1. Chapter 6 Science and Technology
A Glimpse of Chinese Culture
Chapter 6
Science and Technology

4. 本章教学的目的
1. 熟悉中国古代科技成果;
2.了解现代中国科技成果;
3. 中西医效果探讨。

5. 本章教学的重难点
1. 四大发明、中医
2. 现代科学技术
3. 有关中西医讨论

6. 本章教学的时间安排 教师课堂讲解（60 minutes） 师生讨论 (10minues) 学生课件展示 (30minutes)
Ancient science and technology (35 minutes)
Modern science and technology achievements (25 minutes)
师生讨论 (10minues)
学生课件展示 (30minutes)

7. Ancient Science and Technology
The Four Major Inventions (15 minutes)
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) (10 minutes)
Other Impressive Ancient Inventions (10 minutes)

8. The Four Major Inventions
Compass
Papermaking
Gunpowder
Printing

9. Compass
The compass is a device showing geographic direction by using the earth’s magnetic field. It enabled trade and exploration in whole new ways.

10. Early in the Warring States period, while mining ores and melting copper and iron, Chinese people chanced upon a natural magnetite that attracted iron and pointed fixedly north.
Referred to as a "South-pointer", the spoon or ladle (长柄杓子) shaped compass is made of magnetic lodestone (天然磁石), and the plate is bronze. The circular center represents Heaven, and the square plate represents Earth.

11. A compass vehicle (指南车) was an ancient Chinese vehicle equipped with many gear wheels and a wooden figure that always pointed south no matter which direction the vehicle went. It’s an earlier and more primitive form of the compass.

12. Paper Making
Paper has been a major medium of recording, transmitting, and storing information in human civilization. The earliest characters were inscribed on bones, tortoise shells and bronze wares in the Shang Dynasty and later on silk, bamboo and wood.

13. Do you know the process of paper-making?
In the Eastern Han Dynasty, a court official named Cai Lun (蔡伦) used inexpensive materials such as bark, hemp (麻头), rags, fishnet, wheat stalks (麦杆) and other materials to make paper, known as Cai lun Paper (蔡侯纸).
The materials were soaked, cut into pieces, boiled with plant ash, washed, and grounded with a pestle in a mortar (杵和臼). The mixture was then poured evenly on a flat surface to dry, or baked to become paper. It was relatively cheap, light, thin, durable and more suitable for brush writing.

15. Bamboo Slips
The bamboo slip has been used as a book form for the longest time in Chinese history. It was the main writing tool before the invention of papermaking and the popularization of paper.

16. Gunpowder
Gunpowder was invented in China, not by people seeking better weapons or even explosives, but by alchemists (炼金术士) seeking the elixir (长生不老药) of immortality.

17. In the Yuan Dynasty, the method of making gunpowder was introduced to the Arab world and Europe, bringing a series of revolutions to weapon manufacturing, as well as to stratagem (战略) and tactics (战术) on the battlefield.

18. Printing
Printing, known as “mother of civilization”, was another great invention of the Chinese people.
It has a long history and includes block printing (雕版印刷) and movable type printing (活字印刷).

19. Block Printing was probably invented between the Sui and Tang dynasties. The process of block printing started with the cutting of wood into blocks, and then characters were engraved in relief (凸起) on the blocks. Ink was brushed on the engraved block and a white sheet of paper was spread across it and then brushed with a clean brush on its back leaving an image when the paper was removed.

20. The world’s oldest surviving book printed on paper is Vajra Sutra (《金刚经》).
It is the earliest woodcut illustration in a printed book.

21. Movable Type Printing involved engraving single words into pieces of clay, firing them until hardened and using them as permanent type. The type was then set into printing plates.

22. Traditional Chinese Medicine（TCM）
Traditional Chinese painting, Beijing Opera, and traditional Chinese medicine are known throughout the world as the three treasures of China.
Traditional Chinese medicine is very different from Western Medicine in its means of diagnosis, treatment and its composition of drugs and prescriptions.

23. Chinese practitioners of traditional medicine take a holistic approach to diagnosis. They consider the whole body of the patient: his/her diet, age, habits, emotions, life-style and living environment. They pay particular attention to the causes of the sickness rather than the symptoms.

24. Listening, smelling, inquiring, observing, and feeling the pulse (望、闻、问、切) are four diagnostic (诊断的) methods in traditional Chinese medicine.

25. There were a large number of great men of medical science and materia medica (草药学) in ancient China. How many do you know?

26. Bian Que (扁鹊), of the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Period, specialized in treating diseases of women and children and the five sense organs. He invented the four diagnostic methods.

27. Hua Tuo (华佗), of the Eastern Han Dynasty, specialized in medicine (内科), surgery (外科), gynecology (妇科) and pediatrics (儿科). He invented a general anesthetic Mafeisan (麻醉剂“麻沸散”) and a system of therapeutical (医疗的) exercises called “the Five-animal exercises” (五禽戏).

28. Zhang Zhongjing (张仲景), of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was the author of a famous medical works called On Disease (《伤寒杂病论》). The works consists of over 300 prescriptions and 200 medicines.

29. Li Shizhen (李时珍) of the Ming Dynasty, whose monumental masterpiece, Compendium of Meteria Medica (本草纲目), includes 1,892 medicinal substances, 11,096 prescriptions, and 1,162 illustrations.

30. Other Impressive Ancient Inventions
The ancient Chinese had brought many other fine inventions to mankind such as fireworks, the abacus (算盘) and silk.

31. Fireworks:
Fireworks were probably first made by stuffing gunpowder into bamboo sticks. It was commonly thought that explosions would scare off evil spirits and ghosts.

32. The abacus was an early form of a calculator
The abacus was an early form of a calculator. It is a frame with rows of beads on metal rods that are used for calculations.
Usually, it can be separated into two sections; two beads above, each representing 5 and five beads below, each representing 1, it was used for the four fundamental operations (加减乘除四则运算) of arithmetic (算术).

33. Silk: A few centuries ago, European traders trekked along the Silk Road for China’s exquisite (精致的) silk which only the Chinese knew how to make by rearing silkworms. It takes 40,000 silkworms to make just five and a half kilograms of silk.
Silk is cool to wear in hot weather and warm in cold weather.

34. Porcelain is made from coal dust and the fine, white clay called kaolin (瓷土). It is baked at 1200 degrees Centigrade while ordinary ceramics are baked at 500 degrees Centigrade. The first glazing color was blue from the mineral cobalt (钴).

35. Modern Major Scientific and Technological Achievements
Since 1949, science and technology in China has continued to develop rapidly, particularly in the last 20 years.

36. Atomic Energy（原子弹）
On June 30, 1958, China built its first heavy water reactor (反应堆) and cyclotron (回旋加速器), heralding (预示······的到来) China’s entry into the atomic age. The reactor generated 7,000-10,000 kw of thermal (热量的) power, and the cyclotron accelerated alpha particles, producing 25 million electron volts.

37. Nuclear and Hydrogen Bombs（氢弹）
On October 16, 1964, China exploded the first nuclear bomb in Lop Nur of Xinjiang, becoming the third country with atomic weapon capability after the United States and Russia. In June 1967, China successfully exploded the first hydrogen bomb.

38. Oil Production
With the discovery of the Daqing Oil Field in 1953, China became one of the major oil producing countries, with an annual production of over 100 million tons.

39. Synthetic Crystalline Bovine Insulin (合成结晶牛胰岛素)
On September 17, 1965, the the Bio-Chemical Institute of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), together with other institutes, synthesized the protein crystalline bovine insulin (人工合成蛋白质), after six years of work. It became the first in the world to do so.

40. First Man-made Satellite
China's space research started in the mid-1950s. In 1967, the China Space Technology Institute was established.
On April 24, 1970, China successfully launched its first man-made satellite: No.1 Dongfanghong.

41. Breakthrough in Goldbach's Conjecture（哥德巴赫猜想）
Chinese mathematician, Chen Jingrun (陈景润), achieved world recognition in 1977 with his calculation of "Gold Bach's conjecture".
He proved that any sufficient even number could be the product of a prime number plus at most two other prime numbers (abbreviated as 1+2). The conjecture had remained unresolved for over 200 years. It is commonly now referred to as “Chen’s Theorem (定律)".

42. Five-Stroke Code Computer Input Method （五笔字型汉字输入）
In August 1983, a revolutionary five-stroke code computer input method solved the problem of entering Chinese characters into computers. Thus, Chinese characters entered the information age.

43. Yuan Longping and Hybrid Rice （杂交水稻）
Yuan Longping’s (袁隆平) pioneering work in hybrid rice breeding and production techniques has revolutionized rice cultivation in China, establishing China's world leading position in hybrid rice research.

44. Shenzhou V (神州五号) and Shenzhou VI (神州六号)
Shenzhou V carried the first Chinese astronaut into space orbit and the country into the prestigious (有声誉的) space club pioneered four decades ago by the United States and the former Soviet Union. On October 17, 2003, after a landmark 14 orbit, 21-hour and 23-minute expedition, Yang Liwei returned to the Earth.
In doing so, Yang Liwei fulfilled his mission and realized a centuries-old dream cherished by all Chinese peoples.

45. On Oct, 17, 2005, the re-entry capsule of China's Shenzhou-VI spacecraft, carrying astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng after a five-day space expedition landed safely. The success of Shenzhou-VI manned spacecraft flight marks China’s major progress in the great journey of space exploration.

47. Discussion(10 minutes)
Chinese traditional medicine and Western medicine, which do you prefer?

48. Students’ PPT Presentation (30 minutes)
Group 1
Title
Participants
Presenter
Presentation (10 minutes)
Comments (5 minutes)
Group 2
Title
Participants
Presenter
Presentation (10 minutes)
Comments (5 minutes)

49. Exercises Discussion topic for next class:
What do you think the government should do to strengthen people’s physical ability?