To understand the development of modern science in China, we cannot fail to understand Li Shanlan and his person.
Li Shanlan (1811-1882), a native of Haining, Zhejiang, was a pioneer of modern Chinese science. As a famous mathematician, Li Shanlan's works such as "The Thirteen Kinds of Arithmetic of Zegu Xizhai" and "The Method of Examining the Roots of Numbers" have made major breakthroughs in traditional Chinese mathematics in the fields of cones, stacking and prime number theory, among which the establishment of the theory of cones marks his independent entry into the door of analytic geometry and calculus. What is even more amazing is that although Li Shanlan has never been abroad, she introduced Western algebra, analytic geometry, calculus, astronomy, mechanics, botany and other modern sciences to China for the first time through the translation of books, which greatly promoted the spread of modern science in China.
In 1852, Li Shanlan, who had already published works such as "Exploring the Source of Logarithms", "The Secret of Arcs and Arrows", "Analogy of Stacks and Volumes", and "Interpretation of Fang Yuan", and became one of the first-rate mathematicians in China, came to Shanghai, the center of the spread of modern Western civilization, with the ideal of learning modern Western science, and got acquainted with Western intellectuals such as Wei Liali, Maddos, and Joseph Edjose, who were enthusiastic about spreading modern scientific knowledge, and began his eight-year translation career in Mohai Library, an important city of Western learning.
The first book translated by Li Shanlan was the world's mathematical masterpiece Geometry Originals, which she co-translated with the famous sinologist Wei Liali. The original name of the Geometry was the masterpiece of the famous Greek mathematician Euclid, which had a profound impact on Western thought, and was once regarded by the great philosopher Russell as "one of the greatest works of the past and present, and one of the most perfect monuments of Greek intellect", so that some people believe that among all the classics of Western civilization, only the Bible can be compared with the original.
The Geometric Originals was introduced to China in the 35th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1607), and it was translated by the famous scientist Xu Guangqi and the Italian missionary Matteo Ricci. However, after Xu Guangqi and Matteo Ricci translated the first six volumes, the next nine volumes were not translated for various reasons. It is a pity that the "Geometric Original" has not been translated in its entirety, which is a matter of great regret in the Chinese academic circles, and Xu Guangqi himself also said eagerly in the "Geometric Original": "I don't know when the great cause will be continued?" Unknown who? Books to the end. ”
Li Shanlan and "Geometric Original" can be said to have an indissoluble bond. At the age of fifteen, he began to study the first six volumes of the Geometric Originals, "understanding its meaning" and "sometimes having experience". The influence of "Principles of Geometry" on Li Shanlan was so profound that he deeply regretted that Xu Guangqi and Matteo Ricci did not translate the whole book. Just right. Li Shanlan's collaborator at the Mohai Library, Wei Liali, was also a scholar who was very interested in the Geometric Originals, and after arriving in China. He had always been interested in retranslating the Geometric Originals, and specially purchased a 15-volume translation from Latin into English from England. However, since Wei Liali was not very proficient in mathematics and was not very sure of translation, he needed a Chinese scholar who was proficient in mathematics and familiar with the Geometry Originals to cooperate, and Li Shanlan was the most suitable person for such a person. So, the two hit it off, and soon after Li Shanlan came to the Mohai Library, in early June of the second year of Xianfeng (1852), the two began to continue the translation of the "Geometric Original".
The method of co-translation between Li Shanlan and Wei Liali was the popular method of one person translating one person's narrative at that time. Because the old English version "was not well proofed, the language was misunderstood, and the loss was not light", and at the same time, "the characters of each Chinese language are different, and errors in the transmission and translation are inevitable", so the process of Li Shanlan's translation is actually a sorting out and processing of the original text, and he himself said that "when the pen is received, it is necessary to make up for it." He also said: "The desire of the West is a rare book, and it should be visited in China." What is even more noteworthy is the "press language" he added to the original work of "Geometric Originals". In the "According to the Language", he made some additions, expounds and exertions to the "Geometric Original", and these "according to the language", according to the statistics of scholars, there are nearly 20 articles. After the translation was completed, Li Shanlan asked his close friends Gu Guanguan and Zhang Wenhu to be the proofreaders and carefully check and compare, so that it was not until 1858 that the woodcut was printed in the Mohai Library. It took 250 years for the first complete Chinese translation of the Geometric Originals.
And then there are many good things. When the translation of "Geometric Originals" was first published, the Taiping army and the Qing army were fighting fiercely in Jiangsu and Shanghai. The continuation of the translation of the "Geometric Original" was not engraved much, and the engraving was destroyed by fire, and there are very few survivors. A few years later, Li Shanlan met Zeng Guofan, the governor of Liangjiang, in Jinling, and said that the academic value of this book was very high, saying that "this book is indispensable for arithmeticists, and it will not be lost in the present moment, and it will be repeated." In 1865, Zeng Guofan took the first six volumes of the Geometric Originals co-translated by Xu Guangqi and Matteo Ricci and the last nine volumes co-translated by Li Shanlan and Wei Liali into one book, and re-edited Fu Zi. This is the full version of the first "Geometric Original" on the mainland. The complete translation of the Geometric Originals uses a very concise deductive method to explain the harmony of nature and the rational laws of reason, bringing a new concept and method to the Chinese academic community.
At the same time as cooperating with Wei Liali to continue the translation of the Geometric Original, Li Shanlan co-translated the book "Relearning" with Joseph Aeger, another British scholar at Mohai Library.
Relearning is what is now called mechanics. The origin of Li Shanlan's translation of "Re-learning" seems to have been somewhat accidental, stemming from a casual conversation between him and Joseph. Shortly after Li Shanlan arrived at the Mohai Library. One day, Joseph asked Li Shanlan, do you know what "relearning" is? For Li Shanlan, who had just begun to come into contact with modern Western science, "relearning" was an unfamiliar term, and he asked: "What is relearning?" Joseph said, "He who is geometric, the study of measurement; Emphasis on scholars, the study of trade-offs. In the past, our western country used the learning system of weighing and measuring the learning to test the day, and now the system is used to relearn the day, so the re-learning must be known. Then, Joseph told Li Shanlan that there are many books on re-learning in the West, and Hu Weili's "Re-learning" is the best version because it is concise and well-organized. He asked Li Shanlan if you would like to translate this book together. Li Shanlan was overjoyed. One agreed, so "geometry is translated in the morning, and the translation is re-learned", and at the same time began the translation of two scientific classics.
Hu Weili's "Elementary Mechanics Course" was originally divided into three parts, and Joseph Needham's Chinese translation "Heavy Learning" was only one of the parts. Because the first part of the "Elementary Mechanics Course" is extremely shallow, and the second part is extremely deep, Li Shanlan translated the middle part according to the level of acceptance of Chinese intellectuals at that time. The book is divided into three parts: static gravity, dynamic gravity and fluid gravity. It is worth noting that although Newton's name is not mentioned in the "Heavy Learning", Newton's three laws of mechanics (called kinetics in the book) are clearly introduced, which was expressed as follows: "The first example of kinetics: where there is no other force to add, the direction must be straight, and the speed will be flat; If there is no other force, there is no source of change of direction and slow speed. "The second example of the kinetic theory: when force is applied to an animal, the animal will give birth to a new direction and a new speed, and the new direction is the direction of the force, and the ratio of the new speed and the magnitude of the force is constant." "The third example of the kinetic force: where the resistance force is adding vividly, the proportion of the power and the resistance force is constant, and the principle that the resistance force is equal to the force." This is the first time that the three laws of Newtonian mechanics have been introduced to China.
In 1856, they translated the American mathematician Elias Romes's Algebraic Calculus, which is arguably the most influential translation of Li Shanlan.
Originally known as Analytic Geometry and Calculus Preliminary, Algebraic Calculus was a common college textbook in the United States at that time, which was widely popular in American schools because of its easy-to-understand content and the importance of students' receptivity and acceptance psychology in the way of compilation. The reason why the Chinese translation of this book is called "Algebraic Calculus", Li Shanlan explains in the preface: "It is the book that comes first algebra, second differential, and second integral, from easy to difficult, if the class gradually rises." The translation has been completed, and it is called "Generation Microaccumulation". "First easy and then difficult, like climbing step by step, expecting readers to climb up the steps, so it is called "picking up steps". It should be noted that the "algebra" here actually refers to analytic geometry, and the "algebra" in Algebraic Calculus is an abbreviation of "algebraic geometry".
After the publication of "Calculus Levels", as the first calculus textbook in China, it immediately aroused great repercussions in the intellectual circles, and quickly spread and received rave reviews. Li Shanlan herself also said in the preface of "Generation Microaccumulation": "Arithmetic is so far that it is impossible to add to it." "The pride is palpable. Wei Liali also said: "The progress of Chinese arithmetic at different times may not be the basis of this book. "The subsequent development of Chinese mathematics is attributed to the introduction of calculus. Indeed, the significance of "Algebraic Calculus Level" to the development of Chinese science, especially mathematics, can be said to be a milestone, as China's first calculus textbook, its translation and publication marks the inheritance of Western higher mathematics in China.
In 1859, Li Shanlan collaborated with his old partner Willy Ali again to translate the "Compendium of Astronomy" by the British astronomer John Herschel. This work of astronomy was all the rage in the West, and was reprinted 12 times. Li Shanlan chose a translation that is both suitable for the original work and easy to understand: "Talking about the Sky".
The book "Talking to the Heavens" gives a comprehensive account of the structure of the solar system and the actions of the planets, as well as the mechanical principles and physical conditions of the solar system. As a translation that systematically introduces the knowledge of modern Western astronomy, "Tan Tian" is most praised for its accurate and comprehensive introduction of Copernicus's "heliocentric theory" and Kepler's three laws of planetary motion to the intellectual circles. The reason for these two is unknown, so this book cannot be read. ”
During her time at Mohai Library, Li Shanlan also worked with Wei Lianchen and Joseph to translate the famous British botanist Lindley's "Botany". This is a very distinctive work, with eight volumes and only 35,000 words, but it is only the scale of a dissertation, but it is an epoch-making and important work in the history of scientific development.
As the earliest translation of modern botany in the mainland, "Botany" mainly introduces the basic theoretical knowledge of modern botany established on the basis of experimental observation at that time, and introduces the theories of physiological functions of various organs and tissues established by the modern West on the basis of experimental observation, which were unheard of for the Chinese at that time. The study of plants in ancient China mainly focused on identifying plant species and their practical value, which was in the category of practical nature, which was very different from ordinary botany in the modern sense. It is in this sense that the publication of "Botany" marks the inheritance of modern Western general botany to China. The theoretical system embodied in "Botany" is also the best primer for Chinese to understand Western botany. In this regard, Li Shanlan said in the preface not without conceit: "China's character can be studied according to law, draw inferences from one example, and be prepared for different things. "Apparently the book is a theory to guide the practice of botany.
From 1852 to 1859, in just a few years, Li Shanlan co-translated the last 9 volumes of "The Original Geometry", 13 volumes of "Algebra", 18 volumes of "Algebra", 18 volumes of "Talking about the Sky", 20 volumes of "Heavy Learning" with 3 volumes of "Conic Curve Theory", 8 volumes of "Botany", 4 volumes of "Naduan Mathematics", and "Shadow Method" (unfinished), etc., and the results were extremely fruitful. Almost every book published caused a great repercussion at the time, and its influence even reached overseas. According to scholars' research, in the 20 years from 1840 to 1860, Westerners translated about 28 kinds of works related to history and geography in China, and from this number, it is inferred that there were generally no more than 20 kinds of translations of natural sciences in this period, and Li Shanlan translated six or seven far-reaching Western scientific works in only a few years before and after the Mohai Library, and can be called the first person to translate Western scientific works in modern China. What is even more significant is that the translations and introductions by Li Shanlan were all disciplines that did not exist in China at that time. The publication of one of his translations means the introduction of a new discipline. The continuation of the translation of Geometry is the first work on symbolic algebra in the history of Chinese mathematics. "Algebraic Calculus Level" introduced advanced mathematics to China for the first time, and gave the Chinese education community the subject of calculus. Botany is the first general botanical work in China. Heavy Learning is the first translation of mechanics in the history of modern Chinese science, including motion mechanics, dynamics, rigid body mechanics, and fluid mechanics. The book introduced the law of universal gravitation, the difference of light, the theory of sunspots, and the theory of planetary perturbation, established the status of the "heliocentric theory" in China, and made the modern Western astronomy, which was based on Newton's classical mechanics system, enter China more systematically. It can be said that if we want to tell the development process of mathematics, physics, astronomy, botany and other disciplines in China, it is impossible to bypass these translations of Li Shanlan. Without Li Shanlan's translation of these pioneering works in the history of modern science, the development of modern science in China would be incomplete. (Yang Ziqiang)
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