Tiangong Kaiwu
《天工开物》
Tiangong Kaiwu,as the representative work of the famous scientist in the Ming Dynasty Song Yingxing, was completed in 1637.It is an ency-clopedia of agricultural and handicraft production technologies, summing up the knowledge of almost all the production areas.The 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 data.Tian,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.
《天工开物》是我国明代著名科学家宋应星（1587—1663年）的代表作，完成于1637年。这是一部有关农业和手工业生产技术的百科全书，总结了各个生产领域的知识。全书共十八卷，包括种植、染色、粮食加工、制糖、烧制陶瓷、冶铸、车船制造、锤锻、榨油、造纸、采矿、兵器、颜料、酿酒等诸多内容。宋应星无论是对操作技术还是对工具本身都尽可能用数字进行精确的描述。《天工开物》是保留我国科技史料最丰富的一部书，它更多地着眼于手工业，反映了我国明末出现资本主义萌芽时期的生产力状况。它也表明这个时期我国的科学技术已经比欧洲落后了。同一时期的伽利略已经用实验和数学相结合的方法发现了许多重要的定律，而中国还停留在以收集整理资料为主的阶段。《天工开物》一书在全世界发行了16个版本，印刷了38次之多。《天工开物》一书在一些地方长时期畅销不滞，这在古代科技著作中并不是经常看到的。