Chinese science and the 'Needham Question'

摘要

Don't worry if you have never heard of The Needham Question. Neither had I, until I read Simon Winchester's fascinating new book, The Man Who Loved China: the Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom (Harper Collins, New York, NY, 2008). You have probably heard of the book's author, the British writer Simon Winchester, who also wrote The Professor and the Madman and The Map That Changed the World. I heartily recommend both those books, too. But what about the Needham Question? Dr. Joseph Needham (1900-1995) was a highly regarded English biologist who became an explorer and diplomat and, much influenced by his lifelong Chinese mistress, also became fascinated by the rise and fall of Chinese science. Why did the country that developed the abacus, gunpowder, the magnetic compass and many other inventions, long before the Western countries, fail to capitalize on them? This is the Needham Question that Winchester examines through his highly entertaining biography of the wildly eccentric Cambridge University scientist.