| Wen-yuan Qian | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1936-04-14)April 14, 1936 Shanghai |
| Died | August 21, 2003(2003-08-21) (aged 67) Jacksonville, Illinois |
| Citizenship | American |
| Alma mater | Peking University |
| Occupation(s) | Historian of science; sinologist |
| Employer(s) | Zhejiang University; Blackburn College; MacMurray College |
| Known for | The Great Inertia: Scientific Stagnation in Traditional China |
Wen-yuan Qian (14 April 1936 – 21 August 2003) was an American professor of history who taught at Blackburn College and MacMurray College.
Early life and education
Qian was born in Shanghai. He studied physics at Peking University, graduating in 1959.
Career
Qian taught physics at Zhejiang University from 1959 to 1980. During the Cultural Revolution, he was branded an "ideological counter-revolutionary." In 1980, the government of the People's Republic of China sent Qian to the United States to continue his studies. In 1983, he graduated from Northwestern University with a Master of Arts in history. Qian was funded by the W. Clement Stone Foundation to translate several works from Chinese to English. In 1985, he published his most known work, The Great Inertia: Scientific Stagnation in Traditional China. The work was "cast in the form of a challenge" to Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China. Qian believed that political conditions, particularly the imperial examination system, stymied the development of modern science in dynastic China. Qian saw the neglect of formal logic and rigorous proof as a central cause in the failure to develop modern science.
In 1988, Qian graduated from the University of Michigan with a doctorate in history and began teaching history at Blackburn College the same year. From 1992 to 2002, he taught history at MacMurray College. Qian died in 2003 in Jacksonville, Illinois.
Works
Scholia has an author profile for Wen-yuan Qian.
Library resources - Qian, Wen-yuan (1988). Axiomaticism in Science Development (PhD thesis). hdl:2027.42/161851. OCLC 21402755.
- Qian, Wen-yuan (June 1985). "Science Development: Sino-Western Comparative Insights". Science Communication. 6 (4): 377–405. doi:10.1177/107554708500600404. hdl:2027.42/68479. ISSN 0164-0259. OCLC 4651285863.
- Qian, Wen-yuan (1985). The Great Inertia: Scientific Stagnation in Traditional China. Croom Helm. ISBN 978-0-7099-2104-2. LCCN 84014217. OCLC 10914880. OL 2851872M.
- Qian, Wen-yuan (1982-10-01). "The Great Inertia: An Introduction to a Causal Inquiry into Traditional China's Scientific Stagnation". Comparative Civilizations Review. 9 (9). ISSN 0733-4540. OCLC 8091893947.
See also
References
- ^ "Obituary information for Wen-yuan Qian". www.airsman-hires.com. Archived from the original on 2023-04-01. Retrieved 2025-01-05.
- ^ Henderson, John B. (1985). "Steps not Made". Science. 230 (4725): 534–535. doi:10.1126/science.230.4725.534. ISSN 0036-8075. JSTOR 1695246. PMID 17809681.
- Cartier, Michel (August 1985). "Wen-yuan Qian, The Great Inertia: Scientific Stagnation in Traditional China, Londres-Sydney-Dover-New Hampshire, Croom Helm, 1984, XII + 155 p.". Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales (in French). 40 (4): 957–958. doi:10.1017/S0395264900084432. ISSN 0395-2649.
- Lin, Justin Yifu (2008-01-01). "The Needham puzzle, the Weber question, and China's miracle: Long-term performance since the Sung dynasty". China Economic Journal. 1 (1): 63–95. doi:10.1080/17538960701565053. ISSN 1753-8963.
- Hannas, William C. (2003-12-31). The Writing on the Wall: How Asian Orthography Curbs Creativity. University of Pennsylvania Press. doi:10.9783/9780812202168. ISBN 978-0-8122-3711-5. OL 11345563M.