Science outside the western world.

[LawLord]

From my very brief look into the world of Science (referring to Chemistry, Astronomy, Physics, Biology etc etc) I have noticed a lot of the major discoveries made in recent times have come from western scientists. This could simply be because I haven't been studying the sciences long enough.

 

I am curious, if I were to go to china (for example) and look in one of their introductory Physics (or some other science book) books, would the contents of that book be similar to a western Science book?

 

The two great discoveries that I am aware of in modern times (and forgive my ignorance) are general relativity and quantum mechanics. One is by a German scientist, the other was thought up by an ancient greek philosopher (if I remember correctly). There is also evolution.

 

Are there national/continental specialities in the world of science?

 

As a New Zealander, when I learn about science (at the moment I'm doing Geology and struggling with Chemistry), am I learning only what the western world knows? Or is most science not constrained by national boundaries?

 

Any help on this is greatly appreciated.

[insane_alien]

i had a lot of talks with a chinese foreign exchange student on this over the last year, and yep, they're pretty much the same though in china there seems to be more of a focus on the maths than the other stuff.

 

the guy (who's name i still can't pronounce right) was in my project group and while he was very good at the calculations, had no idea where to begin with designing a reactor or heat exchanger which our course here in scotland had covered the year before.

[ajb]

Things like quantum mechanics and relativity were established by the 1920's. This is before Russia and China became communist, thus any scientist could read the international science journals. During communism all communications between western and eastern scientists was greatly slowed down. I don't include Japan in this, as after the war educationally and research wise they benefited hugely from western influences brought on by the American occupation.

 

As scientists in the west and east had little to do with each other, often they would be working on the same problems. And then when one side had a solution the other did not know about it. Many things were discovered in parallel or just not considered by one side.

 

Today, and especially due to the internet (SPIRES, ArXiv, online journals etc) people from all over the world can share scientific results quickly. I know that China has internet restrictions, but I don't know if that covers scientific journals and similar. Anyway, we have many Chinese students here in the UK.

 

One thing that does spring to my mind is if we are heading towards a "scientific blockade" with Islamic countries. I don't think we are at that stage yet, there are international conferences held in Tehran for example. We also have many students from Islamic countries studying here in the west.

[CharonY]

In addition, Chinese grad students are almost aggressively sent abroad. Quite often they are preferentially accepted as students (at the very least because of their work ethics). This again results in further similarities.

 

A general theme upon recently was that in China (and India) the technical skills were less developed (comparing to German students, I am not sure regarding American students, as to my feeling practical courses are also underrepresented here) mostly because the universities rarely had top-notch equipment. But this too has changed. Certain elite institutes have popped up with the proper equipment. With some luck they will be able to catch up.

One can also follow this quite nicely in the quantity and quality of Chinese research papers during the last 10 years or so.