The Dissemination Of Modern Western Thermology In China (1855-1902)

In the second half of the 19 th century,western missionaries played an important role as disseminators of scientific knowledge in China.They translated and published many books,founded newspapers and periodicals,opened schools,which made important contributions to the cause of modern science education in China.On the basis of consulting the original literature and related materials,this paper adopts the method of literature analysis and comparison,aiming at investigating the content level,translation situation,characteristics and influence of thermal knowledge introduced through missionary works during this period.In addition,we will further explore the influence of missionary works on the compilation of Physics Textbooks in late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China.The specific work and main achievements of this paper are as follows:1.The physical works and newspapers translated and published by missionaries in the late Qing Dynasty were comprehensively collected and analyzed.The thermal was divided into heat essence,heat transfer,expansion,calorimetry and phase change knowledge.The differences in structure and content between Chinese and original versions are compared.2.The missionary's introduction to the nature of heat was examined.Among them,the author of Bowu Xinbian holds the view of caloric theory,and Gezhi Qimeng introduced the heat-motion theory earlier.Focuses on the demonstration of the theory in that two books and combines with other works to analyze the spread characteristics.From the point of view of the present,many contents at that time were old and imperfect,which was one of the characteristics of scientific communication in the late Qing dynasty.3.The characteristics of knowledge propagation of expansion and contraction are investigated.WuTi YuRe GaiYiJi was Published in the late Qing dynasty with the highest academic level on thermal translation.Based on some original materials,this paper examines questions such as the original of editing of the book,its content and character,its translation,etc.This paper also investigates the introduction ofthermometers in periodicals and works of the late Qing Dynasty,and analyses the characteristics of thermometers in principle,manufacture and type.It is believed that the knowledge of thermometer introduced in the late Qing Dynasty is very comprehensive,and it is an important part of the dissemination of Western learning at that time.Moreover,the knowledge of thermometers had a positive impact on the society of the late Qing Dynasty,and it was one of the symbolic events for people to learn and understand science at that time.The research shows that scientific knowledge,such as thermometer,which is simple,practical and has certain cultural connotation,is more suitable to be disseminated in the social and knowledge background of the late Qing Dynasty than those physical problems which need higher mathematics to solve.4.Investigate the formation and evolution of Chinese thermal concepts and terms.The core concepts in thermology,such as temperature,heat,latent heat,specific heat,are difficult to understand.It took a long time to distinguish these concepts as early as the development of Western calorimetry.The missionaries first established thermal translations.This research is helpful to understand the importance of the formation and unification of Chinese scientific language in the late Qing Dynasty.5.The significance and influence of missionary translation work are investigated.They were Heshi's “JieaYao” series of physics textbooks,Li Di's Xingxingxueyao and Wu Guangjian's latest high school physics textbooks.Firstly,it introduces the style and characteristics of the original works of Basic Physics.Secondly,it inspects the textbooks used by Li Di's Xingxingxueyao and Wu Guangjian's latest high school physics textbooks as well as the editing and publishing situation in the late Qing Dynasty.Finally,taking thermology as an example,this paper analyses the differences in content and translation between the Chinese version and the original text,and on this basis,explores the influence of missionary translation on the compilation of textbooks by domestic scholars in the late Qing Dynasty.6.This paper summarizes the characteristics of missionaries' translation from three aspects: the source of content,the timeliness of content,the advantages anddisadvantages of content,and collates the evaluation of missionaries' translation by Ye Qisun,Wang Bing and Hu Huakai.Comparing with the textbooks translated from Japan in the late Qing Dynasty,it is concluded that the contents of the syllabus are similar and the scope of knowledge of the professors is basically the same.The works of missionaries are not as elegant as those of Japanese textbooks,which are well-printed,well-written and have a strong sense of hierarchy.To sum up,the work of missionaries in translating modern western science and technology books into Chinese promoted the Enlightenment of scientific thought in the late Qing Dynasty,played a decisive role in the birth and development of Chinese physics education and had a far-reaching impact.