Talk:List of Chinese inventions/Archive 2

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Comparison of Chinese dynastic eras, uneven levels of innovation

For anyone who might also be interested, I have noticed over the long three months of expanding this article that there is a trend of significantly disproportionate amount of innovations allotted to each era of Chinese history. I tallied up all the significant original innovations mentioned in this article and this is what I have found as of now (updated September 10, 2008):

Shang Dynasty = 1
Zhou Dynasty/Warring States Period = 24
Qin Dynasty = 2
Han Dynasty = 34
Three Kingdoms = 5
Jin Dynasty (265-420) = 1
Southern and Northern Dynasties = 10
Sui Dynasty = 5
Tang Dynasty = 11
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period = 5
Song Dynasty/Jin Dynasty, 1115-1234 = 20
Yuan Dynasty = 7
Ming Dynasty = 6
Qing Dynasty = 2
Republic of China/People's Republic of China = 3
Total = 135

Notice how the Han Dynasty holds the lion's share of these. I read a comment by Nathan Sivin in one of his articles recently on his observation that most of the polymaths of Chinese history were strangely bunched together in two eras: the Eastern Han and Northern Song periods. Does anyone know of any scholar who addresses the unequal amount of innovation in regards to different eras of Chinese history? Thanks.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 13:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Did you just happen to read the passage in passing? Because there are only two entries that actually fit into Shang's category by the way. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 13:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

By my count, chopsticks, dagger-axe, guqin, and tea as a drink.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, after recalculation it seems that Eastern Han holds about 15 amount of innovation that's it. Not sure about Northern Song, maybe because of Shen Kuo and etc, but many of the Song innovations actually owe to previous dynasties. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 13:54, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but Han Dynasty overall (including Western) was 33. In regards to the Song Dynasty, Su Song counts for a couple items on the list, namely chain drive and oldest printed star maps.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I not sure about Han Dynasty overall as I did not count them, but I counted Eastern Han were 15 of them. As for tea, it was not an ancient Chinese drink until much later during the Han Dynasty or later. Guqin cannot be consider as Shang innovation, it is just a nominal claim or statement on paper (without much evidence just like the linguistic evidence for wheelbarrow) that's it. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:03, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Tea was consumed in non-drink form in Yunnan as far back as the mid 2nd millennium BC, according to Heiss (2007), 4–6, but not as a liquid drink until the Han Dynasty. I have changed the Shang entry to 3 and Han to 34.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, so you made a mistake, well that's ok. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough about the guqin, as well, although some sort of musical zither instrument (a primitive predecessor to the qin perhaps?) must have existed in the Shang for that's when its character first appears.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I guess so too, although I had not read about the origin of qin character, but I believe there are many explanation on that particular character through google. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:26, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. Clearly, there are still many inventions that have not yet been added to the list so the proportion of inventions may change considerably. Also, it would probably be more accurate to consider how long each period was; perhaps do invention/years of period. Keep up the good work. 130.113.81.33 (talk) 00:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I know I must be missing tons of things from modern China, but regardless, look at the Han Dynasty compared to the Ming or Qing dynasties so far and the desparity between them in terms of the sheer number of 100% original inventions. From what I've heard other sinologists assert, it's because pre-modern technology became so efficient by the Qing Dynasty that there was no drive or impetus for further improvement. The enormous manpower was always available to complete tasks needed by the state and China did not have the burden of heated competition with numerous and compacted neighboring states like in Europe. But the latter certainly wouldn't explain the Han Dynasty, which produced invention after invention regardless of it being the biggest kid on the block (after they broke the power of the Xiongnu Empire and severed the heqin agreement, of course). And even this model would assume that most inventions are driven by exterior competition; most inventions are driven simply by domestic practicality.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:09, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Good point Pericles. I'm with you that different periods produced varying levels of innovation. 130.113.81.33 (talk) 01:54, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Additions

I just added Mahjong and Chinese dominoes to the list to include more original games the Chinese invented. However, looking over the list I can't help but be a little concerned about the length of this article now, which is almost 300 KB overall (about 290 KB overall right now). Given it is a list article and not a normal article, but we should be thinking ahead since this problem isn't going to go away by itself. Any thoughts on how to reduce the size of this article? We could make a separate article for List of Neolithic inventions in China and link it as a main article for that section, no? Make some suggestions people, because I don't think the additions (not just by me) are going to stop anytime soon.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 23:45, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Its not so much the number of inventions but your level of detail that makes the articles both excellent and long. My suggestion: Divide Chinese inventions into three or four sections (whole articles) based on time periods.

List of Chinese inventions (YYYY BC- YY CE). Based on the 'origin'.
List of Chinese inventions (YY CE - YYY CE)
List of Chinese inventions (YYY CE - YYYY CE)
List of Chinese inventions (Modern Period)

Connect them through a template at the bottom of the page (I can make one). Have a dablink at the top of the page for those who only glance. Another advice is that use an image stack at the top as the stack at sections creates gigantic spaces somewhat souring the otherwise good reading experience. Good thinking though, shorter articles mean people read more of it and people here (in India and other developing countries) may enjoy more if the article is shorter and compatible with their slower internet speeds eg. this article.

JSR (talk) 06:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

That is a great idea! But let's hold onto that idea and see what others have to say. I'd like to get everyone's input on this. Plus, with the desparity of inventions during certain periods, I think another good suggestion would be to make separate articles on inventions according to alphabetical order, such as List of Chinese inventions, A to F, or something like that.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, keep in mind that it is this article which is a featured article, and it should retain a significant amount of material due to its higher status.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:49, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I think is pretty hard to divide them into different articles base upon timesets, there are several innovations involved in hint/actual invention/actual date, for exampe there are many origins for Mahjong, and I remeber there was a manual on Mahjong written during the Song Dynasty. Thus whenever a new evidence shown up, category A's entry could result from removal and moved to B, the sames goes with refs, which takes time to maintain. What Pericles of Athens suggested was good, which I had once thought before, List of Chinese inventions, A to F? That would means there would be more than two articles. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 14:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we could try out List of Chinese modified inventions for rubber, chain drive, auto door etc, which could greatly reduce the article size (I counted it), but that's a subject for debate as well. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 14:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking about having sections in this article titled "List of Chinese inventions, A-F" and "List of Chinese inventions, G-M" and "List of Chinese inventions, N-Z", and having main article links posted at the top of each section which would look like this in the edit:

{{main|List of Chinese inventions, A-F}} and so forth.

But instead of just having blank sections with links, I was thinking about actually listing the inventions for each section but moving the large descriptions for each invention to these separate main articles. Once again this is something in the making, nothing definite as of now, just something to consider if this article gets any bigger.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I see, something like the article of Song Dynasty which you've done, I think that's a good idea as well, since this article is getting bigger. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 14:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

It's pretty much the same idea as applied to the Song articles, but instead of creating branch articles based on subject (such as culture, technology, economy, etc.) this will be based solely on alphabetical order. I think splitting up this article by types of invention or by era of time are ok suggestions, but since this is already in alphabetical order, I see the latter as the best model for splitting this article up, WHEN AND IF we split this article up. After all, nothing is 'sealed in stone' here, so to speak.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I see the alphabetical order is much better because it is much easier and better to maintain, why waste time on thinking when there is already an available way to solve it. Why Mahjong should be placed at XXX era article and not YYY era article, although it first appeared on XXX text in XXX era, but real Mahjong did not appeared or became popular until YYY era. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 15:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. Some items are hard to definitively date, such as Jacob's staff and Mahjong.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:54, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Anpersonalaccount's suggestion. I was thinking about suggesting something similar about splitting the article by alphabet. I think listing in alphabetic order is a lot easier than listing by subject or chronological order. Jagged 85 (talk) 21:56, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

the CHINAgreat wall

i use this subjet because my uncle and his girlfriend EVA wong the were working for alana persintation on china and beging for fun they used two computers one was was my uncels computer theb other competer was mine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.244.251.239 (talk) 22:33, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

A few problems with tofu!

Hi everybody! I'm a new editor, but maybe I can contribute a few things here. So let's start with a... soft target :). There are a few unclear points and some contradictions in the tofu section, but I don't want to edit them out without asking for permission.
1. In the middle of the first sentence, we have references to "Liu (1999), 166" and "Liu (1999), 166-67." Could the redundant first one be removed?
2. It's not clear if the note to Liu (1999) after "It is believed that tofu was consumed in other Asian countries like Japan by the Tang Dynasty (618–907), yet it was not introduced to the West until modern times" is meant to explain a) the transmission of tofu to the West or b) the presence of tofu in Japan in the Tang dynasty. How can we clarify?
3. Concerning the same sentence: "It is believed..." is a conveniently impersonal formulation, but the presence of tofu in Japan in Tang times is supported by neither documentary nor archeological evidence, since the earliest mention of tofu anywhere is still in Tao Gu's 10th-century compilation. Should the sentence just be removed?
4. Speaking of Tao Gu: the Chinese title of his Records of the Extraordinary is Qingyi lu 清異錄. Should it be added in? If so, in what format?
5. Another contradiction: right after we say that tofu is not mentioned in any source until the 10th century (and that the invention of tofu by Liu An is therefore spurious), we read about "Liu An's tofu" and "Liu An's process for making tofu." These two sentences should be reworded to remove references to Liu An.
6. We have: "According to Shurtleff and Aoyagi, modern historians speculate..." Since the note already refers to Shurtleff and Aoyagi, could we shorten this to "Modern historians speculate..."?
7. Apart from Zhu Xi (who mentions "the King of Huainan's technique" in a poem), I don't know of any other "Song-dynasty scholar" who attributes the invention of tofu to Liu An. Could we change the first sentence to "Although both popular tradition and the Song-dynasty scholar Zhu Xi (1130–1200 AD)..."? In this proposed revision, I would also hyphenate "Song-dynasty" and remove the dates of the Song dynasty because Zhu's dates are already given.
8. There are more theories about the origins of tofu than mentioned here. There are published studies advocating each of them, but none is supported by strong documentary evidence. These theories are discussed in an article cited on Chinahistoryforum (CHF) here[1]. (That page cites another link, but it's dead, so I'm citing the original article's content from CHF.)
9. Finally, the page on Tofu contains a lot more references than our Wiki, including to some Japanese sources and more recent books by Shurtleff and Aoyagi. I have no access to a library right now, but someone else could probably benefit from the sources cited.
All right! I hope we can discuss all this and improve the article even further. I'll make the modifications if I get a green light from other editors, especially Pericles (hi!). Awesome article, by the way!!!--Madalibi (talk) 09:52, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Great suggestions. I was not the editor who added all this info about tofu, so I certainly wouldn't mind if you tweaked with that passage a bit. You should definitely add the Chinese character names for the title of Tao's book. Maybe in this format?《清異錄》 I know that's how Chinese speakers signify book titles. Maybe you should just delete the mentioning of the Tang Dynasty, given the other evidence.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:23, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I made the proposed changes. I hope the format is acceptable. I also added references to the work of Shinoda Osamu, who was the first scholar to find the mention of tofu in the Records of the Extraordinary. Incidentally, I'm not sure about the Romanized name of the journal where his work was first published (樂味= Gaku+???) in 1963, and about the title of the article (could be "O-tōfu no hanashi" お豆腐の話し or "Tōfu kō" 豆腐考). Could someone who has access to a good library confirm either title? Apparently, scholars now agree that "Records of the Extraordinary" was not compiled by Tao Gu himself, but attributed to him after his death. Sun Ji (1998), the article I refer this claim to, explains the evidence briefly. There is an online version of Sun Ji's article: should I add the link in the footnote?--Madalibi (talk) 03:40, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure, it wouldn't hurt to add the link in the footnote.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 08:02, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

"I don't know of any other "Song-dynasty scholar" That's not an excuse to remove it, since it cited. I have both pdf you cited and the one already there at tofu, if you need one of those, you can ask. And CHF is a forum, I am very sorry. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 05:22, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Anpersonalaccount. As you must certainly have noticed, I didn't remove the phrase on "Song-dynasty scholars," so no worry. And I cited CHF not as an authority, but as a reference to an article that discusses alternative theories concerning the origin of tofu (in milk curd by northern nomads in the Age of Fragmentation, for example). All these theories are defended in serious scholarly sources, but I didn't cite any of them because I didn't mention these theories in my modifications. So I'm not sure what you mean by "CHF is a forum, I'm very sorry." Now concerning your emendations.

1. Good call on Liu Keshun instead of Keshun Liu.

2. I'm not familiar with Wikipedia conventions, but is it really necessary to put the date of the authors cited in the text when the date of their publication already appears in the footnotes? I think the rest of the article doesn't mention dates of scholarly studies in the text.

3. Your comment to one of your edits is "Changing one little great error that the editor never read." Not completely sure what this means, but the result of your change is this sentence: "The earliest making of tofu is found in the Bencao Gangmu..." This is not grammatical. The page when I first saw it said: "While the earliest account on making of tofu are found in the Bencao Gangmu..., which was also grammatically incorrect. I modified this sentence many times (perhaps too many times):

a. "The earliest explanation of how to make tofu is found in the Bencao Gangmu..."

b. "The earliest explanation of how to make tofu coagulate is found in the Bencao Gangmu..."

c. "The earliest explanation of the coagulants used to make tofu is found in the Bencao Gangmu..."

If you're not satisfied with b and c, you can always revert back to a, but your current sentence doesn't work. In the mean time, I'll try to find the proper scholarly support for my claim that the BCGM contained the earliest detailed explanation of coagulants, but not the first tofu recipe.

4. You also said:

"According to Shurtleff and Aoyagi is needed here, since no ones had yet to heard any modern historian suppose this or that."

Maybe I wasn't clear in my original question, but I meant to ask if "Shurtleff and Aoyagi" were the modern historians in question. If so, there is no need to have both "Shurtleff and Aoyagi" and "modern historians" in the same sentence, plus a footnote reference to Shurtleff and Aoyagi. Now if Shurtleff and Aoyagi are talking about other modern historians, then sure we need both. Could you clarify which it is (and I mean with more than a rhetorical question about modern historians)? Also, if Shurtleff and Aoyagi are talking about other historians, maybe we can look up these historians and cite them directly instead of relying on what Sh&Ao tell us about them. And if they just talk about "modern historians" without naming any, then they're not a serious scholarly source.

5. Now on "Liu An's tofu." We don't know if tofu even existed in the Han dynasty (probably didn't), and there is nothing within 1200 years of Liu An's life that connects tofu with him. It's as if the earliest source for the existence of the hijra was Voltaire. References to "Liu An's tofu" are therefore very misleading, and this is why I removed them. The two mentions of "Liu An's tofu" are also confusing because our text has just claimed that there was not a shred of evidence connecting Liu An with tofu. On this matter, you said:

"While the invention of tofu by Liu An maybe is spurious, the statement from another scholars or third party encyclopedia like Britannica isn't."

I hope you don't mean that we should refer our claims to third-hand scholarly studies (i.e., encyclopedias) even when we know they're wrong. I think the Bencao Gangmu is the most influential source for the popular claim that the King of Huainan invented tofu, but Li Shizhen lived 1700 years after Liu An... Liu Keshun's statement that "Liu An’s tofu was probably made in such and such a way" make no sense because "Liu An's tofu" is a non-existent entity, just like "Han-dynasty cannons" and "15th-century steam boats." We can't discuss "Liu An's tofu" as if it existed, even if a scholar has done just that. We could, however, make it clear that the mistaken attribution comes from Liu Keshun, not from our editors. That could be done by a rephrasing along the following lines: "Liu Keshun, who accepts the traditional attribution of the invention of tofu to Liu An, thinks that Liu An's process for making tofu..." Same thing with the next sentence on Sh&Ao.--Madalibi (talk) 08:44, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I still busying with my work and am preparing for something. Yes based upon wiki standard, it is always better to have date for the author, and in this cases since both Liu An and Liu Keshun have a same surname, so providing date would be less confusing. I don't know whether you think Li Shizhen did credited Liu An or not, but I do have the pdf for the tofu and if you want it you can ask. I still prefering the current standard for the article. "We could, however, make it clear that the mistaken attribution comes from Liu Keshun, not from our editors" Which is what this article and my edits are all about. "That could be done by a rephrasing along the following lines" I think this could apply to Shurtleff and Aoyagi statment as well, since according to them that "modern historian generally agrees" so or that should includes with their name. Because you're a French residing in (for now) Beijing, you might not have access to every articles. It seem that you list a, b and c choices for me, I would prefer a. Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 12:46, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Li Shizhen claims that "the method [for making] tofu started with the Han King of Huainan, Liu An" (豆腐之法，始于汉淮南王刘安). He goes on to mention which beans can be used, and then explains a recipe (zaofa 造法) where he mentions the many products that can make soy milk coagulate. He ends with an explanation of doufu pi 豆腐皮 or "tofu skin." This all appears at the beginning of juan 25 of the BCGM. This passage is extremely famous, but for some reason I thought there was an earlier recipe somewhere else. But I may be wrong, and I probably went too far with my modifications concerning coagulants. So formulation "a" is definitely the best choice for now. Otherwise, what is the PDF you keep mentioning? If it's the article by Yang Jian on "The origin and development of Chinese tofu," then yes, I would be interested. (Is the article in Chinese, by the way, because the journal's name sounds a lot like Nongye kaogu 农业考古 to me. If this is so, we would need the Chinese title in the bibliography. I can take care of the format if needed. Ok, I found it! I will make the necessary modification to the bibliography.) On "Liu An's tofu," I still think our text looks contradictory. Would other editors give me the permission to re-phrase it in a way that clears the confusion? Thanks.--Madalibi (talk) 04:11, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Madalibi, Yang Jian article are available on some Chinese bbs, it is not obscure enough if you wanted to find it. Thanks for informing about Bencao gangmu which I had not noted previously. While I have no oppose to it, I think Chinese characters over the bibliography are only good for those who begin to learn Chinese (meaning those who starts learning Chinese and needs to google it on the some Chinese details), since everything is news for them in Chinese google or sohu, but not the major Wikipedia readers. Anyway that's just my thoughts that I had encountered many times with people. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 08:35, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Anpersonalaccount. After I figured out the Chinese title, I indeed found many copies of Yang Jian's article online, so don't worry about it! As for Chinese titles: coming from an academic background, I think Chinese titles are not only useful: they're absolutely necessary. Without them, there's no way for Wikipedia readers (those who know Chinese, in any case) to locate the source in question and to make up their own mind about its reliability. The fact that most Wikipedia readers and editors don't read Chinese is no good reason to abandon good scholarly practices like clear referencing. Of course we can't have references entirely in Chinese: we need the pinyin and the translation of the original title. I think this page's bibliography has more Chinese titles presented as English-language studies, but I don't think I have time to look them all up in the next few days. All right, gotta go! --Madalibi (talk) 09:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi Madalibi, I don't have much time debating with you nor having time to edit Wikipedia. I once said because you don't have access to the Chinese articles, all you have is a glimpse on the title itself of the article, yes there are many articles of Yang Jian, but 中国豆腐的起源与发展 are available on some bbs, and it not hard for people to find what written in it. Plus i don't think there is any contradictory over the texts, we have different opinions from author that's all. I can easily find you a ton of authors over google books (not checked yet, but from a traditional POV it seem that people are much less concern how or spurious when tofu was invented than let's say gunpowder) that said tofu was invented much earlier than 10th century. I don't mind you make a large changes to the article even if you've been invited from China History Forum to wiki, but at least look at other wiki-article to avoid a double-standard you're appying here. Thanks Anpersonalaccount (talk) 02:45, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

First, good edit about Sun Ji and Tao Gu. I now see what you mean by attributing certain statements to authors in the text instead of just writing the statement and putting the author's name in a footnote. (Note: but I don't understand your reference to Yang Shangshan.)

I doubt that Wikipedia's rules say that we should cite Chinese sources as if they had been written in English. Wikipedia wants editors to cite their sources clearly, that's it. The problem with citing titles only in translation is that nobody can locate the article in question. This is not clear citation.

Now about Liu An's tofu (forgive me for being so persistent about this: I'm just trying to clarify things for myself and for Wikipedia readers). I don't think the Wiki standard is to cite - without any kind of warning - statements about things that we know do not exist. There is simply no credible evidence connecting tofu to Liu An. The studies that attribute the invention of tofu to Liu An are not based on Han-dynasty primary sources: they simply repeat the traditional attribution, which appeared more than 1000 years after Li An's life. Many other traditional attributions have been proven wrong: the "Ten Wings" commentaries to the Yijing were traditionally attributed to Confucius, the Zhuge Nu (a kind of crossbow) to Zhuge Liang, etc. I don't think a good Wiki should say "Confucius's cosmological views on the Yijing agree with those of Han-dynasty commentators," because the historical Confucius did not have any "cosmological views on the Yijing".

If we're not careful, the wiki on endocrinology (see the next entry in this talk page) might run into the same problem. If we say: "Chinese historians and scientists have proven repeatedly that the Autumn Mineral actually contained fewer hormones than the urine that was used to prepare it," we can't go on to claim that "the Chinese took these concentrated hormones to cure such and such an illness." This makes no sense at all even if we are just citing other scholars' points of view.

Citing Tao Gu's book as the earliest mention of tofu doesn't imply that tofu was invented only in the 10th century. Actually, for the wiki to be complete, we should probably discuss the other theories about the origins of tofu. For this purpose (and to clarify the whole text), we might want to re-shuffle the text according to the following structure (just a suggestion, so feel free to disagree, though I would like to hear what the other editors have to say about this):

- The invention of tofu is traditionally attributed to Liu An... Although this attribution only surfaced in the Song dynasty (Zhu Xi, etc.), archeological evidence shows that presses similar to those used today to make tofu already existed in Liu An's region in the Han dynasty. [Such archeological reports exists. I'll find them if needed.] Since the 1990s, many scholars have interpreted a Han-dynasty wall painting found in Dahu ting (present-day Henan) as representing a tofu workshop, but Sun Ji (1998) has argued that crucial elements were missing from it to make this identification conclusive.

- Scholars who accept the traditional attribution... Liu Keshun says... Shurtleff and Aoyagi suppose...

- Other theories concerning the origin of tofu are:

Theory 1
Theory 2
Theory 3

- The first unambiguous textual mention of tofu: Qingyi lu... Etc.

- The first recipe for making tofu: Bencao gangmu... List the coagulants.

- Tofu was adopted in Japan in the XXth century, and in the West only in the 20th (?) century.

Do other editors think this structure would be acceptable?

To conclude on a side note, I think sentences like "even if you've been invited from China History Forum to wiki" are a bit uncalled for. The forums I participate in have nothing to do with who I am and what I know. Of course it's a fact that I'm a new editor and that I'm still learning about Wikipedia conventions, but this has nothing to do with where I come from. I'm the same person regardless of whether I come from CHF, bustyasianbeauties.com, answersingenesis.org, or richarddawkins.net [;-].

Cheers, --Madalibi (talk) 07:05, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello Madalibi, I don't understand your reference to Confucius's or Yijing. As for Yang Shangshan, I actually get the idea when I was reading from your sandbox Taisu, that you gives a absolute dating of 660s, I look up over the google and found out that Yang are only supposed on be lived during the early Tang, and there are debate on whether he lived in Northern Zhou, Sui or Tang. On the whole, I think what you had suggested is good, because tofu wasn't mentioned until much later after Liu An's death, therefore tofu can't be existed during when he supposed lived. But just a little note to it, here in Wikipedia (I new to Wikipedia too), we probably needs to address those statement that came from that author. Liu An's method of "tofu was adopted in Japan in the XXth century" This is yet another statement from another source, although is truth that tofu probably didn't existed back then. As for further explanation (a rather non-concise explanation) on tofu itself, we probably needs to bring them into the tofu article itself. Anpersonalaccount (talk) 12:43, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

On "endocrinology: extraction of human hormones"

Hi everyone,
I just wanted to point out that Needham's and Temple's claim that the Autumn Mineral was a hormone preparation has been refuted a number of times since the 1980s on the basis of laboratory experiments. Needham had not done any experiment on this problem himself, and Temple just copied all his claims directly from Needham, so lab experiments should be seen as more conclusive than the purely textual evidence Needham and Temple present. Things all started with Liu Guangding 劉廣定, who wrote three papers on the "Autumn Mineral" problem in 1981 in a journal called Kexue yuekan 科學月刊 [Science Monthly], respectively issues 5, 6, and 8:

- "Ren niao zhong suo de qiushi wei xingjisu zhi jiantao" 人尿中所得秋石為性激素之檢討 [Critical examination of the claim that the Autumn Mineral obtained from human urine was sex hormones].

- "Bu tan qiushi yu ren niao" 補談秋石與人尿 [Supplementary discussion of Autumn Mineral and human urine].

- "San tan qiushi yu ren niao" 三談秋石與人尿 [A third discussion of Autumn Mineral and human urine].

Another article by Liu from 1981:

- Liu Guangding. "Cong bei-Song ren tilian xingjisu shuo tan kexue dui kejishi yanjiu de zhongyaoxing" 從北宋人提煉性激素說談科學對科技史研究的重要性 [On the importance of science to research in the history of science and technology, with reference to the claim that Northern Song people extracted and purified sex hormones]. Guoli Taiwan daxue wenshizhe xuebao 國立台灣大學文史哲學報 [National Taiwan University bulletin on literature, history and philosophy] 30 (1981): 363-76.

Size of article

This article is WAY too big to be useful (295K, not including pictures). It takes an inordinate amount of time to load for me and I have a fast machine and a pretty good net connection. I can only imagine the time it must take for someone with a slow machine and/or a slow net connection. Perhaps it could be split up alphabetically? Have a main page with the beginning (the four great inventions and the pre-Shang inventions), then lists of inventions A-H, I-R, S-Z or something like that. hbent (talk) 19:23, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Wait, you're saying that there should be separate articles for A-H, I-R, S-Z? That's not such a bad idea. I want to hear what others have to say.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:16, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I HATE splits like that - you'd be better off with a chronological split, like the Islamic articles have. Mdw0 (talk) 23:17, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Instead of spliting the article into new articles, would it be possible to use "show" tags such as in most templates? Iciac (talk) 02:54, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

That does sound like a really cool idea, Iciac (I'm in favor of it, since it would retain all the info here in one article), but that wouldn't address the load time which Hbent had a problem with on his computer. Perhaps Mdw0 is right.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:10, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we could simply move all the neolithic inventions to a small new article, and taking out that significant chunk could help with the load time?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:12, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Most people are probably ok with the article the way it is. Whatever works for you. Benjwong (talk) 06:10, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

First thing, sprinmg-load your notes and references. Next, be sparing with the images. That should reduce load times. Mdw0 (talk) 06:50, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Modern Inventions

Shouldn't there be mention of chinese inventions of the past few centuries? And what of the chinese diaspora? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.244.133.95 (talk) 20:58, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

There's a few modern inventions described; read more carefully. As for the Chinese diaspora, I'd like to limit "Chinese inventions" to inventions created within "China". This article is simply too large to accomodate anything more than that.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I dont see how you can possibly claim an emigre's work in another country as Chinese, especially if they were also educated overseas. Mdw0 (talk) 22:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Right. A Chinese American is still an American, for example.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 22:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Paper???

How on earth can paper be considered a "Chinese invention" when in fact, paper was invented by the Egyptians in the 3rd century B.C.??? Adding paper to this list is not accurate since the facts prove otherwise. --Yoganate79 (talk) 01:12, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

The ancient Egyptians used a plant material called papyrus, which is kind of like paper, but has nothing to do with the modern papermaking process which was first invented in China. Check all the sources which I cited in the paper section for further information.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:50, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

A quick note indicating the differences would be appropriate, the same way the Olmec lodestone has been acknowledged. Mdw0 (talk) 06:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure thing.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:51, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

I really do think that this page along with the other countries pages for inventions should be semi-locked from vandals continuing to trash this page. It is unacceptable when people negligently delete information on this page when it has citations to prove its verification. What is wrong with you people? --Yoganate79 (talk) 20:39, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Layout

There are some problems in the article's layout with LAAAAAAAARGE gaps in the text. These are not just unsightly, they make it look like the article hasn't loaded properly. There are a couple of ways to fix this. The first is to severely edit back the captions on the images, and possible some of the images themselves. The second is to break up the line of images down the right of the article and put some on the left, some on the right, adjusting sizes so that the image looks its best. I know some people with a certain aesthetic like things in clear columns but big gaps in the text are much worse, and I personally much prefer the text and images to be broken up so that the eye is led around the page. The best way to fix it is to break up the section into chronological periods rather than alphabetical under Shang and later. I've never really understood this separation - is the Iron Age really the most significant event in Chinese inventive history? At the very least there should be four sections, including a modern one. This puts each invention in a historical and technological context. An example is the List of Australian inventions. The other way to separate rather than alphabetical is by scientific field - agriculture, science, mathematics, industry, medical, military, as in the List of Indian inventions. I've never been a big fan of large lists in alphabetiocal order. It might make it easier for the editors, but that irrelevant. The raison d'etre of the article is the readers, and too many editors think of themselves rather than the readers of the article. An alphabetical list assumes the reader has a specific thing in mind and wants to serach for it, rather than looking for a more overall look at the inventions and inventiveness of the people. Chronological and industry lists are friendlier to this type of reader. Mdw0 (talk) 07:05, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The reason that everything looks fine on my computer is that I am using a 13' monitor. I'm not sure what size monitor you are using, but it is obviously much wider. Keep in mind that not everyone has the same size monitor, so sometimes folks with bigger monitors see huge gaps with text and pictures. You could try resizing your browser if it is a nuisance.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 10:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Those gaps are a layout issue. By editing with a smaller screen you can't see how poor the article looks on a larger screen. By having all the images on the right you are condemning the article to this solvable problem. DO you think such gaps are an acceptable cost of having the images in a column? This could be significantly reduced by editing back the image captions, some of which are very long. Mdw0 (talk) 03:02, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm...I believe I placed all images on the right because this is not a normal article with paragraphs, but rather a series of bulleted points that happen to have sentences. Wouldn't placing images on the left disrupt the bullets? I remember trying that long ago and thinking it did not look good. Prove me wrong otherwise...--Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:42, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

The List of Indian inventions and discoveries list has them only on the right, but the images are fewer. This is a better option than having so many that the layout is interrupted. For images on both sides check the List of Australian inventions. Wikipedia has quite powerful abilities to move text around left-placed images the same way encyclopedias do, no matter what the width of the monitor. Mdw0 (talk) 06:51, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

What is an invention?

I think some of the items are NOT inventions. An invention needs to be a technological breakthrough, not an example of redesign or a slightly different style of something else. For example, the Bird and Flower painting - are you serious? How is that an invention? Mdw0 (talk) 07:16, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you are right about the art stuff. Plus, if it is removed, it will reduce the already excessive size of this list article.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:07, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I removed two art entries; the one you mentioned (including its reference source and pic), as well as the shan shui entry and associated picture and reference used.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:16, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The same goes for taotie, which I just deleted from the Neolithic section.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Collapsible Umbrella

This claim is untenable. There is a wealth of literary, archaeological and pictorial evidence proving that umbrellas which could be opened and closed existed at the latest by the 7th century BC in the wider Mediterranean.

Anatolia often provides the bridge from the Near East to the Greek world, and, indeed, wooden parasol parts have been excavated at Gordion and Samos. Both parasols could be opened, like the one mentioned later by Aristophanes (Knights I347-8, with scholia). The fragments from Gordion - parts of the upper fitting - were found in Tumulus P, a child's burial dated to the start of the seventh century; the magnificence of the tomb intimates royalty, but there was no physiological means of determining the gender of the child. 35 The wooden parasol slide from Samos was deposited in the late seventh century with many other items of which some were Near Eastern imports; it may itself be a Phrygian import.

Margaret Miller - Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC, p.193f. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 02:28, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough; good find. Needham is a bit outdated, as I've found out using Robert Temple's work and other sources to update Needham's work.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:36, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Ice Cream

I'm actually doing a project on China, and one section is an inventions section. After researching a lot, I've come to some interesting conclusions. I was wondering if the idea for ice cream, is true, and that "ice cream" is an invention. In one source is says the process of how they made it, and it says it traveled out of China into Italy, and so on. Would ice cream be something to add onto this? Queenqpawn (talk) 22:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

I am aware of the need to specify certain facts in articles for the sole purpose of heading off pedants and editors who dont understand what an invention is, but as it stands that opening paragraph is one of the oddest I've ever read. Surely the opening of the list shouldn't be what the list is NOT about. Perhaps at the head of the text below the opening we need a section on definitions, and descibe what is and what isn't an invention there. Mdw0 (talk) 03:55, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Artistic inventions - should they count?

Does a jade art object count as an invention? Tripod pottery isnt an invention - its just a minor design. Mdw0 (talk) 03:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I was not the one to add the jade passage; I believe that was an anonymous IP. I deleted the sources used for that jade passage which you removed, since they were used nowhere else in the article. Cheers.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 02:47, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

What about the jade burial suit? Is it purely artistic or does it have some practical function? Mdw0 (talk) 04:23, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Layout again

Is there any reason why the main section has to be broken up by letter? I think it would be an improvement to keep the alphabetical listing but just remove the sections by letter. It would be a lot easier to take out the gaps in the text and have the text flow around the images if it was all one section. OK if I try that? Mdw0 (talk) 06:54, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Please don't. Because then it makes it hell to try and edit one section that is so large. Think about trying to make minor edits; it becomes impractical. Keep in mind, not everyone has the same size monitor that you do. On my 13' monitor, the images look completely fine and there is absolutely no overlapping problems. On your monitor, it perhaps looks like someone arranged the images like a madman. A different sized monitor makes all the difference in the world.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 05:34, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Can we then consider splitting the section into two or three sections chronologically? You cant edit an article just so it looks nice on one size of monitor if those edits makes it look bad on others. An article needs to look as good as possible on all sized monitors. The fact is that current situation with long, skinny images down the right hand side and lots of small sections creates big ugly gaps in the text. I think for that reason we need to have some of the images on the left side. Or we could just arbitrarily cut some images to remove the gaps. Mdw0 (talk) 08:14, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Feel free to do a combination of both (i.e. moving some to the left and removing some altogether).--Pericles of Athens^Talk 08:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Great Modern Inventions

This section is on borrowed time. Thereare NO references in there yet. Also have the following oproblems; Hybrid rice - there are hundreds of difeferent hybrids - what makes this one an 'invention?' Details of the actual photocomposition system needs to show why it is unique. Copying of a protein is not an invention - great science, but scientific discovery is not invention.

No, it has no time left, since I will remove it now. The anti-malarial thing is already mentioned in the article, along with hybrid rice. The other two have no citations anyway.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC)