| Sheng Xue was a translation on acoustics which was published in the Late Qing Dynasty. It played an important role on the Chinese History of Physics and Scientific Dissemination in modern times.The book was translated cooperatively by John Fryer and Xu Jianyin, the former dictated, who was a famous Britain missionary, while the latter recorded and polished, who was a renowned scholar and project expert of the Qing Dynasty. In 1874,first of all it was published by Shanghai Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau. It's original English edition was the second edition of Sound:A Course of Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, printed in 1869. Its author was John Tyndall (1820—1893) who was a well-known physicist of UK in 19 century. Little has been studied on the work up to now, thus this thesis will do an overall research on the work and the academic problems related to it.The main points in the thesis are as follows:Firstly, it introduces the background of the era, the general information to the original author and translators.Secondly, on the basis of clearing up and comparing with Chinese and English edition, it summarizes contents of each volume, for example,"production and propagation of sonorous motion","production of musical sounds","vibration of strings"and"the tones of pipes"etc. Then, it gives some detailed introduction to Doppler effect, Chladni's figures, Lisajous'figures and so on, which are the main knowledge of the book.Thirdly, it sums up and analyses the professional terms of the book. At the same time, it has provided a comparative analysis on some important concepts, theories and experiments, which are chosen from the Chinese and its English version. It evaluates the translation level of Sheng Xue. Meanwhile, it lists the cross -reference table of English and Chinese, which is the main vocabulary of terms from Sheng Xue, making reference to the translating rules of terms and concepts in the Late Qing Dynasty.Fourthly, it makes a comparison with the book and other scientific books or magazines, which were translation of the same field in the late Qing Dynasty, to find some creative fruits and the effect on later works.Finally, it researches on the spread of Sheng Xue in China in the late Qing Dynasty, and does a preliminary analysis of it's social influence. |
