How to Use the Popular Science Library; History of Science; General IndexServiss, Garrett Putman
History
How to Use the Popular Science Library; History of Science; General Index
Serviss, Garrett Putman
Popular science library; Science -- History
The Chinese appear to have been making similar progress to that of
the Babylonians about the same period. It would seem that both these
peoples were in contact with a similar but earlier cultured race in
central Asia. Although the early Chinese were a religious people, they
appear to have been more philosophical than the Babylonians. This
enabled them to make further progress in the abstract sciences. In
subsequent years they made rapid strides in the physical sciences, as
will be shown later.
The Egyptians came into prominence toward the end of the Babylonian
and Assyrian empires, and for many centuries played a great rôle in
developing civilization. The numerous benefits which they bestowed
upon the world by their researches in science and art are not fully
appreciated.
Early history pictures two great Asiatic races struggling for supremacy
in India. They were the Aryans, a fair-skinned people, and the
Dravidians, a colored people. The Aryans succeeded in displacing the
Dravidians in the great plains, upon which they settled and developed
large cities, important world commerce, and contributed great art works
and scientific and philosophical discoveries to the world's stores. The
Dravidians retired to the hill country, where their representatives
still live.
The minds of the various Indian peoples have always been strongly
philosophical. This led them to the development of numerous religious
sects and philosophical systems, and they made important mathematical
discoveries. While the scientific bent of the ancient Greeks was of a
concrete nature, which tended toward geometrical proofs for scientific
problems, that of the ancient peoples of India was toward numerical
symbolism and arithmetical proofs. We find that when the Greeks were
developing geometry the Indians were contributing to arithmetic and
algebra.
The Chinese closely resembled the ancient Indians in the philosophical
tendency of their minds; but, owing perhaps to the different conditions
under which they lived, they were more concrete in their ideas. They
also made progress in mathematics and developed medicine, chemistry,
metallurgy, and many of the sciences which were applied to commercial
and industrial uses. The progress made in mathematics in China was
transmitted to Egypt, and therefore to Europe, through India. Among
early Chinese discoveries in mathematics were methods of solving
numerical equations and the development of magic squares and circles,
which gave a great stimulus to studies in geometry and astronomy.
The Arabs, Greeks, and Romans took up the discoveries of the Asiatic
peoples, and the Egyptians enlarged them and passed them forward to
us. The Arabs solved cubic equations by geometrical means, perfected
the basic principles of trigonometry, and made great advances in
mathematics, physics, chemistry, and astronomy.
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