History of science and technology in China

Ancient Chinese scientists and engineers made many important discoveries and inventions in different areas, such as nature, machines, medicine, the military, mathematics, the Earth, and the stars.

Some of the first Chinese inventions were the abacus (for counting), the sundial (to tell time using the sun), and the Kongming lantern (a type of flying lantern). The most famous Chinese inventions are the Four Great Inventions: the compass, gunpowder, paper, and printing. These were very important and didn't reach Europe until about 1,000 years later, near the end of the Middle Ages. The Tang dynasty (from AD 618 to 906) was a time of many new ideas and inventions. There was also a lot of sharing of ideas between China and the West up until the Qing dynasty.

In the 1500s and 1600s, Christian missionaries (Jesuits) from Europe came to China. They brought Western science and astronomy with them and also took Chinese knowledge back to Europe. In the 1800s and 1900s, Western technology helped China modernize. A lot of the early research on China's scientific history was done by a British scientist named Joseph Needham and his Chinese partner, Lu Gwei-djen.