As you know, from the end of the 16th century on, Jesuit missionaries in China aimed at the Christianization of this country. The transmission of western scientific knowledge was one of their long-term strategies. We have much understanding of the transmission of astronomy, mathematics and technology from Europe to China, so that we know how such kind of European knowledge changed the traditional Chinese knowledge system, and interacted with traditional system. Having made a deeper investigation of transmission of mechanics, we found out another phenomenon which is different from that in the fields of astronomy and mathematics. European mechanical knowledge was transmitted into China through the following three channels: (1) Ballistics related to firearm-making. (2) Mechanical theory concerning construction of machines. (3) Mechanical explanations of astronomical instruments.
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