A Study On The Physical Knowledge In The Chinese Scientific And Industrial Magazine

The Sino-British Opium War in 1840 caused the backward China society to have many tremendous changes. Western science and technology was also spreaded to China accompanied with the formidable imperialistic ships and artilleries. Through the War, the Chinese people gradually realized its own backwardness and the need to study western science. People at this time in order to save the nation survival, had carried on a massive Westernization Movement. While learning western advanced science and technology, the technical periodical played the vital role. In 1876, the Chinese first scientific journal the Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine was published in Shanghai, which chief editor was at that time a well-known British scholar Fryer. He devoted to introducing the western scientific and technological knowledge to China, hoping that China can"be popular the literary charm broadly and make the China and the West consistently in science and technology". The Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine had the function which cannot be written off in the popularization scientific knowledge and the dissemination spirit of science aspect. Through it, Fryer popularized the physical aspect's knowledge to the immensity reading public and founded the beginning of our country popularization science and technology and the physical knowledge. At present there still had not discovered that some people had the systematical studies on physical content in the Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine. So this article took the physics content in the Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine as the objects of study, conducting the research from the following three aspects:First, on the basis of previous studies, this article concluded and summarized the opening background, the reason, chief editor and other editor's situation, the primary coverage, the relations with the Peking Magazine, as well as the reasons of several suspension, at the same time put forward my own viewpoint. Second, for the first time the author carried on systemic analysis reorganization to the knowledge related with physics in the Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine. In the physics aspect, it showed separately the knowledge of material shape, motion of matter, gravitation and so on, mainly explained the electricity principle, optics principle, but also introduced some mechanical devices related with the physics. Specially it for the first time concentrated to explain the scientific instrument's use, the operation and the price, which promoted our country's scientific experments and physics development.Third, the auther separately explained the influence of the Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine to the late Qing Dynasty in physics in mass media dissemination, to the physics education and the modern science and technology periodical. The Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine had huge impact in the late Qing Dynasty, largely because the periodical disseminationed broadly and had strengthened effectiveness and purpose.Through comprehensive studied physics contents in the Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine, we may see the physics knowledge accounted for large proportion in the entire content, therefore the physics content in the entire periodical's status should not be overlooked. In the Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine the language is simple to understand, and is abundant and elegant, so it is easy accepted by the reading public. The article introduced consciously the scientific elementary knowledge and improved the ordinary populace's scientific quality. The Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine disseminated these new, rich scientific and technological knowledge which had the scientific initiation function truly to the Chinese, which affected and changed the part China intellectual's idea and thought imperceptibly.