Poincaré In China

A renowned French mathematician, astronomer, theoretical physicist and scientific philosopher, Poincare saw his remarkable scientific life spanning the 19th and 20th centuries.Commencing from 1915, the theories of Poincare started to be introduced into China. Influenced by the eastward spread of Western ideas and by the May Fourth Movement, the dissemination primarily centered on Poincare's idea on philosophy of science, with compatriot Chinese students as its backbone. In 1928, the Northern Expedition reached successful conclusion, ensuring a temporal period of stability in the Chinese society and an improvement in the scientific environment. The successive translations and publications during this period of Poincare's three works on philosophy of science led to the first pinnacle of the dissemination. Meanwhile, Poincare's mathematical works such as his topology started to grab the attention of the Chinese mathematicians. During the Anti-Japanese War and the Civil War, the diffusion nearly grounded to a halt. After the founding of the new China, as social stability and national scientific establishment improved, the diffusion entered a new phrase, with Poincare's groundbreaking works in qualitative theory of differential equations and topology being well spread and developed. However, Poincare's academic theories escaped neither the Anti-rightist Campaign nor the Cultural Revolution, and the dissemination during these periods was again plunged into the abyss. Following the Cultural Revolution, Chinese science entered an unprecedented developmental phrase. Translations on his works on scientific philosophies restarted, resulting in another climax in a new round of studies of Poincare's ideas and works, which were to be well inherited and developed in the fields of mathematics, celestial mechanics, relativity and philosophy of science.Based on historical data and literature, this text explains in great detail how the theories of Poincare were transmitted and developed in China;introduces important literature and the works of pivotal scholars in a comprehensive manner;summarizes the historical background of each transmission phrase and the characteristics of knowledge diffusion;and attempts to fully present the basic structures of the dissemination in China.