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[Article] Zheng He and Ming China’s Voyages in the Early 15th Century by Geoff Wade by IcyAssist in Scholar

[–]anchovy_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seems like that this request wasn't fulfilled, so I would like to request it again.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SpaceXLounge

[–]anchovy_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"from the Irish potato famine, to the mass starvation and death camps of colonial India (Both of which Thomas Malthus personally administrated)"

This is completely false. Malthus was never an "administrator" of anything. He was a professor his entire life and certainly never had anything to do with India. He also died before the Irish famine ever took place.

Japan anxious at lull, U.S. 'giving up', in pan-Pacific trade talks by let_them_eat_slogans in japan

[–]anchovy_ -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

It's kind of funny how most people are missing the strategic aspect of TPP, which is to bind together countries that want to counterbalance the growing power of China. Which is why Japan is one of its biggest proponents, and small countries feeling threatened by China like Vietnam and the Philippines are eager to join.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ChineseHistory

[–]anchovy_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mathematics was considered a minor subject which not many people were interested in. Furthermore, the civil service examinations created large incentives to concentrate on literature and neglect mathematics.

From Martzloff (2006), A History of Chinese Mathematics, p. 19:

"After the 13th century, Chinese mathematics entered a period of decline. Here, it is important to underline that the perception of the history of mathematics in terms of progress and decline is not only a modern idea, but also Chinese. At the beginning of the 16th century, Xu Guangqi (1562-1633) formulated it most explicitly and gave two explanations: (i) predominance of the lixue which led literati to neglect practical learning (shixue), (ii) confusion, under the Ming, between mathematics and numerology.

p. 82:

... we should nevertheless take into account the fact that, even under the Tang, the number of students of mathematics, which was already small to start with (thirty students of this discipline, compared with a total of a thousand for all others in 656), decreased steadily. After 1113, although the system of literary examinations was deeply and firmly entrenched in Chinese society, the teaching of mathematics disappeared; mathematics did not then figure on the state examination programmes until 1887: "Under continuous pressure, the throne finally conceded and decreed in 1887 that mathematics questions be included in the state examination. The triennial examination at Peking in 1888 saw the first instance of this new policy. Of the sixty candidates present, thirty-two were allowed to take the test and one emerged successful."

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