李约瑟难题. Needham problem
Why was Chinese civilization, between the first century B.C. and the fifteenth century A.D., so much more efficient than the West in applying human natural knowledge to practical human needs? In other words, what had happened to explain why this lead never led to“modern”science in China?
Why did modern science, especially the mathematicization of hypotheses about Nature, with all its implications for advanced technology, develop only in the West at the time of Galileo?