中国古代科学技术曾经有过辉煌的成就。从汉唐至宋元的一千多年里,中国古代科学技术在许多方面曾处于世界领先的地位。造纸、火药、罗盘、印刷术的发明,便是这一时期中国科学技术发展水平的标志。可是,大约到了明代中后期,中国的科学技术便开始逐渐落在西方的后面了。当着欧洲在十六、十七世纪产生了具有深远影响的近代自然科学的时候,中国却基本上没有产生出这样的自然科学。 Ancient Chinese science and technology have had brilliant achievements. In the one thousand years from the Han and Tang Dynasties to the Song and Yuan Dynasties, ancient Chinese science and technology were among the most advanced in the world in many aspects. The invention of papermaking, gunpowder, compass and printing was the hallmark of the development of science and technology in China during this period. However, about the middle and late Ming Dynasty, China’s science and technology began to gradually fall behind the West. At the time when Europe had a profound influence on modern natural science in the 16th and 17th centuries, China basically did not produce such a natural science.