Chapter 4 Li's Dilemma of Enterprise History Figures

In November 1942, Joseph Needham (Joseph Needham 1900-1995) set off from London for a four-month long-distance trip, and arrived in Chongqing, the accompanying capital, from Kunming. He was the curator of the "Sino-British Science Cooperation Museum".This is a well-developed and very handsome biochemist from the University of Cambridge in the UK. His interest in China and his blunt Chinese "with a Nanjing Mandarin accent" come from his student and Chinese lover Miss Lu Guizhen They were only married in 1989, when Needham was 89 years old and Miss Lu was 85 years old. The young biochemist Needham is also a member of the British Labor Party. He is very keen to participate in various political activities and is a passionate left-wing youth.He yearned for the revolution in the East, and at the same time was very curious about Chinese culture. Once, he asked three Chinese students who came to study in the UK, "I only saw Chinese people coming to study in the UK, but I didn't hear that Europeans went to the East to study. Is it because you don’t have science in China?” The student who was asked told him that the Chinese astronomer Zhang Heng’s “copper bird” observed the weather 1,000 years earlier than the European “wind bird”, and the Chinese doctor Hua Tuo was as early as 1700. He invented "Mabosan" and knew how to remove appendicitis years ago, and the mathematician Zu Chongzhi calculated the value of pi 1400 years ago, which is 1000 years earlier than Europeans.This dialogue was the beginning of Needham's real interest in China. In 1940, Joseph Needham drafted a "Cambridge Declaration", expressing his support for China's War of Resistance and his hope to promote cultural and technological exchanges between Europe and China. After this "Declaration" was sent to China, it greatly encouraged wartime Chinese government and intellectual circles.This eventually led to his trip to China.

From 1943 to 1946, Needham made eleven long-distance inspections in China, with a distance of about 30,000 miles.In an autobiographical essay "The Growth of an Honorary Taoist" written in the third person, he wrote, "During that chaotic period, the Chinese were too busy, poor, and undisciplined to pay attention to foreigners wandering about. Therefore he could Breaking into the often abandoned Confucian temples, monasteries, and Taoist temples alone, he fully appreciates the magnificent scenery of traditional buildings in the ancient trees and barren gardens. He freely experienced the life of Chinese families and markets, and saw a society waiting in collapse The sufferings experienced at the coming dawn.” Needham described himself as a “Santa Claus” who distributed test tubes, magnifying glasses, small generators, telescopes and various chemicals used in scientific experiments to people hidden in the west. , Chinese scientists with very harsh conditions.He also discovered the first printed "Diamond Sutra" in Dunhuang, and saw the subtlety and advancement of ancient Chinese water conservancy projects in Dujiangyan after the earthquake.It was during this process that he proposed a very famous "Needham's Grand Question" (Needham's Grand Question).

According to his observations, China before the 16th century was the most technologically advanced country in the world. The Chinese printed the first book indicating the date of publication in 868 AD, and invented the "magnetic guidance" compass in 1088 AD. , invented the trebuchet capable of throwing bombs in 1161 AD, and the tube's tidal phenomenon of the lunar cycle is exactly consistent with Aristotle's observations.However, Joseph Needham wondered: "Why did China lead the West in the development of science and technology for a long time, but modern science appeared in the West instead of China? In the last few hundred years, how will China's science and technology stagnate, so that it becomes of a humiliated and aging empire?"

This "difficulty" changed Needham's later life. From a biochemist to a world-renowned expert on the history of Chinese science, he published the first volume of "History of Science and Technology in China" in 1954. Seven volumes were published.In the Western academic world, he and American Fairbank are two admirable peaks in the study of Chinese issues. Needham found in his research that since China's technological inventions are mainly based on practicality, they often know about it but don't go deep into the reason.Compared with the West, behind many technological inventions in China, there is a lack of the special spirit in the history of Western science, that is, to explore the mysteries of the universe through mathematics over a long period of time and systematically.Therefore, although there have been many technological inventions in line with scientific principles in Chinese history, a set of systematic science with both practicality and practicality has not been developed.

Joseph Needham regarded the "modern science" formed by the western scientific community as the sea, and the "science" developed by all nations and cultures in ancient and middle ages was like many rivers, all of which ended up in this sea. The vivid idiom "Yu Hai" is used to describe this phenomenon.Obviously, he took "science" out of the overall context of culture and treated it as a special phenomenon.Not only that, he basically believes that the scientific traditions of China and the West have followed the same path, and today they have converged in "modern science".Joseph Needham believes that the "different paths" of Chinese science will not prevent the future from "returning" to "modern science".

Needham also examined the backwardness of Chinese science from the perspective of political system.He believes that China is the only country in the world that has centralized power for more than 2,000 years. Since Qin unified the six countries, a strict "feudal bureaucratic system" has been formed. The positive effect of this system is that China is very Effectively concentrated a large number of intelligent, well-educated people, their management made China orderly, and enabled China to develop science and technology based on holistic theory and practical research methods.For example, ancient Chinese astronomy has made great achievements, and its data are still of reference value today, and another example is the construction of the Grand Canal.The negative effect of this system is that it makes it difficult for new ideas to be accepted by society, and there is almost no competition in the field of new technology development.In China, the business class has never obtained the kind of rights that European businessmen have obtained, and the policy of "emphasizing agriculture and suppressing business" in the past dynasties has caused the suppression and lag of commercial activities.

The "Needham Dilemma", like all historical puzzles, is actually an open hypothesis with no conclusion.Its proposal not only allows people to examine the value of Chinese civilization from a new perspective, but also "accidentally" produces two effects. The lag of modernization found a historical excuse.The mistakes made by this generation always like to find reasons from the "inheritance" of the previous N generations, which is often a common problem of nations with a long history. In addition, the proposition of the "Needham Dilemma" itself has been questioned by many scholars.Yu Yingshi, a scholar of Chinese culture, pointed out that the so-called "Needham problem" can only be a "false problem".He believes that the exploration of natural phenomena in China and the West has been "different from each other" from the beginning, and we can use the word "science" to refer to all investigations on natural phenomena.But in fact, the two "sciences" of China and the West have the same name but different reality; the two cannot be measured or compared with the same standard.Yu Yingshi also used an analogy to say that although go and chess belong to the same "chess" category, they are two completely different games. There is no such thing as "leading" or "laggling" between Chinese and Western "science". If "Chinese science" advances along its original track, no matter how accelerated it is, it will not be reborn, and finally merged with Western "modern science" characterized by "mathematicalization".

Nathan Sivin, a professor of the history of Chinese science at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, has a similar view as Yu Yingshi. He believes that it may be difficult for us to find out the reasons for problems that have never happened in history. Appeared in China", it is better to study "why modern science appeared in the West". In fact, after entering the 20th century, understanding and reflection on "science" is one of the main propositions of China's modernization. During the May 4th Movement in 1919, the two "big banners" held high by young students were Mr. De ( Democracy), one is Mr. Sai (Science).In 1923, Hu Shi said: "In the past 30 years, a term has almost achieved the status of supreme dignity in China; no matter whether people who understand it or not, no matter who are conservative and reformers, they dare not openly express contempt or respect for him. The attitude of insulting. The term is 'science'." Lin Yutang wrote in "My Land and My People": "The Greeks laid the foundation of natural science, the Egyptians developed geometry and astronomy, and even the Indians Invented their own grammar, which is based on analytical thinking, but the Chinese failed to develop their own grammar, mathematics and astronomy were mostly imported from abroad...they only like moral clichés... What is lacking is such a scientific world view.” Needham’s work is just a historical continuation of these thoughts, and the conclusions he gave may not be important, but the problem itself is important.

Joseph Needham has been diligent throughout his life and has received numerous honors. He founded the Needham Institute of Cambridge University, and the Queen of England awarded him the title of "Criminal Advisor (CH)". In 1990, China's Purple Mountain Observatory named an asteroid "Needham". In 1994, he became the first batch of foreign academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.For more than half a year before his death, he was blind in one eye and could barely see in the other, but his thinking was still very clear. Every morning, he still symbolically insisted on going to work in the institute.The last time he left the office was on the evening of March 23, 1995, and the next day, he passed away in peace.

Before the age of 37, Needham did not know a single Chinese character. He was a top biochemical expert and was even called "the father of chemical embryos".His later experience made him an authority on the history of Chinese science and technology.It was his trip to China in 1942 that allowed him to truly enter China.He doesn't like people calling him Joseph Needham, or calling him "Ni Dehan", but insists on calling him "Needham".Before going to bed and when he got up early, he didn't wear Western-style pajamas, but a blue cloth gown. A student who listened to his lectures recalled that he was "a solid man with a very lively personality, wearing a gown of khaki cloth and wearing With the blue and white signs of Academia Sinica and Peking Research Institute...he likes to be called Mr. Li, and he talks clearly and quickly."