On The Impact Of Chinese Euclid's Elements On The Development Of The Late Ming Dynasty's Science And Technology(1607—1644)

In the late Ming Dynasty,a large number of missionaries came to China to preach their religion.The book of the Euclid's Elements was introduced to China as the means of missionary work.Through the study of this book,open-minded scholars of the late Ming Dynasty began to pay attention on logical thinking and improve their empirical research method to practical research methods.Under the influence of the Chinese Euclid's Elements,they translated and even written many geometry related books.These books are the evidence that the positive impacts of Chinese Euclid's Elements on the development of the late Ming Dynasty's science and technology.At present,much research has been going on in the academic community about the impact of the Elements on the Qing Dynasty and the later period,other than the late Ming Dynasty.Based on this background,this paper is going to systematically induce the impact of the Chinese Euclid's Elements on the development of late Ming Dynasty's science and technology through the late Ming's scholars' science and technology activities.This paper is divided into five parts.The first part is the first chapter,mainly discuss two kinds of transmission factor of the Chinese Euclid's Elements in the late Ming Dynasty,including obstructive factors and facilitating factors.And the impeding factors mainly contain late Ming's corrupt government,the eight-part essay examination,and scholars' rejection of western learning while the facilitating factors include the prosperity of late Ming's economic,the rise of the practical trend,and missionaries' strategy for doing missionary work with science and technology.The second part is the second chapter,mainly expound scholars' translation of the Chinese Euclid's Elements,including the translating process,scholars' translation's contribution,and scholars' work of promoting the Elements.The third and the fourth part are the third and fourth chapter,deeply research the impact of the Chinese Euclid's Elements on the development of the late Ming's science and technology.Firstly,under the influence,scholars translated many geometry books.Secondly,scholars compiled many science and technology books by applying the content of the Elements to their science and technology activities.Thirdly,the Chinese Euclid's Elements' impact on scholars' ideas of science and technology,including training their logical thinking ability,creating their demonstration spirit,helping them pay attention on objective law.The last part is the fifth chapter.This part is deeply discusses the historical value of the Chinese Euclid's Elements,including the breakthrough of the Elements to traditional mathematics,and the limit of translation and dissemination of the Chinese Euclid's Elements.