胡大年《中国和爱因斯坦》出版- -
China and Albert Einstein
The Reception of the Physicist and His Theory in China, 1917-1979
Preface
Abbreviations
Prologue
1. Western Physics Comes to China
2. China Embraces the Theory of Relativity
3. Six Pioneers of Relativity
4. From Eminent Physicist to the "Poor Philosopher" (I)
5. Einstein: A Hero Reborn from the Criticism
Epilogue
Notes
Index
出版社介绍
China and Albert Einstein is the first extensive study in English or Chinese of China's reception of the celebrated physicist and his theory of relativity. Tracing the influence of Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century and Western missionaries and educators in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as they introduced key concepts of Western physical science and paved the way for Einstein's radical new ideas, Danian Hu shows us that Chinese receptivity was fostered by the trickle of Chinese students sent abroad for study beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and by the openness of the May Fourth Movement (1916-1923).
In a series of biographical studies of Chinese physicists, Hu describes the Chinese assimilation of relativity and explains how Chinese physicists offered arguments and theories of their own. Hu's account concludes with the troubling story of the fate of foreign ideas such as Einstein's in the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when the theory of relativity was denigrated along with Einstein's ideas on democracy and world peace.
China and Albert Einstein is an important contribution to Einstein studies and a landmark work in the history of Chinese science.
评论：
How and why was it that between 1917 and the mid-1920s the Chinese were able to absorb Einstein's relativity theories so swiftly, painlessly, and virtually without controversy? In this absorbing book Hu Danian provides us with cogent and elegant answers. As an added bonus, Danian Hu humanizes his study by his numerous and vivid mini-biographies of Chinese physicists at many levels of expertise. The attempt by the leading ideologues of the Cultural Revolution to force through a radical rejection of Einstein's relativity theories provides a grim and gripping coda to a remarkable story."
--Jonathan Spence, Sterling Professor of History, Yale University
Einstein in China is a novel and original contribution to the as yet seriously understudied but extremely important field, the history of science in modern China. It introduces a wealth of new information and greatly increases our knowledge about the reception and assimilation of Einstein's theory of relativity in China during the turbulent twentieth century. The study actually delivers even more, since by using relativity theory as a crucial example, Danian Hu explains some general features of the process of transplating modern science onto Chinese soil.
--Alexei Kojevnikov, University of Georgia
I greatly enjoyed reading this book. I believe it is a highly original contribution, certainly to my own field of the history of relativity. It is the first study of the reception of relativity theory into a society with little background in nineteenth-century physics, and it is likely to be the most important of such studies, given China's substantial contribution to twentieth-century physics. Einstein scholars and biographers will find it extremely useful.
--Daniel Kennefick, Einstein Papers Project, California Institute of Technology
摘选：
China and Albert Einstein
the reception of the physicist and his theory
in china 1917–1979
Danian Hu
harvard university press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England 2005
Copyright © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hu, Danian, 1962–
China and Albert Einstein : the reception of the physicist and his theory in China
1917–1979 / Danian Hu.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-674-01538-X (alk. paper)
1. Einstein, Albert, 1879–1955—Influence. 2. Einstein, Albert,
1879–1955—Travel—China. 3. Relativity (Physics) 4. China—History—
May Fourth Movement, 1919. I. Title.
QC16.E5H79 2005
530.11'0951—dc22 2004059690
To my mother and father
and
my wife
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xiii
Prologue 1
1 Western Physics Comes to China 5
2 China Embraces the Theory of Relativity 47
3 Six Pioneers of Relativity 86
4 From Eminent Physicist to the “Poor Philosopher” 130
5 Einstein: A Hero Reborn from the Criticism 152
Epilogue 182
Notes 191
Index 247
Acknowledgments
My interest in Albert Einstein began in 1979 when I was a student
at Qinghua High School in Beijing. With the centennial anniversary of
Einstein’s birth in that year, many commemorative publications appeared
in China. One book, A Collection of Translated Papers in Commemoration
of Einstein, in particular deeply impressed me and kindled in
me a passion to understand Einstein’s life and works. One of the two
editors of the book was Professor Xu Liangying, with whom I had the
good fortune of studying while a graduate student. I am deeply grateful
to Professors Xu and Dong Guangbi at the Chinese Academy of Sciences
for introducing me to the historical studies of modern physics
and for their continuous direction since 1987.
Carroll Pursell and Alan Rocke offered me an opportunity to study
with them in 1989 at Case Western Reserve University, where I also
learned much from Kenneth Ledford, Miriam Levin, and Katherine
Lynch. It was under Alan’s direction that I began to explore Einstein
and his relativity in China, a subject that was originally suggested to me
by Professor Horst Melcher in Potsdam, Germany. I offer my deep
gratitude to Alan for his inspiring advice and generous support, and to
Professor Melcher for his stimulating suggestion.
For many years it had been my dream to study with famous Einstein
scholars in the United States. That dream came true when I became a
graduate student of Professor Martin J. Klein, the senior editor of The
Collected Papers of Albert Einstein and an internationally renowned historian
of science at Yale University. Martin’s comments and advice were
very helpful at every stage of this book’s research and writing, for which
I owe Martin the deepest gratitude.
This work has demonstrated how much I have learned from two of
the best Sinologists, Beatrice S. Bartlett and Jonathan D. Spence. I was
originally trained as an engineer, and my knowledge of Chinese history
had been superficial and scanty. It is from them that I have learned
more about and understood more deeply my own motherland.
At Yale, I benefited from numerous scholars’ generous advice and
support. In particular, I wish to thank Frederic L. Holmes, Daniel
Kevles, John L. Heilbron, William Summers, Henry Turner, John
Warner, Alan Chodos, Jack Sandweiss, Charles Sommerfield, Helen
Siu, and Maria Trumpler. It is indispensable to have the assistance from
the following university staff: Pat Johnson, Gina Canali, Pat DeMeola,
Joanna Gorman, Ramona Moore, Susan Smith-Kemp, and the staff at
Yale’s libraries (especially Clara Chen, Calvin Hsu, and Mary Holder).
I thank Professor Erwin Hiebert of Harvard University, Dr. Daniel J.
Kennefick of Einstein Papers, and two anonymous referees for their
comments on an early manuscript.
I am deeply grateful to Brett Berliner, Liu Xiwen, Yang Jian, Zhang
Baichun, Randy Kidd, Chen Shunle, Qu Jing-cheng, Zhu Yuelin, Hu
Mingjie, Duan Zhiyong, Wang Qirong, and Dai Wusan for their invaluable
assistance.
Wei Yiling, daughter of the mathematician Wei Siluan, granted me
an interview in Chengdu, Sichuan, and provided me many invaluable
materials. Professors Yao Zhijian and Bai Suhua, two colleagues of Wei
Siluan, also accepted requests for interviews. Dr. Ru-Ling Chou,
daughter of the theoretical physicist Peiyuan Chou, kindly answered
questions and provided many materials. Professor Tsao Chang told me
much of his personal experience during the Cultural Revolution. I also
thank the following individuals for their generous assistance: Tu Tingquan
of Tongji University Archives in Shanghai; D. Seemel at the University
Archives, Humboldt–University of Berlin; Zhang Baosheng at
Beijing University Library; Cui Zongfu in Chengdu; Wang Qian and
Xu Zhengbang in Wuhan; and Yan Jiazhen, Wang Yuyao, Yin Yongqing,
Wang Bing and Liu Bing in Beijing.
x Acknowledgments
I thank the following libraries and archives for making their
materials available: in Israel, Albert Einstein Archives in the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem; in China, National Beijing Library, Beijing
University Libraries, the Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
in Beijing, Shanghai Municipal Library, Tongji University Library and
Archives in Shanghai, Sichuan University Library and Archives in
Chengdu; in Germany, the University Archives, Humboldt–University
of Berlin; in the United States, the Duplicated Einstein’s Archives in
the Special Collections at Boston University, the Library of Congress,
Niels Bohr Library at the American Institute of Physics, Yale University
Libraries and Archives, Harvard-Yenching Library at Harvard
University, Cornell University Libraries and Archives, California Institute
of Technology Libraries and Archives, and the East-Asian Library
at the University of California–Los Angeles.
Financial support from the following enabled me to complete this
project: John Clarke Slater Fellowship from American Philosophical
Society, Enders Fellowship and Research Grant from the Graduate
School, Cheng-Lee dissertation research fellowship and grant from the
Council for East Asian Studies, Sigerist Funds from the Program of
History of Medicine and Science, John Perry Miller Research Fund
from the Graduate School, the University Dissertation Fellowship from
Yale University, the Pacific Cultural Foundation, and the Center for
History of Physics of American Institute of Physics.
I am grateful to James F. Watts, Dean of the Division of Humanities
and the Arts, and to the History Department and the Asian Studies
Program at the City College of New York for reducing my teaching
load so that I could finish revising the manuscript. I also acknowledge
the warm interest and support of Michael Fisher and his assistant Sara
Davis at Harvard University Press. Last, but not least, I thank Tonnya
Norwood and Diane Riley for their careful and effective editorial work.
I dedicate this book to my parents, Zou Wan and Hu Ding, whose
love and support made this accomplishment possible. I thank my elder
brother Dayuan for his dedicated support. I thank my parents-in-law,
Ren Qiuping and Zou Pei, for their teaching and for their faith in me.
I thank my children, Victor and Agnes, for the tremendous joy they
gave me during the years working on this project.
My wife, Ying Zou, has supported me in pursuing my personal interest
in the history of science for nearly twenty years. We struggled to-
Acknowledgments xi
gether in Beijing, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New Haven, Baltimore, and
now New York City. With heroic patience and resolution, she not only
helped me make steady progress in my study, but also raised two wonderful
children. No words can fully express my deep gratitude to her, to
whom this book is dedicated as well.
xii Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
AEP Albert Einstein Papers, Special Collections, Mugar Library,
Boston University. Photocopy
BDRK Beijing daxue rikan (Peking University Daily), Beijing
CB Chen bao (Chenbao Daily), Beijing
CBFK Chen bao fukan (Chenbao Daily Supplement), Beijing
CHOC The Cambridge History of China (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992)
DFZZ Dongfang zazhi (The Eastern Miscellany)
DSB Charles C. Gillispie, ed., The Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 15 vols.
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970–1980)
FDXB-ZKB Fudan xuebao: ziran kexue ban (Journal of Fudan: Natural Science
Edition), Shanghai
GZ Gaizao (La Rekonstruo), Beijing
HSPS Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences
HSPBS Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences
KX Kexue (Science), Shanghai
MGRB Minguo ribao (Republic of China Daily), Shanghai
RMRB Renmin ribao (People’s Daily), Beijing
SNZG Shaonian zhongguo (Young China), Shanghai
Wuli Wuli (Physics), Beijing
XY Xueyi (Science and Arts), Shanghai
ZBTX Ziran bianzhengfa tongxun ( Journal of Dialectics of Nature), Beijing
ZBYT Ziran bianzhengfa yanjiu tongxun (Bulletin for the Study of Natural
Dialectics), Beijing
ZBZZ Ziran bianzhengfa zazhi ( Journal of Natural Dialectics), Shanghai
ZJXS Zhongguo jindai xuezhi shiliao (Historical Materials of Modern
Chinese School System)
ZJKJS Dong Guangbi, ed., Zhongguo jinxiandai kexue jishu shi (A History
of Modern Chinese Science and Technology) (Changsha, Hunan:
Hunan Education Press, 1997)
ZKS Zhongguo keji shiliao (China Historical Materials of Science and Technology),
Beijing
ZKY Ziran kexueshi yanjiu (Studies in the History of Natural Sciences),
Beijing
ZXKZ Zhongguo xiandai kexuejia zhuanji (Biographies of Modern Chinese
Scientists), 6 vols., ed. Zhongguo xiandai kexue jia zhuan ji bianji
zu (Biographies of Modern Chinese Scientists Editorial Group)
(Beijing: Kexue chubanshe [Science Press], 1991–94)
xiv Abbreviations
Prologue
It was one o’clock in the afternoon on August 18, 2002. Outside the
Beijing International Conference Center, hundreds of fans were waiting
in a line about three hundred meters long, so long that it snaked
around the building.
What were they waiting for? A popular concert? An exciting sports
game? Neither. They were there two hours early to grab better seats
for a scientific speech on the “M Theory,” a new space-time theory
about the universe. The speaker was Stephen W. Hawking, the brilliant
British theoretical physicist and expert in the general theory of relativity,
who is often called the contemporary or “live” Albert Einstein.
Hawking had come to Beijing to attend an international string theory
conference. His visit set off a “science storm” in the capital city:
more than 2,200 people crowded into the conference hall to listen to
his speech, “Brane New World.” More than two thousand free tickets
for the speech were handed out within a week; some ticket holders attempted
to make a profit by selling tickets for one thousand yuan each.
There was a special display in the city’s largest bookstore selling eight
books by or about Hawking, and more than two hundred copies were
sold each day. The Chinese president met with Hawking and lauded his
great contribution to science and mankind. Before coming to Beijing,
Hawking visited Hangzhou, a beautiful southern Chinese city near
Shanghai, where he also aroused intense public interest!1
The “Hawking craze” cannot but remind us of the “relativity craze”
eighty years before when the Chinese prepared for Einstein’s visit.
Since Hawking’s fame rests on his success in further developing Einstein’s
theory of relativity and his greatness is often measured in terms
of Einstein’s, it is not surprising that there are many striking similarities
between the two events. In fact, it is necessary to view the Hawking
phenomenon as part of the Chinese reception of Einstein and the theory
of relativity, which is the subject of this book.
The theory of relativity was introduced into China at the beginning
of the May Fourth movement (1917–1921), a period of great intellectual
revolution in Chinese history. The movement generated widespread
enthusiasm for Western science, creating favorable conditions
for the theory’s reception. As a result, the theory of relativity was quickly
accepted and widely disseminated, and Einstein became well known as
a great scientific hero and revolutionary. The acceptance of relativity
was a milestone in the history of modern Chinese physics, an achievement
based on the successful institutionalization and professionalization
of physics education and research in the 1920s and 1930s. Einstein and
relativity largely disappeared from the view of average Chinese in the
1940s. When both returned to public attention in the 1950s, after war
and revolution, the man and his theory were surrounded by a hostile
political atmosphere as a result of imported Soviet criticism. Such political
and ideological hostility intensified in the mid-1960s and climaxed
in the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). It was not until 1979
that the Chinese government officially and fully embraced this great
physicist and his work.
This book investigates how and why relativity was introduced to
China; it explores characteristics of the Chinese assimilation of relativity
in a series of biographical studies of Chinese physicists; and it examines
Chinese public reactions to Einstein and the theory of relativity
between 1919 and 1979. Based on both published and unpublished primary
source materials, the book demonstrates a significant Japanese influence
on the introduction of relativity to China. Moreover, it argues
that the absence in China of a tradition of research and education in
classical physics was crucial in the reception of the relativity theory: it
helped lead to a quick and unanimously positive reception in the 1920s
and 1930s. Finally, it shows that political and ideological interference in
the name of dialectical materialism led to increasingly disparaging pub-
2 Prologue
lic opinion on Einstein and relativity and eventually resulted in an
organized criticism movement during the Cultural Revolution. Although
this story focuses on one branch of theoretical physics, it exemplifies
the survival struggle of basic theoretical science and the violent
conflict between natural science and Marxist philosophy in twentiethcentury
China.
The book has five chapters. Chapter 1 surveys the gradual introduction
of Western physics during the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries,
which formed the basis and conditions for China’s reception of
the theory of relativity. Chapter 2 investigates how and why Einstein’s
theory of relativity was introduced into China and the relationship between
this introduction and broader Chinese intellectual developments.
The third chapter examines the careers of six representative physicists
to identify the characteristics of the Chinese assimilation of relativity.
The fourth discusses the changing representation of Einstein in the
decades between his introduction and the eve of the Cultural Revolution,
which mirrored the capricious social status of Chinese science and
scientists. The last chapter explores the criticism movement during the
Cultural Revolution to illustrate how China’s scientific development
was affected by the “guidance” of dialectical materialism.
Prologue 3
1
Western Physics Comes to China
In spring 1953, a graduate student in history wrote Albert Einstein
from California to request his opinion “on the question of science or no
science in China.” Einstein replied:
Development of Western Science is based on two great achievements:
the invention of the formal logical system (in Euclidean
geometry) by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery of the
possibility to find out causal relationship by systematic experiment
(Renaissance).
In my opinion one has [sic] not to be astonished that the Chinese
sages have not made these steps. The astonishing thing is that
these discoveries were made at all.1
Einstein stressed the fundamental significance of the “formal logical
system” in Euclidean geometry for the development of modern science,
a system that was absent in traditional Chinese mathematics. It
was not until the beginning of the seventeenth century that Matteo
Ricci, the Italian Jesuit, and his Chinese collaborator, Xu Guangqi, introduced
such a system into China. Other Jesuit scientists followed
Ricci’s lead and brought Western achievements in physical sciences to
China through translations. But this flourishing conduit of scientific
transmission was destroyed in the early eighteenth century, because of
the controversy over the Chinese rites of ancestor worship and public
homage to Confucius. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that
Protestant missionaries resumed the teaching of Western science in
China, a practice that was supported and expanded by the Chinese government
in the name of “self-strengthening.” Never before in China
had so many scientific books been translated and widely distributed as
in the late nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the humiliating defeat in
the Sino-Japanese War in 1894 clearly demonstrated the deficiency of
China’s reforms during the second half of the nineteenth century. Chinese
intellectuals therefore demanded thorough reforms and students
went overseas seeking effective ways to restore the wealth and power of
their motherland. In Japan, the United States, and Europe, these students
studied various subjects, many of them choosing science and
technology. When they returned home, they replaced foreign missionaries
as scientific teachers, translators, textbook writers, editors, and researchers.
Only then did modern Western science firmly take root in
China: physics became part of the regular school curriculum and China’s
first generation of physicists began to emerge.
This chapter surveys the gradual introduction of Western physics in
China during the scientific enlightenment period between the late sixteenth
and early twentieth centuries. It explores the contents, scope,
and the impacts of such an introduction, which formed the basis and
conditions for China’s reception of the theory of relativity in the early
twentieth century.
The Jesuit Introduction
Ricci and the Introduction of Western Science
On May 11, 1610, Matteo Ricci died of influenza in Beijing. At the request
of Jesuit Father Pantoja, Emperor Wanli allowed Ricci to be
buried in the capital city, which was an exceptional honor for a foreigner.
2 Some Chinese officials, however, protested to Ye Xianggao of
the Ministry of Rites, who had helped to arrange the honorific imperial
burial. “Since ancient times,” they argued, “no foreigner has ever been
granted burial by any Chinese emperor. Why should only Matteo Ricci
be treated more kindly?” Ye stood his ground: “Do you know any foreigner
as virtuous and knowledgeable as Ricci?” he countered. “His
6 CHINA AND ALBERT EINSTEIN
Jihe yuan ben (A First Textbook of Geometry) taught us much that was
never even mentioned by our ancestors. He thus rendered one of the
greatest contributions of all ages. If he had done nothing else, the mere
translation of Elements itself merits his royal burial.3
Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) arrived in China in 1582. As one of the
earliest Western missionaries in this East Asian Empire, Ricci struggled
to find the most effective way to carry out his work. Gradually he realized
that teaching Western science and technology could greatly enhance
his prestige and thus help propagate Christianity. Then Ricci
and one of his Christian converts, noted Chinese scholar Xu Guangqi,
decided to translate a Western scientific book to show Chinese scholars
the solid foundations of Western scholarship, and through that, they
sought to attract the Chinese to Christianity. Out of several choices, Xu
and Ricci decided that, “for the time being, it would be best to translate
the books of the Elements of Euclid.”4 They made the decision because
the great clarity of demonstrations in the Elements contrasted sharply
with traditional Chinese mathematics texts where everything “was
stated without proof.”5 In 1607, the Chinese translation of the first six
books of Euclid’s Elements was published, and the translation won Ricci
great respect in China.6
Ricci and Xu’s decision to translate Elements of Geometry turned out
to be an excellent one, because geometry played a significant role in the
birth of modern science in general and the rise of “new physics” in particular.
Geometry is the language with which one can understand the
universe. As Galileo Galilei stated:
Philosophy is written in this grand book—I mean the universe—
which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood
unless one first learns to comprehend the language and
interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the
language of mathematics, and its characters are triangle, circles,
and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible
to understand a single word of it; without these, one is
wandering about in a dark labyrinth.7
Geometry is also closely connected with mechanics; as Issac Newton
put it in his Principia, “geometry is founded in mechanical practice, and
is nothing but that part of universal mechanics.”8 In Albert Einstein’s
Western Physics Comes to China 7
opinion, “the formal logical system (in Euclidean geometry)” was one
of the two foundations of Western science.9 In China, as in the West,
Elements served as a crucial foundation for more advanced developments
in astronomy and mechanics.10
Ricci and Xu’s approach to the translation became the model for later
generations of missionaries. They translated Elements in a process
which was similar to that developed by Buddhist scholars in the fifth
century c.e., though on a smaller scale.11 First, Ricci gave direct oral
translations into Chinese, while Xu wrote out a first draft in literary
Chinese. Then Xu elaborated and polished the Chinese translation by
comparing it with the originals, again, through Ricci’s oral translations.
12
In addition to Euclidean geometry, Ricci introduced other Western
learning, such as optics and mechanics. His most important contribution,
however, was his academic preaching strategy, which inspired
many generations of Catholic and Protestant missionaries. Ricci’s contribution
to China’s scientific development was so significant that historians
regard his arrival in China as the beginning of China’s scientific
modernization.13
Since 1595 Ricci had been asking his superiors in Rome to send to
Beijing “a great mathematician” or, better yet, “an authentic astronomer,”
because he was repeatedly asked by his Chinese friends in
the government to rectify the Chinese calendar. If the Jesuits could correct
the Chinese calendar, argued Ricci, it “would enhance our reputation,
give us freer entry into China and secure us greater security and
liberty.”14 It took much longer than he expected to satisfy his request.
Nonetheless, more missionary-scientists did come to China in the seventeenth
century. Among them were two Germans, Johann Terrentius
(1576–1630) and Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1592–1666), both of
whom arrived at Macau in July 1619 and later played leading roles in
China’s calendrical reform project.15 The arrival of Terrentius, Schall,
and other Jesuit scientists was a turning point in the introduction of
Western scientific ideas in China. “In the history of intercourse between
civilizations,” wrote Joseph Needham, “there seems no parallel
to the arrival in China in the 17th century of a group of Europeans so
inspired by religious fervor as were the Jesuits, and at the same time so
expert in most of those sciences which had developed with the Renaissance
and the rise of capitalism.”16
8 CHINA AND ALBERT EINSTEIN
Following Ricci’s lead, Jesuit missionaries in China translated and
compiled 437 works between 1584 and 1790. Among the works produced,
131, or 30 percent, dealt with scientific subjects, including mathematics,
astronomy, physics, geology, biology, medicine, and military
science. Works in astronomy and mathematics weighed heavily in these
translations, many of which were part of the Chinese calendrical reform
project of the 1630s. Of the scientific texts, eighty-nine—or 68
percent—were astronomical works and twenty—or 15 percent—were
mathematical works.17 During this two-hundred-year period, however,
only a few physics works were translated; all of those were published in
the seventeenth century, and most dealt with optics and mechanics.18
Optical Instruments and Knowledge
In 1601, Ricci was finally granted admission to Beijing to present tributes
to the emperor. Among his thirty-six presents were two prisms,
which he called in Chinese ying wucai boli shi (glass stones that make
chromatic dispersion).19 This gift marked the beginning of the dissemination
of Western optics in China.20
The most important knowledge of optics introduced in the seventeenth
century involved the telescope. Galileo made his first telescope in
1609. Six years later, Father P. Emmanuel Diaz (1574–1659) described
Galileo’s telescopic discoveries in Chinese.21 Diaz did not, however,
mention Galileo’s name, nor did he offer any description of the telescope
itself. It was thus left to Adam Schall and his Chinese work, Yuanjing
shuo (The Telescope), to provide the Chinese with a full description of
the marvelous Galilean instrument and to show how to construct one.22
Schall received his education in Rome, where he entered the Jesuit
order in 1611. He arrived in Macau in July 1619 but did not enter
China until the late summer of 1622.23 Schall wrote Yuanjing shuo in
1626, with the assistance of Li Zubai, a Chinese official at the Imperial
Astronomy Bureau.24 The treatise, which demonstrated knowledge of
optics unparalleled in contemporary Chinese literature, described the
telescope’s functions, working principles, structure, and applications.25
Schall also discussed eyeglasses, lenses of various shapes, the principles
and nature of their image formations, the refraction of light in water,
lens making, and the use of optical equipment.26 Yuanjing shuo brought
mixed results in China: whereas the new knowledge in the treatise
Western Physics Comes to China 9
helped the Chinese to advance their own study in optics and to construct
their own telescopes, the erroneous diagrams of light paths in the
explanation and instruction left many unsolved puzzles and misled the
Chinese for many years. In this sense, it also hindered the progress
of optical studies in China.27 It was not until the nineteenth century
that Chinese scientists Zheng Fuguang (1780–c. 1853) and Zou Boqi
(1819–1869) corrected the omissions and errors in Yuanjing shuo through
their own studies on optics.
The telescope, nevertheless, soon became widely known and was
creatively used in mid-seventeenth-century China. Three years after
the publication of Schall’s treatise, the Chinese attempted to make their
own instrument. By 1631, Chinese astronomers had used a telescope to
observe a solar eclipse, and a Chinese technician, Bo Jue, had installed
one onto a cannon.28 By 1660 knowledge of the telescope must have
been widely circulated partly as a result of the dramatic role it played in
Li Yu’s (1611–1679) popular novel Shi er lou (The Twelve Mansions). In
Li’s comedic story, the telescope helped a talented young man to find
his ideal girl in the backyard of a wealthy official’s family mansion and
won her father’s consent to the proposed marriage. Li also described
other optical instruments, such as a microscope and eyeglasses.29
Father Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688), who succeeded Schall at the
Imperial Astronomical Bureau, introduced Western quantitative studies
on refraction in his Chinese work, Xinzhi lingtai yi xiang zhi (On the
Newly-Made Astronomical Instruments of Observatory), published in 1674.
However, he did not introduce the law of refraction. The sources for
Verbiest’s book were theoretical and experimental works on optics by
Claudius Ptolemy (c. 100–170), Ibn al-Haytham (c. 965–1040), and
Witelo (c. 1230–1275).30
Western Mechanics
Of all the gifts from Ricci in 1601, Emperor Wanli valued two mechanical
clocks the most. To keep these prized possessions working
well, Ricci was asked to teach court officials how to care for them. This
was China’s introduction to the West’s knowledge of mechanics.31
A more substantial introduction of Western mechanics, however, began
in 1627 when Terrentius and Wang Zheng (1571–1644) published
Yuanxi qiqi tushuo (Illustrated Description of European Mechanical Con-
10 CHINA AND ALBERT EINSTEIN
trivances). Terrentius was a brilliant scientist with expertise in astronomy
and mathematics. He had connections with two of the best contemporary
scientists in Europe, namely Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) and
Johannes Kepler (1571–1630). Terrentius was elected as the seventh
academician of the Accademia dei Lincei, only eight days after Galileo,
and he maintained regular correspondence with Kepler even after he
arrived in China.32 Wang Zheng, a native of Shannxi Province, was a
distinguished scholar and a Christian convert. Wang earned his Juren
and Jinshi degrees at the age of twenty-four and fifty-two respectively,
and was fond of and had an aptitude for designing and producing mechanical
devices even before his acquaintance with Jesuit missionaries.33
Terrentius and Wang’s book was probably the first important Chinese
translation of Western theories of mechanics. The book was a
compilation based on four originals: Galileo’s Discourse on Bodies in
Water (1612) and On Mechanics (1600), and works by Simon Stevin
(1548–1620) and Agostino Ramelli (1531–1590).34 Despite its misleading
title, two-thirds of the book focused on elementary treatises on mechanical
powers; it also introduced the history and advantages of the
mechanical science.35 The book contained four parts. Part I was about
basic principles of mechanics and their applications. In this section,
Terrentius discussed terrestrial gravity, centers of gravity, the calculation
of centers of gravity for various geometric figures, the relation between
stability and the center of gravity, specific weight, and buoyancy.
Part II described the principles and calculations for treating simple machines,
such as the balance, steelyard, lever, pulley, screw, inclined
plane, and so on. If the first two parts involved theories of mechanics,
the third part dealt with the applications of these theories. To this end,
Terrentius and Wang discussed and illustrated fifty-four mechanical
devices. The fourth part of the text contained illustrated descriptions
of machines invented or made by Wang.36 In short, the volumes assembled
Western knowledge of mechanics and machinery from Archimedes
to Galileo.37
In the 1670s, Ferdinand Verbiest translated Yan qi tushuo (Illustrated
Explanations of the Air-Thermometer) (1671) and Xinzhi lingtai yixiang
zhi (On the Newly-Made Astronomical Instruments of Observatory) (1674).
The former described the construction and application of the airthermometer
and was the first work in China discussing European
quantitative thermometers. The latter described, in sixteen volumes, the
Western Physics Comes to China 11
manufacture, installation, and use of six new astronomical instruments.
In fact, Xinzhi lingtai yixiang zhi (Yixiang zhi hereafter) included Yan qi
tushuo as one section in its fourth book. The first four volumes of Yixiang
zhi discussed physics, such as the strength of materials, specific weight,
centers of gravity and stability, simple machines (levers, pulleys, wheels
and axles, and screws), the pendulum, the quantitative thermometer,
and the hygrometer. Here the discussions of the pendulum and the
quantitative thermometer made their first appearance in Chinese literature.
38 The sources of the physics in Yixiang zhi included Galileo’s On
Mechanics and Two New Sciences (1638), as well as works by Santorio
Santorre (1561–1636) on the use of the thermometer.39
Jesuits and China’s Calendrical Reform
The most significant work the Jesuits conducted in China during the
seventeenth century was to help reform the traditional calendar and to
compile the Chongzhen Lishu (Eternal Calendar of Emperor Chongzhen).
The compilation of Chongzhen Lishu was completed in 1635 and was
the largest scientific project in seventeenth-century China. Chongzhen
Lishu was not just a new calendar; it was “a monumental compendium
of the scientific knowledge of the time,” containing 137 volumes, onethird
of which dealt with astronomical theories.40 This is why astronomy
dominated in the translated works by Jesuits during this period: 89
astronomical texts out of 131 scientific translations. These translated
works contained much about the theories and methods of Western astronomy,
emphasizing the works of Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Tycho
Brahe, which were among the principal sources of the European scientific
revolution, and which eventually led to the birth of the “New
Physics,” the Newtonian mechanical system.41
In the Lishu Tycho was one of the two most frequently mentioned
Western astronomers (the other was Ptolemy). In fact, the new calendrical
system was based on the Tychonic system,42 even though that
system had never been very popular in the West. The Lishu also briefly
referred to Copernicus’s heliocentric system and included eleven translated
chapters from Copernicus’s De Revolutionibus and quoted seventeen
out of twenty-seven of his observation records. However, only the
Tychonic system was considered correct.43 The Lishu even introduced
Kepler’s ideas on the mechanism of the astronomical motions. It de-
12 CHINA AND ALBERT EINSTEIN
scribed how the Sun acts upon the planets like a magnet acts upon iron.
The Lishu also referred to Kepler’s book, The New Astronomy, but did
not adopt the most important aspect of Kepler’s work, the first and second
laws of planetary motion. The absence of the two laws clearly indicated
that the compilers did not want to choose the heliocentric system
as the foundation for the Chinese calendar. Kepler’s laws were eventually
introduced into China by Ignatius Kogler (1680–1746) only after
1742 in an ingenious but incorrect form. According to Kepler’s first
law, planets move around the Sun in elliptic orbits and the Sun sits in
one focus of each ellipse. Because Kogler and his Chinese collaborators
did not want to break with the imperially approved Tychonic system,
they changed Kepler’s first law and put the Earth instead of the Sun at
the focus and let the Sun orbit around the Earth. Despite its mathematical
equivalence to Kepler’s original law, this upside-down version of
Kepler’s first law cannot be applied to planetary motions at all, because
the Earth is not a common focus for the planetary ellipses.44 Since what
concerned the Chinese were the Sun and the Moon’s motions and their
eclipses, rather than general planetary motions, they either did not realize
or ignored the consequences of Kogler’s mistake.
An Interruption
Among the 131 scientific works rendered into Chinese by Jesuits between
1584 and 1790, 120 (92 percent) were completed in the seventeenth
century. Only ten (four for mathematics and six for astronomy)
were translated in the eighteenth century. Not only were fewer scientific
works published in the eighteenth century, but the total number of
Jesuit publications also declined from 369 in the seventeenth century to
55 in the eighteenth century.45 This dramatic drop in publications was
largely a consequence of the so-called “controversy of rites.” Although
Emperor Kangxi issued an edict in 1692 granting toleration to the
Christian religion, he also insisted that Chinese converts be able to
continue to practice the Chinese rites of ancestor worship and public
homage to Confucius. When Pope Clement XI and his emissary in
China bitterly disagreed with the emperor’s stipulation and forbade
Catholic missionaries to acquiesce, the emperor ordered the expulsion
of all missionaries who refused to accept his position. Both sides suffered
in the controversy.
Western Physics Comes to China 13
This mutual hard line wrecked the power base of the missions in
China and effectively prevented the spread of Western teaching
and science. Had either side been more flexible, then later in the
eighteenth century, when the Catholic church accepted the findings
of Galileo and the missionaries started to introduce up-todate
Western astronomy to the Chinese, the new knowledge and
techniques might have led to significant changes in Chinese attitudes
about thought and nature.46
After Kangxi died in 1722, his son Emperor Yongzheng (r. 1723–
1735) and grandson Emperor Qianlong (r. 1736–1795) carried on an
even sterner policy toward Catholic missionaries. According to Emperor
Yongzheng’s edict, all missionaries in China, except for the few
on duty at the court in Beijing, were ordered to stay in Canton or
Macao.47 Thus from the 1720s to the 1840s, Western missionaries were
virtually banned from most areas of China.48 Only after the first Opium
War (1839–42) could missionaries, supported by Western military powers,
set foot once again in mainland China. This time, however, it was
Protestants, not Jesuits, who would play the key role in disseminating
Western science in China.
Scientific Translations in the 1800s
Robert Morrison (1782–1834) was the first Protestant missionary to
China, arriving in 1807; however, the Protestants did not contribute to
the cause of scientific translation until forty years later. Protestant missionaries
initially made few contributions to science in China, because
there were almost no scientific works among the Protestant publications.
49 In fact, Protestants had little influence on mainland Chinese in
general because of the ban on foreign missionaries at this time. Protestants
were thus forced to concentrate their missionary work among the
overseas Chinese on Southeast Asian islands such as Malacca, Singapore,
and Batavia. Meanwhile Protestants attempted to contact the
Chinese in Guangzhou, Macao, and Hong Kong, but the occasional
distribution of religious publications by a few missionaries in limited
areas made little impression on Chinese literati.50
The situation for Protestants and other foreign missionaries in
China changed sharply in the 1840s. Defeated in the first Opium War
14 CHINA AND ALBERT EINSTEIN
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