Page "History of physics" Paragraph 22

The first planetarium was invented by the ancient Chinese, and the official astronomers were paid to keep track of the solar, lunar, and planetary motions.

The first among other civilizations to invent complex machines, the ancient Chinese creations of the wheel burrow, the blast furnace, the grooves all are the evidence of Chinese scientists ' familiarity with the basics laws of physics.

Furthermore, the Mohist philosophical canon of the Mojing, compiled by the followers of Mozi ( c. 470-c. 390 BC ), provides the earliest known attempt to describe inertia: " The cessation of motion is due to the opposing force ... If there is no opposing force ... the motion will never stop.

This is as true as that an ox is not a horse.

" However, like many of the Hundred Schools of Thought during the Warring States period ( 403-221 BC ), the doctrine of the Mohist sect had little impact on later Chinese thought.

This passage-others from the Mojing-were only given serious attention by modern scholarship after the work of Joseph Needham in 1962.