Multidimensional Empirical Study On The History Division Of Technological Sciences

As a middle tache between the fundamental science theory and practice of engineering technology, technological sciences are the bridges from science to production, the taches that link fundamental research and application development, and the main discipline bases of modern engineering technology education. They play a key role in modern science-technology system. The development of technological sciences is one of the worldwide focuses of specialists and scholars' attention. The study about the history division of technological sciences is in chaos, because the experts have various learning backgrounds, different meanings of understanding the concept of technological sciences, and they try to solve the problem from different point views. And this makes it difficult to grasp firmly the development law of technological sciences.As a sub-task of "Study on category defining, history division and development mode of technological sciences" which is sponsored by National Social Science Fund and presided over by Professor Qihua LIU, this dissertation, based on studying results from our team's research, adopts methods such as comparison study, history reviewing, statistical computing and scientific abstracting to deeply study the history division of technological sciences. By empirical analysis and systematical research, this paper combines qualitative analysis with quantitative analysis in order to get credible scientific conclusion and reveal the basic characters and laws of technological sciences developing.Firstly, according to the statistical phenomenon and analysis come from the time series curve of total technological sciences and time series curve of different-layer technological sciences drawn by our team, we preliminarily partition the development history of technological sciences from the Renaissance to the time when the source of statistics ends into three phases: 1440-1819, 1820-1914 and 1915-1987.Secondly, according to J.D.Bernal and some other experts' dissertations about the character of modern science, this paper, making reference to social operation of technological sciences, selects four dimensions: (latter-day) evolution of industry structure, background of basic science, engineering technology education and other social institutions.Then, in order to get theoretic foundations and facts about history division of technological sciences, we make system synthesis of four dimensions' typical characters in each three phases and diachronic comparison studies on the three aspects.Finally, based on the result come from empirical analysis, we find out: the phase of 1440-1819 is times of bud of technological sciences developing; the phase of 1820-1914 is times of institution establishment of technological sciences developing and the phase of 1915-1987 is times of mature of technological sciences developing.