From Chooz to the Ling'ao NPP:The Technology Transfer of Pressurized Water Reactor Technology from France to China

The transfer of pressurized water reactor(PWR)technology from France to China is an important event in the history of Sino-French scientific and technological relations.China has gradually achieved self-reliance in the field of PWR technology through the introduction and subsequent absorption of France's 900 MW reactors.Compared with the process of introducing and absorbing similar technology from the United States by France,China's experience has been more complicated.This circumstance reflects the differences in the nuclear power technology systems between the two countries.France's industrial strength and early acquisition of nuclear power technology laid a solid foundation for mastering PWR technology.On the other hand,although China established a weak foundation through the implementation of the"728 Project,"and tried hard to negotiate with France,the substantive content of the technology transfer was very limited.By way of the policy transition from"unhooking of technology and trade"to"integration of technology and trade,"China ultimately accomplished the absorption and innovation of PWR technology through the Ling'ao NPP.

The Philosophy of He(和):Examined from the Perspectives of Technology and Culture

Pre-modern Chinese crafts,such as iron smelting,cookery,medicine,and the production of vehicles,bows,and arrows indicate the traditional Chinese view of technology as being organic,holistic,and comprehensive.This view of technology is guided by the concept of he(和)and employs the means and methods of he,thus achieving the purport of he.In Chinese,the character he(和)possesses positive connotations.It originated from the meaning of"to season;to add flavoring to"(调和)and that of flavors being"perfectly harmonious"(和美).From this sensory experience,he gradually extended to the abstract levels of materiality,humanity,sociality,"order"(wei位),and "power,situation,force"(shi势).Finally,he was elevated to the supreme level of"qi of great harmony"(taihe zhi qi太和之气),which is comparable to the concept of dao(道).The philosophy of he has exerted wide impact on such areas as technology,art,national character,cultural psychology,and behavior patterns,and has become an integral part of China's inherent culture.The paradoxes and deviations of he hold their own profound philosophical implications that merit further exploration.As humanity confronts significant challenges,such as how we can coexist with others,with technology,and with nature,the ancient Eastern wisdom embodied in he continues to possess practical characteristics and value.

Regulations for the Manufacture and Control of Live Poliovirus Vaccine: International Experience and China’s Path

The eradication of poliomyelitis is a landmark achievement in the history of public health, providing strong protection for children’s health. The introduction of the Chinese Regulations for the Manufacture and Control of Live Poliovirus Vaccine is a prerequisite and safeguard for the large-scale production and use of domestically produced live poliovirus vaccines, serving as an indispensable component of vaccine safety. This article, based on archival documents, letters, collections of essays, and oral interviews, examines the historical experience of the development of Chinese Regulations for the Manufacture and Control of Live Poliovirus Vaccine. It contends that the emphasis on localization and the active engagement in international cooperation are critical factors in the swift introduction of Chinese Regulations for the Manufacture and Control of Live Poliovirus Vaccine.

The Research Center for the History of Science and Technology Inaugurated at Nankai University

The day June 23,2021 bore witness to the inauguration of the Research Center for the History of Science and Technology(RCHST) of Nankai University(NKU) and the signing ceremony of a cooperation agreement between the Institute for the History of Natural Sciences(IHNS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and NKU in Tianjin(Figure 1).

“Tasks”versus“Disciplines”:The Comprehensive Surveys of Natural Resources by the Chinese Academy of Sciences,and the Politics of Science Policy in the People’s Republic of China

As soon as the Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS)was founded by the new government of the People’s Republic of China in 1949,the principles of“linking theory with practice”and“conducting research to serve the people”set the framework for its scientific studies.How to balance their obligations to facilitate national economic construction with their desires to advance disciplinary scientific developments posed a knotty problem that frustrated those who organized and engaged in scientific research across the country,and in the CAS in particular.Against this background,the slogan“let tasks lead disciplines”was proposed as an effective solution.However,how exactly to put this into practice became a pressing issue,as CAS scientists and scholars debated the relationship between tasks and advances within scientific disciplines.This paper examines these debates as they were carried out in the case of the comprehensive surveys of natural resources organized by the CAS,focusing especially on different understandings of the relationship between“tasks”and“disciplines”within the CAS in the early 1960s,and examining the impact and legacy of“letting tasks lead disciplinary developments,”with possible lessons for the formulation of scientific plans today.

The Sixth Forum on History and Heritage of Technology in China Held in Hangzhou

On June 4 and 5,the Sixth Forum on History and Heritage of Technology in China was held at China National Silk Museum(NSM)in Hangzhou.The forum was hosted by the Specialized Committee for the History of Technology and other specialized committees of the Chinese Society for the History of Science and Technology,and co-organized by NSM.The Institute for the History of Natural Sciences(IHNS),Chinese Academy of Sciences,also helped with the organization.

The Introduction of European Fortification in the Late Ming Period

In the late Ming period,Xu Guangqi and other Catholic literati were actively involved with military affairs because of the invasion of the Manchu forces and the threat of uprisings.The story of how they imported European cannons and gunners from Macao is now quite famous.However,the introduction of European fortifications,mainly the trace Italienne,in the same period is still relatively unknown.Xu Guangqi and his student Sun Yuanhua exerted considerable efforts in advocating European-style bastions.Xu not only received help from Jesuits,but also support from some Fujianese who were familiar with Intramuros,the Spanish walled city of Manila.In addition to Xu and Sun,Han Lin and Han Yun(also Xu’s students)prepared a Chinese treatise on European fortification architecture based on Italian sources and tried to put the knowledge into practice.Another relevant figure is Ma Weicheng,who allegedly directed the building of 32 angled bastions in three cities around 1640.Although a few recorded writings and practices of constructing European-style fortification appeared in the first half of the seventeenth century,soon afterwards the art of trace Italienne met its end prematurely in China.To a great extent,the swift collapse of the Ming dynasty eliminated the possibility of spreading the new defense technology.Throughout the eighteenth century,the Qing dynasty enjoyed long-term peace,and the warfare at the frontiers brought few threats to the city walls.There was thus little urgency to develop innovative defensive works and European fortification sunk into oblivion until the mid-nineteenth century.

Transnational Mathematics and Movements: Shiingshen Chern, Hua Luogeng, and the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study from World War II to the Cold War

This paper reconstructs,based on American and Chinese primary sources,the visits of Chinese mathematicians Shiing-shen Chern陈省身(Chen Xingshen)and Hua Luogeng华罗庚(Loo-Keng Hua)4 to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in the United States in the 1940s,especially their interactions with Oswald Veblen and Hermann Weyl,two leading mathematicians at the IAS.It argues that Chern’s and Hua’s motivations and choices in regard to their transnational movements between China and the US were more nuanced and multifaceted than what is presented in existing accounts,and that socio-political factors combined with professional-personal ones to shape their decisions.The paper further uses their experiences to demonstrate the importance of transnational scientific interactions for the development of science in China,the US,and elsewhere in the twentieth century.

Greek Texts and the Rigorization of Analysis:An Inquiry into J.L.Lagrange's Work on the History of Mathematics

This paper offers a study of J.L.Lagrange's research on history of mathematics,aiming to clarify Lagrange's intention in carrying out historical work.To this end,I first document how Lagrange worked with and exerted his influence on other scholars in the translation and diffusion of ancient Greek texts.Second,investigating Lagrange's style in doing and writing history of mathematics,this paper takes a new perspective and elucidates his motivation in these activities.In particular,it focuses on Lagrange's presentation of the history of calculus while he was teaching analysis at the Ecole Polytechnique(1795-1799)so as to clarify the function of history in Lagrange's mathematical works.My thesis is that Lagrange's intention in examining the different methods employed by his predecessors was to find inspiration and useful contents in his search for the proper approach to mathematical problems.I thus argue in this paper that history served as a guide or methodology for Lagrange's mathematics.Meanwhile,through an analysis of his historical writing,this paper points to four epistemological values according to which Lagrange judged various historical methods of differential calculus:generality,simplicity,clarity,and rigor.Lagrange's move to rigorize analysis was connected to his interest in and research of Greek texts;he was attempting to introduce the rigor of the ancient Greeks'demonstration in his works of analysis.

Editorial for Chinese Annals of History of Science and Technology

Chinese science and technology have interacted with other cultural traditions,both directly and indirectly,for thousands of years.The ongoing discussions of“Silk Road,”or rather“Silk Roads”are emblematic of knowledge dissemination and the global connectivity of Chinese society.Modern Chinese science and technology can be understood as the product of practical,technical and theoretical knowledge developments in China,and an exchange with Western learning and other knowledge traditions.The distinctive history of Chinese science and technology can help us to understand how science and technology emerges and evolves and how it is communicated in globalization processes.Historical sources and new archaeological discoveries in China have been intensively studied since the beginning of the twentieth century.The results of this research,however,have been published mainly in Chinese,so that the vast majority of results and historical data remain unknown to the international community.

The Development and Innovation of the First Supercomputer YH-1 in China:From the Perspective of Technology History

China’s first supercomputer capable of 100 million calculations per second was the YH-1,which was independently developed by the Institute of Computer Science at the National University of Defense Technology(NUDT)between 1978 and 1983.YH-1 played an important role in China’s national defense construction and national economic development.It made China one of the few countries in the world to successfully develop a supercomputer.Based on original archive documents,interviews with relevant personnel,and an analysis of the technological parameters of the supercomputers YH-1 in China and Cray-1 in the United States,this paper reviews in detail the historic process of the development of YH-1,analyzing its innovation and summarizing the experience and lessons learned from it.This analysis is significant for current military-civilian integration,and the commercialization of university research findings in China.

International Symposium on China and the World in the Global History of Science and Technology, Held in Beijing

The International Symposium on China and the World in the Global History of Science and Technology was held by the Institute for the History of Natural Sciences(IHNS),Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS),from May 30 to June 1,2017 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the IHNS,as well as to promote transnational communication among scholars specialized in history of science and technology and to foster developments in this field.Twenty-eight leading historians of science and technology from the Chinese mainland,Germany,the United States,Britain,Russia,France,Korea,Estonia,Hong Kong and Taipei gave lectures on various topics including the relation between Chinese science and technology and world civilization,and new perspectives and methodologies in studies on history of science and technology.More than 140 scholars attended the symposium.

A Symposium on the Transfer of Scientific and Technical Knowledge between Europe and China during the Early Modern Period Held at the Sino-German Center for Research Promotion

Asymposium on the“Transfer of Scientific and Technical Knowledge between Europe and China during the Early Modern Period”was jointly held by the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen in Germany and the Institute for the History of Natural Sciences,Chinese Academy of Sciences(IHNS-CAS),in China,funded by the Sino-German Center for Research Promotion,from March 29 to April 2,2019.More than fifty scholars from China,Germany,the Netherlands,and other countries and regions attended the symposium and engaged in extensive discussions.Twenty-four of these scholars delivered speeches.

HMM 2018-The Sixth International Symposium on History of Machines and Mechanisms

The Sixth International Symposium on History of Machines and Mechanisms was held in Beijing on September 26–28,2018.It was hosted by the Permanent Commission for History of Mechanism and Machine Science,International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science(IFToMM)and organized by the Institute for the History of Natural Sciences,CAS.

Review on the Collation of Premodern Chinese Sources on Science and Technology

As a long-standing ancient civilization with a history of several thousand years,China has contributed a large number of technological inventions and scientific discoveries to human culture.Among the vast number of printed books and other documents handed down to the present-day in China,there are many on science and technology.It is an essential task to collate these works,and thus lay a foundation for historical research into them,as well as make them more readily available to the outside world.

Chinese Physicists’Construction of the Straton Model in Social Context

In 1956,disciplines including nuclear technology and research on nuclear and elementary particles were added to the P.R.China’s national program for science and technology development.Mao Zedong explicitly supported Shoichi Sakata,a Japanese physicist,in applying materialistic dialectics to physics research,which influenced Chinese scientists in their study of particle physics.Starting in the early 1960s,physicists from the Institute of Atomic Energy,CAS,the Institute of Mathematics,CAS,Peking University,and University of Science and Technology of China put effort into the theoretical research of elementary particles and gradually formed a collaborative research group.From 1965 to 1966,they analyzed the experimental results and existing theories available to them,made a connection between their work and Mao Zedong’s belief that matter can be infinitely divided,and put forward the straton model,a structure model of hadrons.In July 1966,the straton model was presented at the Summer Physics Colloquium of the Peking Symposium.Unfortunately,scientific research in China soon came to a halt due to the Cultural Revolution(1966-1976);the academic exchange between Chinese scientists and their foreign peers became even more difficult than before.The calculation results of the hadron model failed to be formally published in English as Chinese scientists had wanted.As a result,the model did not have the kind of influence upon the development of particle physics at the international level that these scientists had expected.

Soviet Aid and the Construction of the Lanzhou Cyclotron

The transmission of science and technology from the Soviet Union to People’s Republic of China in the mid-twentieth century is an important research area of contemporary history of science and technology.This paper takes the construction of the cyclotron in Lanzhou,China as the case to discuss the characteristics of technology transfer from the Soviet Union to China.The review of extensive archives reveals that the construction of cyclotron took place in the framework of China’s nuclear weapons development.Although the transmission of science and technology from the Soviet Union to China fit into the one-way transmission-reception model in general,both the Chinese demand and the Soviet response had key influences on the transmission.In the early cyclotron construction,the Chinese side relied on the Soviets,and the mode of the cooperation between Soviet and Chinese engineers can be described as one of expertstudent.In the early 1960 s,the relationship between China and the Soviet Union broke down.The Soviet engineers were required to withdraw with the technical data,which created conflicts in the roles played by the Soviet engineers,most of whom chose to set the sense of professional responsibility as their highest priority.After the departure of the Soviet experts,Chinese physicists played the leading role in the project,using scientific knowledge they had,relying on the technical materials left by Soviet experts,and cooperating fully with local engineers,thus completing the cyclotron.This case can provide us with valuable clues for the understanding of transnational history of science and technology.The seemingly one-way transmission-reception model is actually influenced by the needs of both sides.While the transnational flow of knowledge is inevitably affected by political factors from both sides,the process is far more complex than it appears.

Preliminary Research on the Mathematical Methods and Order of Problems in the“Fungcheng”Chapter of Yang Hui's Mathematical Methods(1261 CE)

Yang Hui was one of the most important authors of mathematical works during the thirteenth century.Mathematical Methods Explaining in Detail The Nine Chapters(Xiangjie jiuzhang suanfa詳解九章算法,1261 CE)is the earliest extant work attributed to Yang Hui.From the thirteenth to the fifteenth century,this work played a crucial role in the circulation and popularization of The Nine Chapters on Mathematical Procedures(Jiuzhang suanshu九章算术).However,the only surviving printed edition of Mathematical Methods is incomplete and contains many mistakes obstructing contemporary researchers'understanding of this work.The "Fangcheng" chapter of The Nine Chapters deals with problems related to solving what today are known as simultaneous sets of linear equations.However,interpreting the text in this chapter of Mathematical Methods and recovering the mathematical practices relating to fangcheng are difficult.Through detailed textual and mathematical analyses,the author of this paper explains Yang Hufs understanding and practice relating to〃the fangcheng method"and"the method of the positive and the negative".This paper includes an appendix that provides a detailed translation of the ambiguous text relating to"the method of the positive and the negative"and gives reasons supporting the interpretation provided here.Yang Hufs understanding of the concepts of"positive"and"negative"and his practice relating to these two concepts may easily be confused with their apparent counterparts in modem mathematics.Also,careful analysis of the mathematical methods in this work reveal that the order of problems in Yang Hufs Reclassifications of Mathematical Methods Explaining in Detail The Nine Chapters([Xiangjie jiuzhang suanfa zuanlei詳解九章算法纂類],namely,the last section of Mathematical Methods)were rearranged according to commentaries to specific methods that appear in Mathematical Methods.Some textual clues referring to the zzprevious question"(qianwen前問)in certain commentaries of Mathematical Methods indeed reflect the order of problems in Reclassifications.Yang Hui made especially detailed commentaries on the problems that he arranged in a sequence that differs with respect to the original order of problems as they appear in the ancient classic work,The Nine Chapters.All these discoveries reveal and serve to prove a close relationship between Yang Hufs Mathematical Methods and his Reclassifications.

Astronomical Tables in the“Lü-li zhi”:On the Characteristics and Adoption of“Licheng”Pick-up Tables

This article discusses the development of astronomical tables in ancient China based on the calendrical chapter titled“Lü-li zhi”律曆志(Monograph on harmonics and calendrical astronomy)in official histories.After surveying various types of astral scientific tables in ancient China and their layouts,this paper discusses the characteristics and adoption of“licheng”立成tables,a specific kind of pick-up table that seems to have come into use in the Sui period(581–618)and to have been widespread from the Tang period(618–907)onward.The emergence of licheng tables relates largely to the internal development of ancient Chinese astronomy,but they were also probably inspired by auspicial tables and foreign astronomical tables.By comparing tables recorded in the“Lü-li zhi”and the existing licheng tables,we find that most licheng were deleted during the compilation of“Lü-li zhi”to reduce the number of volumes.Moreover,this paper discusses several common solutions used to compress the size of tables in“Lü-li zhi.”The adoption of licheng tables into the ancient Chinese astral sciences and the reformatting of them in“Lü-li zhi”give us a different perspective for understanding the development of ancient Chinese astronomical tables and the compilation of the calendrical portion of official histories.

The Early Stage of the Professionalization and Institutionalization of Mathematics in Late Nineteenth-Century China

In the late nineteenth century,stimulated by the demand for modern military technology,mathematics research and education in China developed rapidly,resulting in the emergence of the first generation of professional mathematicians.This marks the starting point for the professionalization of mathematics in China,a process which this paper sets out to analyze.The author first provides a brief survey of the status of Chinese mathematicians prior to 1860.Then,the paper analyzes the social and political context of mathematics,focusing on the improvement of the civil service examination system.Finally,the paper studies the development of mathematics education in the late nineteenth century,leading to the conclusion that mathematics and Chinese mathematicians were professionalized in three major ways:(1)some mathematicians could earn a stable livelihood from their mathematical competence;(2)the social position of mathematicians improved;and(3)the social status of the specialty of mathematics was enhanced.