雙語科技百科(農業) 第56期:《天工開物》
Tiangong Kaiwu
Tiangong Kaiwu,as the representative work of the famous scientist in the Ming Dynasty Song Yingxing, was completed in is an ency-clopedia of agricultural and handicraft production technologies, summing up the knowledge of almost all the production work is divided int0 18 volumes,containing planting, dyeing, grain processing, sugar refining, pottery firing, smel-ting and founding, vehicle and vessel manufacturing, forging, oil pressing, paper-making, minirtg, weaponry, pigment, liquor making , and so on. Song Yingxing tried to give accurate descriptions of the operating techniques and tools with specific ,gong Kaiwu was o book in which the most abundant collection of saentif-ic and technological records was preserved. It was more oriented towards the handicraft industry, reflecting the productive forces in the late Ming Dynasiy when capitalism began to emerge; it also indicated that the scientific technologies of ourcountry at the time lagged behind Europe. The contemporary saentist Galileo dis-covered many important laws through the combination of the experiments and mathematics while China still stayed in the period of collecting and collating materi-als. Up to now, this work has already been published in 16 different versions in the world and printed for 38 times. It sold venlt well for a long time in some places,which was rarely seen in the ancient scientific works.
《天工開物》是我國明代著名科學家宋應星（1587—1663年）的代表作，完成於1637年。這是一部有關農業和手工業生產技術的百科全書，總結了各個生產領域的知識。全書共十八卷，包括種植、染色、糧食加工、製糖、燒製陶瓷、冶鑄、車船製造、錘鍛、榨油、造紙、採礦、兵器、顏料、釀酒等諸多內容。宋應星無論是對操作技術還是對工具本身都儘可能用數字進行精確的描述。《天工開物》是保留我國科技史料最豐富的一部書，它更多地着眼於手工業，反映了我國明末出現資本主義萌芽時期的生產力狀況。它也表明這個時期我國的科學技術已經比歐洲落後了。同一時期的伽利略已經用實驗和數學相結合的方法發現了許多重要的定律，而中國還停留在以收集整理資料爲主的階段。《天工開物》一書在全世界發行了16個版本，印刷了38次之多。《天工開物》一書在一些地方長時期暢銷不滯，這在古代科技著作中並不是經常看到的。
