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HISTORY OF SCIENCE Scientists Fete China’s Supreme Polymath

SHANGHAI—In the early 17th century, this of the heavens,” says Peter Richter, a theoreti- humanist and experimentalist helped avert cal physicist at the University of Bremen in starvation in China by disseminating hardier Germany. With such knowledge, Ricci crops and devised dams and canals for irriga- predicted that an eclipse would occur tion and flood control. He launched a decade- on 15 December 1610—right on the money. long effort to improve the accuracy of the “That impressed Xu Guangqi,” Richter says. Chinese calendar by incorporating a more After Xu and Ricci’s successors correctly precise knowledge of celestial geometry. His predicted an eclipse in 1629, the emperor monumental contribution was to team up appointed Xu as leader of the calendar reform, with a Jesuit scholar to translate part of which he embarked on with the assistance of Euclid’s Elements, introducing late Ming Jesuits. The reform was completed after Xu’s Dynasty intellectuals to new mathematical death in 1633. The reams of data used to justify concepts—and Western thought. For his the revision amounted to the first scientific achievements, he has been compared to collaboration between sci- Leonardo da Vinci and Francis Bacon. entists in Europe and Who was China’s Renaissance man? the Far East. Go to the head of the class if you guessed Xu’s tomb is a Xu Guangqi. 20-minute drive from Last month, scientists from a variety of PICB, jointly run by the disciplines met here at the Partner Institute for Chinese Academy of Sci- Computational Biology (PICB) to commem- ences (CAS) and the Max on June 16, 2015 orate the 400th anniversary of the publication Planck Society. “That’s of the first six volumes of Elements in Chi- how we learned about this nese and to explore Xu’s remarkable legacy. Leading light. Among many contri- guy,” says Dress, a compu- “He started China’s enlightenment,” says cell butions to China, Xu Guangqi helped tational biologist with an biologist Pei Gang, president of Tongji Uni- disseminate Western knowledge of abiding interest in science versity in Shanghai. “Xu promoted the idea of geometry; title page of Euclid’s history. “Suddenly it dawned learning from the West.” Over the past cen- complete Elements. on me” that 2007 is the anni-

tury, Chinese leaders have taken Xu’s advice versary of Chinese Elements. www.sciencemag.org to heart, including a reference by President Confucian classics into Latin. Accordingly, Dress broadened Hu Jintao at last month’s Communist Party’s After earning a jinshi the workshop into an Inter- 17th National Congress to the importance of degree, the equivalent of a Ph.D., in the palace national Xu Guangqi Confer- taking a “scientific view of development.” examination of 1604, Xu was admitted to ence, organized by CAS, the Shanghai Insti- Xu (pronounced like “sue”) was born in Beijing’s prestigious Hanlin Academy. He tutes for Biological Sciences, and Shanghai Shanghai in 1562 and was groomed to be a ascended smoothly through the government Xuhui District Government. civil servant. A watershed moment came in ranks until late in his career he came to be One aspect of Xu’s remarkable life that the 1600, when Xu met Matteo Ricci, an Italian known, simply, as “The Minister.” Through- Chinese government rarely talks about is his Downloaded from Jesuit and one of the first Westerners allowed out his life, one constant was his dedication to conversion to Roman Catholicism and bap- to live in China. No intellectual slouch him- improving agriculture. His experiments in tism in 1603 as Paul Xu Guangqi. Although self, Ricci had been a student of Europe’s Shanghai with yams, then a new import from some scholars argue that Xu converted out of leading mathematician of the time, Christopher South America, led to the widespread adop- gratitude or in recompense for Ricci’s help, Clavius. “Xu was wholeheartedly attracted to tion of the high-energy crop. “This was Chu and others are convinced that he was him,” says Hung-lam Chu, a historian at the decades before the West began taking a scien- both a devout Christian and a faithful Confu- Chinese University of Hong Kong. The kin- tific approach to agriculture,” says PICB cian, noting that Xu’s writings consistently dred spirits came to realize that planar geom- director Andreas Dress. Xu also trained impe- adhere to Confucian philosophy. Nor were the etry and other higher mathematical concepts rial soldiers to use a newfangled device from Jesuits as zealous in their missionary work then unknown in China were essential to Europe, the cannon. “He was a fascinating as groups that came later: After all, notes progress. “Elements is basically a book about polymath who spread his interests far and Richter, Ricci helped translate Elements— Western logic,” says Yu Sanle of Beijing wide for a specific purpose: statecraft,” says not the Bible—into Chinese. Administration Institute. Dagmar Schäfer of the Max Planck Institute Xu’s legacy was imperiled by the col- In translating Elements, Xu and Ricci also for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany. lapse of the Ming Dynasty in 1644. But his coined a host of terms, including jihe as the Xu was also a key figure in China’s calen- seminal contributions are cherished by mod- character for “geometry.” Ricci deserves dar reform. China’s calendar was based on ern China. “He forged a dialogue between equal billing, Yu argues: “His was the greatest observed motions of the sun and moon, the West and China,” says Li Tiangang of the contribution of any foreigner to Chinese cul- whereas the West’s was based on average Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, a ture and civilization.” Knowledge flowed motions. “The Jesuits had better data than dialogue that grows richer, and more rele-

CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): COURTESY OF XUHUI DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION; COURTESY OF THE EAST ASIAN LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY LIBRARY, ASIAN EAST OF THE COURTESY ADMINISTRATION; DISTRICT XUHUI OF COURTESY TO BOTTOM): (TOP CREDITS both ways: Ricci also translated several Late Ming astronomers and a clear geometry vant, by the day. –RICHARD STONE

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 318 2 NOVEMBER 2007 733 Published by AAAS