地球观念的传入及其对中国计量发展的影响

The Introduction of the Earth-Globe Theory into China and Its Influence upon the Development of Chinese Metrology

明末清初，传教士将西方地球学说传入中国，并将其对地球学说的论证也一道传入了中国，从而使地球学说在中国扎下根来。地球学说使中国人意识到地球本身有着某种不变性，可以为人们提供稳定的长度基准。虽然中国人并未在实践中以地球经线弧长的一部分作为长度基准，但却在地球观念的影响下，开展了全国性的地图测绘工作，并在中国历史上创造性地提出了依据地球纬度变化推算距离以测绘地图的设想。地球学说还使中国人接受了地方时观念，并对浑仪做了相应改革，从而促进了时间计量的发展。

Toward the end of Ming Dynasty and in the early Qing Dynasty, missionaries introduced into China the theory that the earth is a globe and their demonstrations of why the earth is a globe. Since thenthe theory has taken root in China. The concept of earth-globe helped Chinese to realize that the earth is somewhat unchanging so it provides some stable standard for length measurement. Though ancient Chinese didn＇t take a part of meridian as length standard in practice, they carried out the mapping of whole China and put forward an idea of using the change of latitude to measure distance so as to draw maps. Besides, the earth globe theory also made ancient Chinese adopt the concept of regional time and exerted influence on the making of armillary sphere then, which promoted the development of time metrology.