tofu by Liu An is therefore spurious), we read about "Liu An's tofu" and "Liu An's process for making tofu." These two sentences should be reworded to remove references to Liu An.
6. We have: "According to Shurtleff and Aoyagi, modern historians speculate..." Since the note already refers to Shurtleff and Aoyagi, could we shorten this to "Modern historians speculate..."?
7. Apart from Zhu Xi (who mentions "the King of Huainan's technique" in a poem), I don't know of any other "Song-dynasty scholar" who attributes the invention of tofu to Liu An. Could we change the first sentence to "Although both popular tradition and the Song-dynasty scholar Zhu Xi (1130–1200 AD)..."? In this proposed revision, I would also hyphenate "Song-dynasty" and remove the dates of the Song dynasty because Zhu's dates are already given.
8. There are more theories about the origins of tofu than mentioned here. There are published studies advocating each of them, but none is supported by strong documentary evidence. These theories are discussed in an article cited on Chinahistoryforum (CHF) here[14]. (That page cites another link, but it's dead, so I'm citing the original article's content from CHF.)
9. Finally, the page on Tofu contains a lot more references than our Wiki, including to some Japanese sources and more recent books by Shurtleff and Aoyagi. I have no access to a library right now, but someone else could probably benefit from the sources cited.
All right! I hope we can discuss all this and improve the article even further. I'll make the modifications if I get a green light from other editors, especially Pericles (hi!). Awesome article, by the way!!!--Madalibi (talk) 09:52, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Great suggestions. I was not the editor who added all this info about tofu, so I certainly wouldn't mind if you tweaked with that passage a bit. You should definitely add the Chinese character names for the title of Tao's book. Maybe in this format?《清異錄》 I know that's how Chinese speakers signify book titles. Maybe you should just delete the mentioning of the Tang Dynasty, given the other evidence.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:23, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I made the proposed changes. I hope the format is acceptable. I also added references to the work of Shinoda Osamu, who was the first scholar to find the mention of tofu in the Records of the Extraordinary. Incidentally, I'm not sure about the Romanized name of the journal where his work was first published (樂味= Gaku+???) in 1963, and about the title of the article (could be "O-tōfu no hanashi" お豆腐の話し or "Tōfu kō" 豆腐考). Could someone who has access to a good library confirm either title? Apparently, scholars now agree that "Records of the Extraordinary" was not compiled by Tao Gu himself, but attributed to him after his death. Sun Ji (1998), the article I refer this claim to, explains the evidence briefly. There is an online version of Sun Ji's article: should I add the link in the footnote?--Madalibi (talk) 03:40, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure, it wouldn't hurt to add the link in the footnote.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 08:02, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

"I don't know of any other "Song-dynasty scholar" That's not an excuse to remove it, since it cited. I have both pdf you cited and the one already there at tofu, if you need one of those, you can ask. And CHF is a forum, I am very sorry. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 05:22, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Anpersonalaccount. As you must certainly have noticed, I didn't remove the phrase on "Song-dynasty scholars," so no worry. And I cited CHF not as an authority, but as a reference to an article that discusses alternative theories concerning the origin of tofu (in milk curd by northern nomads in the Age of Fragmentation, for example). All these theories are defended in serious scholarly sources, but I didn't cite any of them because I didn't mention these theories in my modifications. So I'm not sure what you mean by "CHF is a forum, I'm very sorry." Now concerning your emendations.

1. Good call on Liu Keshun instead of Keshun Liu.

2. I'm not familiar with Wikipedia conventions, but is it really necessary to put the date of the authors cited in the text when the date of their publication already appears in the footnotes? I think the rest of the article doesn't mention dates of scholarly studies in the text.

3. Your comment to one of your edits is "Changing one little great error that the editor never read." Not completely sure what this means, but the result of your change is this sentence: "The earliest making of tofu is found in the Bencao Gangmu..." This is not grammatical. The page when I first saw it said: "While the earliest account on making of tofu are found in the Bencao Gangmu..., which was also grammatically incorrect. I modified this sentence many times (perhaps too many times):

a. "The earliest explanation of how to make tofu is found in the Bencao Gangmu..."

b. "The earliest explanation of how to make tofu coagulate is found in the Bencao Gangmu..."

c. "The earliest explanation of the coagulants used to make tofu is found in the Bencao Gangmu..."

If you're not satisfied with b and c, you can always revert back to a, but your current sentence doesn't work. In the mean time, I'll try to find the proper scholarly support for my claim that the BCGM contained the earliest detailed explanation of coagulants, but not the first tofu recipe.

4. You also said:

"According to Shurtleff and Aoyagi is needed here, since no ones had yet to heard any modern historian suppose this or that."

Maybe I wasn't clear in my original question, but I meant to ask if "Shurtleff and Aoyagi" were the modern historians in question. If so, there is no need to have both "Shurtleff and Aoyagi" and "modern historians" in the same sentence, plus a footnote reference to Shurtleff and Aoyagi. Now if Shurtleff and Aoyagi are talking about other modern historians, then sure we need both. Could you clarify which it is (and I mean with more than a rhetorical question about modern historians)? Also, if Shurtleff and Aoyagi are talking about other historians, maybe we can look up these historians and cite them directly instead of relying on what Sh&Ao tell us about them. And if they just talk about "modern historians" without naming any, then they're not a serious scholarly source.

5. Now on "Liu An's tofu." We don't know if tofu even existed in the Han dynasty (probably didn't), and there is nothing within 1200 years of Liu An's life that connects tofu with him. It's as if the earliest source for the existence of the hijra was Voltaire. References to "Liu An's tofu" are therefore very misleading, and this is why I removed them. The two mentions of "Liu An's tofu" are also confusing because our text has just claimed that there was not a shred of evidence connecting Liu An with tofu. On this matter, you said:

"While the invention of tofu by Liu An maybe is spurious, the statement from another scholars or third party encyclopedia like Britannica isn't."

I hope you don't mean that we should refer our claims to third-hand scholarly studies (i.e., encyclopedias) even when we know they're wrong. I think the Bencao Gangmu is the most influential source for the popular claim that the King of Huainan invented tofu, but Li Shizhen lived 1700 years after Liu An... Liu Keshun's statement that "Liu An’s tofu was probably made in such and such a way" make no sense because "Liu An's tofu" is a non-existent entity, just like "Han-dynasty cannons" and "15th-century steam boats." We can't discuss "Liu An's tofu" as if it existed, even if a scholar has done just that. We could, however, make it clear that the mistaken attribution comes from Liu Keshun, not from our editors. That could be done by a rephrasing along the following lines: "Liu Keshun, who accepts the traditional attribution of the invention of tofu to Liu An, thinks that Liu An's process for making tofu..." Same thing with the next sentence on Sh&Ao.--Madalibi (talk) 08:44, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I still busying with my work and am preparing for something. Yes based upon wiki standard, it is always better to have date for the author, and in this cases since both Liu An and Liu Keshun have a same surname, so providing date would be less confusing. I don't know whether you think Li Shizhen did credited Liu An or not, but I do have the pdf for the tofu and if you want it you can ask. I still prefering the current standard for the article. "We could, however, make it clear that the mistaken attribution comes from Liu Keshun, not from our editors" Which is what this article and my edits are all about. "That could be done by a rephrasing along the following lines" I think this could apply to Shurtleff and Aoyagi statment as well, since according to them that "modern historian generally agrees" so or that should includes with their name. Because you're a French residing in (for now) Beijing, you might not have access to every articles. It seem that you list a, b and c choices for me, I would prefer a. Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 12:46, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Li Shizhen claims that "the method [for making] tofu started with the Han King of Huainan, Liu An" (豆腐之法，始于汉淮南王刘安). He goes on to mention which beans can be used, and then explains a recipe (zaofa 造法) where he mentions the many products that can make soy milk coagulate. He ends with an explanation of doufu pi 豆腐皮 or "tofu skin." This all appears at the beginning of juan 25 of the BCGM. This passage is extremely famous, but for some reason I thought there was an earlier recipe somewhere else. But I may be wrong, and I probably went too far with my modifications concerning coagulants. So formulation "a" is definitely the best choice for now. Otherwise, what is the PDF you keep mentioning? If it's the article by Yang Jian on "The origin and development of Chinese tofu," then yes, I would be interested. (Is the article in Chinese, by the way, because the journal's name sounds a lot like Nongye kaogu 农业考古 to me. If this is so, we would need the Chinese title in the bibliography. I can take care of the format if needed. Ok, I found it! I will make the necessary modification to the bibliography.) On "Liu An's tofu," I still think our text looks contradictory. Would other editors give me the permission to re-phrase it in a way that clears the confusion? Thanks.--Madalibi (talk) 04:11, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Madalibi, Yang Jian article are available on some Chinese bbs, it is not obscure enough if you wanted to find it. Thanks for informing about Bencao gangmu which I had not noted previously. While I have no oppose to it, I think Chinese characters over the bibliography are only good for those who begin to learn Chinese (meaning those who starts learning Chinese and needs to google it on the some Chinese details), since everything is news for them in Chinese google or sohu, but not the major Wikipedia readers. Anyway that's just my thoughts that I had encountered many times with people. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 08:35, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Anpersonalaccount. After I figured out the Chinese title, I indeed found many copies of Yang Jian's article online, so don't worry about it! As for Chinese titles: coming from an academic background, I think Chinese titles are not only useful: they're absolutely necessary. Without them, there's no way for Wikipedia readers (those who know Chinese, in any case) to locate the source in question and to make up their own mind about its reliability. The fact that most Wikipedia readers and editors don't read Chinese is no good reason to abandon good scholarly practices like clear referencing. Of course we can't have references entirely in Chinese: we need the pinyin and the translation of the original title. I think this page's bibliography has more Chinese titles presented as English-language studies, but I don't think I have time to look them all up in the next few days. All right, gotta go! --Madalibi (talk) 09:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Madalibi, I don't have much time debating with you nor having time to edit Wikipedia. I once said because you don't have access to the Chinese articles, all you have is a glimpse on the title itself of the article, yes there are many articles of Yang Jian, but 中国豆腐的起源与发展 are available on some bbs, and it not hard for people to find what written in it. Plus i don't think there is any contradictory over the texts, we have different opinions from author that's all. I can easily find you a ton of authors over google books (not checked yet, but from a traditional POV it seem that people are much less concern how or spurious when tofu was invented than let's say gunpowder) that said tofu was invented much earlier than 10th century. I don't mind you make a large changes to the article even if you've been invited from China History Forum to wiki, but at least look at other wiki-article to avoid a double-standard you're appying here. Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 02:45, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

First, good edit about Sun Ji and Tao Gu. I now see what you mean by attributing certain statements to authors in the text instead of just writing the statement and putting the author's name in a footnote. (Note: but I don't understand your reference to Yang Shangshan.)

I doubt that Wikipedia's rules say that we should cite Chinese sources as if they had been written in English. Wikipedia wants editors to cite their sources clearly, that's it. The problem with citing titles only in translation is that nobody can locate the article in question. This is not clear citation.

Now about Liu An's tofu (forgive me for being so persistent about this: I'm just trying to clarify things for myself and for Wikipedia readers). I don't think the Wiki standard is to cite - without any kind of warning - statements about things that we know do not exist. There is simply no credible evidence connecting tofu to Liu An. The studies that attribute the invention of tofu to Liu An are not based on Han-dynasty primary sources: they simply repeat the traditional attribution, which appeared more than 1000 years after Li An's life. Many other traditional attributions have been proven wrong: the "Ten Wings" commentaries to the Yijing were traditionally attributed to Confucius, the Zhuge Nu (a kind of crossbow) to Zhuge Liang, etc. I don't think a good Wiki should say "Confucius's cosmological views on the Yijing agree with those of Han-dynasty commentators," because the historical Confucius did not have any "cosmological views on the Yijing".

If we're not careful, the wiki on endocrinology (see the next entry in this talk page) might run into the same problem. If we say: "Chinese historians and scientists have proven repeatedly that the Autumn Mineral actually contained fewer hormones than the urine that was used to prepare it," we can't go on to claim that "the Chinese took these concentrated hormones to cure such and such an illness." This makes no sense at all even if we are just citing other scholars' points of view.

Citing Tao Gu's book as the earliest mention of tofu doesn't imply that tofu was invented only in the 10th century. Actually, for the wiki to be complete, we should probably discuss the other theories about the origins of tofu. For this purpose (and to clarify the whole text), we might want to re-shuffle the text according to the following structure (just a suggestion, so feel free to disagree, though I would like to hear what the other editors have to say about this):

- The invention of tofu is traditionally attributed to Liu An... Although this attribution only surfaced in the Song dynasty (Zhu Xi, etc.), archeological evidence shows that presses similar to those used today to make tofu already existed in Liu An's region in the Han dynasty. [Such archeological reports exists. I'll find them if needed.] Since the 1990s, many scholars have interpreted a Han-dynasty wall painting found in Dahu ting (present-day Henan) as representing a tofu workshop, but Sun Ji (1998) has argued that crucial elements were missing from it to make this identification conclusive.

- Scholars who accept the traditional attribution... Liu Keshun says... Shurtleff and Aoyagi suppose...

- Other theories concerning the origin of tofu are:

• Theory 1
  
• Theory 2
  
• Theory 3
  

- The first unambiguous textual mention of tofu: Qingyi lu... Etc.

- The first recipe for making tofu: Bencao gangmu... List the coagulants.

- Tofu was adopted in Japan in the XXth century, and in the West only in the 20th (?) century.

Do other editors think this structure would be acceptable?

To conclude on a side note, I think sentences like "even if you've been invited from China History Forum to wiki" are a bit uncalled for. The forums I participate in have nothing to do with who I am and what I know. Of course it's a fact that I'm a new editor and that I'm still learning about Wikipedia conventions, but this has nothing to do with where I come from. I'm the same person regardless of whether I come from CHF, bustyasianbeauties.com, answersingenesis.org, or richarddawkins.net [;-].

Cheers, --Madalibi (talk) 07:05, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello Madalibi, I don't understand your reference to Confucius's or Yijing. As for Yang Shangshan, I actually get the idea when I was reading from your sandbox Taisu, that you gives a absolute dating of 660s, I look up over the google and found out that Yang are only supposed on be lived during the early Tang, and there are debate on whether he lived in Northern Zhou, Sui or Tang. On the whole, I think what you had suggested is good, because tofu wasn't mentioned until much later after Liu An's death, therefore tofu can't be existed during when he supposed lived. But just a little note to it, here in Wikipedia (I new to Wikipedia too), we probably needs to address those statement that came from that author. Liu An's method of "tofu was adopted in Japan in the XXth century" This is yet another statement from another source, although is truth that tofu probably didn't existed back then. As for further explanation (a rather non-concise explanation) on tofu itself, we probably needs to bring them into the tofu article itself. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 12:43, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

On "endocrinology: extraction of human hormones"

Hi everyone,
I just wanted to point out that Needham's and Temple's claim that the Autumn Mineral was a hormone preparation has been refuted a number of times since the 1980s on the basis of laboratory experiments. Needham had not done any experiment on this problem himself, and Temple just copied all his claims directly from Needham, so lab experiments should be seen as more conclusive than the purely textual evidence Needham and Temple present. Things all started with Liu Guangding 劉廣定, who wrote three papers on the "Autumn Mineral" problem in 1981 in a journal called Kexue yuekan 科學月刊 [Science Monthly], respectively issues 5, 6, and 8:

- "Ren niao zhong suo de qiushi wei xingjisu zhi jiantao" 人尿中所得秋石為性激素之檢討 [Critical examination of the claim that the Autumn Mineral obtained from human urine was sex hormones].

- "Bu tan qiushi yu ren niao" 補談秋石與人尿 [Supplementary discussion of Autumn Mineral and human urine].

- "San tan qiushi yu ren niao" 三談秋石與人尿 [A third discussion of Autumn Mineral and human urine].

Another article by Liu from 1981:

- Liu Guangding. "Cong bei-Song ren tilian xingjisu shuo tan kexue dui kejishi yanjiu de zhongyaoxing" 從北宋人提煉性激素說談科學對科技史研究的重要性 [On the importance of science to research in the history of science and technology, with reference to the claim that Northern Song people extracted and purified sex hormones]. Guoli Taiwan daxue wenshizhe xuebao 國立台灣大學文史哲學報 [National Taiwan University bulletin on literature, history and philosophy] 30 (1981): 363-76.

More articles making the same point:

- Meng Naichang 孟乃昌. "Qiushi shi yi" 秋石试议 [A tentative discussion of the 'Autumn Mineral']. Ziran kexueshi yanjiu 自然科学史研究 [Research on the history of the natural sciences] 1.4 (1982): 289-99.

- Zhang Binglun 張秉倫 and Sun Yilin 孫毅霖. "'Qiushi fang' moni shiyan ji qi yanjiu" 秋石方模擬實驗及其研究 [Three typical simulated tests and a physicochemical examination of Autumn Mineral]. Ziran kexueshi yanjiu 7.2 (1987): 170-183. The English title Sivin gives here (in a text on the history of Chinese alchemy) probably appeared in the original publication. It is not a direct translation of the Chinese title.

- H. T. Huang et al. "Preliminary Experiments on the Identity of Chiu Shi (Autumn Mineral) in Medieval Chinese Pharmacopoeias." Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on the History of Science in China, San Diego, 9 August 1988.

Nathan Sivin cites these articles and agrees with them in this article of his:

- "Research on the History of Chinese Alchemy." In Alchemy Revisited. Proceedings of the International Conference on the History of Alchemy at the University of Groningen 17-19 April 1989, ed. by Z.R.W.M. von Martels. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1990. Pp. 3-20. The citation and argument appear on p. 12.

A recent article in Chinese has summarized all the findings:

- Sun Yilin 孙毅霖. "Zhongguo gudai qiushi tilian kao" 中国古代秋石提炼考 ["Study of the Extraction of Autumn Mineral in Ancient China"]. Guangxi minzu daxue xuebao 广西民族大学学报 [Journal of Guangxi University for Nationalities], Ziran kexue ban 自然科学版 [Natural Science Edition], 2005, No. 4.

Sun Yilin concludes that the final product of all the experiments described in ancient Chinese sources is an almost non-soluble inorganic salt that contains less hormones than the original urine that is used to prepare it.
What do other editors think we should do with the section on endocrinology? Right now it describes a lot of interesting experiments, but the title of the Wiki ("Endocrinology...") doesn't reflect its content. Cheers,--Madalibi (talk) 10:14, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you and I have discussed this in the past, and I haven't had time to do thorough research in order to amend the passage with counterarguments of Sun Yilin and others. For the past few weeks I've been going to the Library of Congress in D.C. where I've been busting my hump trying to compile notes for my paper on Nazi occultism. Madalibi, feel free to take the reins here and amend that passage as necessary. Just as long as the passage does not extend for a mile in length, I trust that you can delete extraneous details already present to make room for a few comments on these scholars' findings. It's strange that Temple did not mention Liu Guangding's publications, seeing how Temple's book was published in 1986.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 04:40, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Madalibi. Since you seem fairly busy, I have already amended the passage on endocrinology, so that it now only mentions the use of the natural soap, not this whole sublimation process.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:39, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Size of article

This article is WAY too big to be useful (295K, not including pictures). It takes an inordinate amount of time to load for me and I have a fast machine and a pretty good net connection. I can only imagine the time it must take for someone with a slow machine and/or a slow net connection. Perhaps it could be split up alphabetically? Have a main page with the beginning (the four great inventions and the pre-Shang inventions), then lists of inventions A-H, I-R, S-Z or something like that. hbent (talk) 19:23, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Wait, you're saying that there should be separate articles for A-H, I-R, S-Z? That's not such a bad idea. I want to hear what others have to say.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:16, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I HATE splits like that - you'd be better off with a chronological split, like the Islamic articles have. Mdw0 (talk) 23:17, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Instead of spliting the article into new articles, would it be possible to use "show" tags such as in most templates? Iciac (talk) 02:54, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

That does sound like a really cool idea, Iciac (I'm in favor of it, since it would retain all the info here in one article), but that wouldn't address the load time which Hbent had a problem with on his computer. Perhaps Mdw0 is right.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:10, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we could simply move all the neolithic inventions to a small new article, and taking out that significant chunk could help with the load time?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:12, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Most people are probably ok with the article the way it is. Whatever works for you. Benjwong (talk) 06:10, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

First thing, sprinmg-load your notes and references. Next, be sparing with the images. That should reduce load times. Mdw0 (talk) 06:50, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Modern Inventions

Shouldn't there be mention of chinese inventions of the past few centuries? And what of the chinese diaspora? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.244.133.95 (talk) 20:58, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

There's a few modern inventions described; read more carefully. As for the Chinese diaspora, I'd like to limit "Chinese inventions" to inventions created within "China". This article is simply too large to accomodate anything more than that.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I dont see how you can possibly claim an emigre's work in another country as Chinese, especially if they were also educated overseas. Mdw0 (talk) 22:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Right. A Chinese American is still an American, for example.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Paper???

How on earth can paper be considered a "Chinese invention" when in fact, paper was invented by the Egyptians in the 3rd century B.C.??? Adding paper to this list is not accurate since the facts prove otherwise. --Yoganate79 (talk) 01:12, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

The ancient Egyptians used a plant material called papyrus, which is kind of like paper, but has nothing to do with the modern papermaking process which was first invented in China. Check all the sources which I cited in the paper section for further information.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:50, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

A quick note indicating the differences would be appropriate, the same way the Olmec lodestone has been acknowledged. Mdw0 (talk) 06:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure thing.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:51, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

I really do think that this page along with the other countries pages for inventions should be semi-locked from vandals continuing to trash this page. It is unacceptable when people negligently delete information on this page when it has citations to prove its verification. What is wrong with you people? --Yoganate79 (talk) 20:39, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Layout

There are some problems in the article's layout with LAAAAAAAARGE gaps in the text. These are not just unsightly, they make it look like the article hasn't loaded properly. There are a couple of ways to fix this. The first is to severely edit back the captions on the images, and possible some of the images themselves. The second is to break up the line of images down the right of the article and put some on the left, some on the right, adjusting sizes so that the image looks its best. I know some people with a certain aesthetic like things in clear columns but big gaps in the text are much worse, and I personally much prefer the text and images to be broken up so that the eye is led around the page. The best way to fix it is to break up the section into chronological periods rather than alphabetical under Shang and later. I've never really understood this separation - is the Iron Age really the most significant event in Chinese inventive history? At the very least there should be four sections, including a modern one. This puts each invention in a historical and technological context. An example is the List of Australian inventions. The other way to separate rather than alphabetical is by scientific field - agriculture, science, mathematics, industry, medical, military, as in the List of Indian inventions. I've never been a big fan of large lists in alphabetiocal order. It might make it easier for the editors, but that irrelevant. The raison d'etre of the article is the readers, and too many editors think of themselves rather than the readers of the article. An alphabetical list assumes the reader has a specific thing in mind and wants to serach for it, rather than looking for a more overall look at the inventions and inventiveness of the people. Chronological and industry lists are friendlier to this type of reader. Mdw0 (talk) 07:05, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The reason that everything looks fine on my computer is that I am using a 13' monitor. I'm not sure what size monitor you are using, but it is obviously much wider. Keep in mind that not everyone has the same size monitor, so sometimes folks with bigger monitors see huge gaps with text and pictures. You could try resizing your browser if it is a nuisance.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Those gaps are a layout issue. By editing with a smaller screen you can't see how poor the article looks on a larger screen. By having all the images on the right you are condemning the article to this solvable problem. DO you think such gaps are an acceptable cost of having the images in a column? This could be significantly reduced by editing back the image captions, some of which are very long. Mdw0 (talk) 03:02, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm...I believe I placed all images on the right because this is not a normal article with paragraphs, but rather a series of bulleted points that happen to have sentences. Wouldn't placing images on the left disrupt the bullets? I remember trying that long ago and thinking it did not look good. Prove me wrong otherwise...--Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:42, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

The List of Indian inventions and discoveries list has them only on the right, but the images are fewer. This is a better option than having so many that the layout is interrupted. For images on both sides check the List of Australian inventions. Wikipedia has quite powerful abilities to move text around left-placed images the same way encyclopedias do, no matter what the width of the monitor. Mdw0 (talk) 06:51, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

What is an invention?

I think some of the items are NOT inventions. An invention needs to be a technological breakthrough, not an example of redesign or a slightly different style of something else. For example, the Bird and Flower painting - are you serious? How is that an invention? Mdw0 (talk) 07:16, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you are right about the art stuff. Plus, if it is removed, it will reduce the already excessive size of this list article.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:07, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I removed two art entries; the one you mentioned (including its reference source and pic), as well as the shan shui entry and associated picture and reference used.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:16, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The same goes for taotie, which I just deleted from the Neolithic section.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Collapsible Umbrella

This claim is untenable. There is a wealth of literary, archaeological and pictorial evidence proving that umbrellas which could be opened and closed existed at the latest by the 7th century BC in the wider Mediterranean.

Anatolia often provides the bridge from the Near East to the Greek world, and, indeed, wooden parasol parts have been excavated at Gordion and Samos. Both parasols could be opened, like the one mentioned later by Aristophanes (Knights I347-8, with scholia). The fragments from Gordion - parts of the upper fitting - were found in Tumulus P, a child's burial dated to the start of the seventh century; the magnificence of the tomb intimates royalty, but there was no physiological means of determining the gender of the child. 35 The wooden parasol slide from Samos was deposited in the late seventh century with many other items of which some were Near Eastern imports; it may itself be a Phrygian import.

Margaret Miller - Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC, p.193f. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 02:28, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough; good find. Needham is a bit outdated, as I've found out using Robert Temple's work and other sources to update Needham's work.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:36, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Ice Cream

I'm actually doing a project on China, and one section is an inventions section. After researching a lot, I've come to some interesting conclusions. I was wondering if the idea for ice cream, is true, and that "ice cream" is an invention. In one source is says the process of how they made it, and it says it traveled out of China into Italy, and so on. Would ice cream be something to add onto this? Queenqpawn (talk) 22:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

I am aware of the need to specify certain facts in articles for the sole purpose of heading off pedants and editors who dont understand what an invention is, but as it stands that opening paragraph is one of the oddest I've ever read. Surely the opening of the list shouldn't be what the list is NOT about. Perhaps at the head of the text below the opening we need a section on definitions, and descibe what is and what isn't an invention there. Mdw0 (talk) 03:55, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Artistic inventions - should they count?

Does a jade art object count as an invention? Tripod pottery isnt an invention - its just a minor design. Mdw0 (talk) 03:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I was not the one to add the jade passage; I believe that was an anonymous IP. I deleted the sources used for that jade passage which you removed, since they were used nowhere else in the article. Cheers.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:47, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

What about the jade burial suit? Is it purely artistic or does it have some practical function? Mdw0 (talk) 04:23, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Layout again

Is there any reason why the main section has to be broken up by letter? I think it would be an improvement to keep the alphabetical listing but just remove the sections by letter. It would be a lot easier to take out the gaps in the text and have the text flow around the images if it was all one section. OK if I try that? Mdw0 (talk) 06:54, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Please don't. Because then it makes it hell to try and edit one section that is so large. Think about trying to make minor edits; it becomes impractical. Keep in mind, not everyone has the same size monitor that you do. On my 13' monitor, the images look completely fine and there is absolutely no overlapping problems. On your monitor, it perhaps looks like someone arranged the images like a madman. A different sized monitor makes all the difference in the world.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 05:34, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Can we then consider splitting the section into two or three sections chronologically? You cant edit an article just so it looks nice on one size of monitor if those edits makes it look bad on others. An article needs to look as good as possible on all sized monitors. The fact is that current situation with long, skinny images down the right hand side and lots of small sections creates big ugly gaps in the text. I think for that reason we need to have some of the images on the left side. Or we could just arbitrarily cut some images to remove the gaps. Mdw0 (talk) 08:14, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Feel free to do a combination of both (i.e. moving some to the left and removing some altogether).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 08:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Great Modern Inventions

This section is on borrowed time. Thereare NO references in there yet. Also have the following oproblems; Hybrid rice - there are hundreds of difeferent hybrids - what makes this one an 'invention?' Details of the actual photocomposition system needs to show why it is unique. Copying of a protein is not an invention - great science, but scientific discovery is not invention.

No, it has no time left, since I will remove it now. The anti-malarial thing is already mentioned in the article, along with hybrid rice. The other two have no citations anyway.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Recategorization

Shouldn't this be organized better instead of purely via alphabetical listings? Like timeframe, or by type of invention/discovery? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.205.192.144 (talk) 01:18, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Endocrinology, isolation of sex and pituitary hormones from urine?

I am a Chinese, but Sunyi-lin, a professor in Shanghai Jiao Tong University, has posted his contradict research paper since 2006-02-19. Here is the link:

Study the Extraction of "Autumn Mineral" in Ancient China, Sunyi-lin, (School of Humanities，Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030,China)

Hope anybody take a look. --Zanhsieh (talk) 21:18, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Error on Section F, Firework

Original text:

“ In 1110, a large fireworks display in a martial demonstration was held to entertain Emperor Huizong (r. 1100–1125) and his court, accompanied by dancers moving through colored smoke. ”

Should be:

“ In 1183, a large fireworks display in a martial demonstration was held to entertain Emperor Xiaozong (1127–1194) and his court, accompanied by dancers moving through colored smoke. ”

Since:

1. Lanterns were more popular for Emperors of Northern Song.
2. Jack Kelly cited the wrong text. Original text could be seen in 武林舊事卷七：「淳熙十年八月十八日，上詣德壽宮恭請兩殿往浙江亭觀潮。……管軍官於江面分佈五陣，乘騎弄旗，標槍舞刀，如履平地，點放五色煙炮滿江，及煙收炮息，則諸盡藏，不見一隻。……」. "淳熙" is the name era of Emperor Xiaozong. --Zanhsieh (talk) 15:49, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Image format

Surely there's a better way to align the images? Currently, some sections (such as "L" to "R") have a lot of unused valuable free space on the right hand side. If the images in the preceding heading can't fit into the section (due to the vertical text being shorter than the images), it goes into the next heading. As a result, the images in the new heading follow the same alignment (which results in all that unused free space). Spellcast (talk) 13:55, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. Just do whatever you want to it. Honestly, everyone has a different monitor width, so the article will look different to different folks. The only way to please everyone is to have as few images as possible, so there doesn't appear to be any gaps and there is no overlap with the text.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:22, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

That would be the simple solution. Alternatively, if the images protrude into the next heading, the protruding images can be aligned horizontally below the accompanying text in the section. So if a group of images can't fit into the section, the interfering images can be moved from the top of the text to below it using the markup seen in WP:PIC#Galleries. But I don't know if having pictures aligned horizontally below the text would be aesthetically pleasing to everyone. Spellcast (talk) 17:10, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Nobody has spoken up here on the talk page since we began this conversation; feel free to test your own suggestion. I'm not against trying new things if it will improve the look of the article.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Sky Lantern?

Should Sky Lantern be add to this article since the references in the article suggested that Chinese invent it? --LLTimes (talk) 00:39, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and many more inventions are missing ! --Zhonghuo (talk) 14:14, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

"premodern Chinese" really?

The term used in this article "premodern" just sounds terrible. I don't think it's a word. At the very least it needs a hyphen (pre-modern). I don't claim to be an expert and it may even me grammatically correct but it's very unstandard. I think the term ancient is much better. Or break it down by era. "premodern" is also troubling as it drifts in time as the modern time changes. One could say premodern Chinese battled the Japanese in World War 2. This needs fixing.12.106.237.2 (talk) 18:37, 8 December 2009 (UTC)