Which ancient civilization was most scientifically advanced, Ancient China, India, or Greece?

Question

Please provide a lot of detail and be insightful. Also, include citations. Also, please provide a well-focused thesis statement.

Answer 1

Start with the background on each:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_India

From there, form your own opinion as to which was the most advanced scientifically, and support that claim.

Answer 2

First of all, we must assess the peak of each civilization. Remember that what we now know as "Greek Civilization" relays in the so called "Hellenistic" period, from the death of Alexander to the fall of the Ptolemaic Dinasty in Egypt.
If your concept of "scientific" doesn´t include philosophy and literature, well, I think the 80 % of what we can call today Greek "technology" was developed at this time.
Vitruvius, a Roman author who wrote ten books about Architecture, instead of an original work, actually depicted an inventory of hellenistic advances, such as construction techniques, hydraulics from Archimedes and Ctesibius, and even steam machines from Hiero of Alexandria.
There is an omnipresent debate in academic circles about the potential of the Greeks to produce an industrial revolution before the Roman conquest. I think their slavery-based economy prevented any movement in that direction.

In the other hand, when we talk about China, we are talking about several periods of strong central powers (the Shang and Zhou dinasties), one feudal period (Warring States) and finally the Imperial China. This somewhat homogeneous political development and unity gave the Chinese some advantages regarding the Greeks. There is a manual of urban planning and hydraulics (the so called "Zhouli") dating from1200 BC, around the time the Aqueans were besieging Troy, and roughly one thousand years before Vitruvius books.
India' Civilization mirrored in some way the Chinese stability, and it is estimated by some authors (like Angus Maddison) to have had the largest economy in the world during the first century AD.
There contributions in astronomics as well as in mathematics is remarkable. The Pancha-Siddhantika (Five Principles) book, set a method of graduated calculation. Other texts, up to the fifth century AD but certainly dating back to the Vedic period (2000 BC), set for the first time the concept of zero, the techniques of algebra and algorithm, square root and cube root.
Only Archimedes introduced something like that in the western world, but his work was largely discontinued or lost during the Roman era.
In conclusion, I think that the lack of political unity and a strong central power was the main problem that hampered a major scientific development in the Greek world. Their Roman conquerors applied this knowledge in areas such as architecture, engineering and urban planning (remember the Acqueducts, Agrippa's Pantheon dome, the Empire's roads), but they missed the theoretical background to move things further ahead.

In my opinion, China gained the upper hand. Just look at the origin of so many daily-use things to prove it.
They were eclipsed by the europeans only after the XVIII century.

Answer 3

the question can't be assist by anyone living today, the quantum analysis is out of the realm of all who think they think, we have been a (garbage in garbage out) too long, love the series terraX but was somehow in the looses of the ted turner purchases or something, the studies need to address turkey as a country and languages to get through some of the early needs, the conquest of Alexandra and the burned library, the alchemist that were all killed because war takes no prisoners, each truth can't stand the depth of it own findings when sciences are the behavioral net work of enslavement's in it's own thesis to each government, our government would rather spend all our resources making sure both we and the people abroad are disparate and under a war zone at all times so they can divide and conquer as much with as little efforts as it takes, so there can be no one coming through this crap that isn't On somebodies payroll and can't set free the information that is useful to causation's of desires other than their own so there will be no evaluations that are not biased

Answer 4

Pick a date and compare the three at that point, that might be a start...But I would say China but then I am biased as I study Chinese
X)

Answer 5

Have you considered the Maya? They had some very sophisticated mathematics.

Answer 6

Look India up, you will be surprised.

Answer 7

I think it was china.

Answer 8

hah, its not my friggin homework assignment.