I heard about Joseph Needham some years back from a documentary. He wrote the tome Science and Civilisation in China. To call this a tome is an understatement as it runs into 17 volumes covering every possible area of scientific endeavour, invention and discovery the Chinese had ever made since antiquity. Some pre date European discovery by centuries. While some like gun powder, paper and printing are probably familiar to many of us, others are not.
What made this English bio chemist devote his whole life into researching, collating, indexing and finally publishing the history of Chinese inventions, science and mathematics ? Winchester tells the colourful story of Needham's life, his love and devotion to his Chinese mistress whom he married 52 years after they first met and 3 years after his wife died. I am not sure which was his greater passion, his mistress or China.
Despite the backwardness of the Chinese in the eyes of the Europeans in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Needham thought that this could be a passing phase of a civilisation, a "dimming of the lights." Had he lived to watch the opening of the Beijing Olympics, he would have agreed that China's appointed time has come.
No comments:
Post a Comment