From the preceding one can conclude that four centuries ago, traditional Chinese science had no common grounds with western physics whatsoever.

Today, this is not true any more, not only because of Einstein's theories of relativity and western quantum mechanics, but also because the existence of EM waves (EM = electromagnetic) like solar- or x-rays, and elementary particles like electrons, was still unknown until late in the nineteenth century. Not to mention the fact that EM waves and elemental particles can collapse (De Broglie 1923).


The reconstruction of the ancient theory reveals many common grounds with especially modern western physics. In order to keep things clear, I will dig deeper into it only if those interfaces are relevant to conceptualization. If not too confusing, I prefer to incorporate it into my text and otherwise in (numbered) Notes. In either case, I am referring - on this website through hyper-links and tooltips - to books and websites (usually Wikipedia).
This way I hope to keep my texts fairly readable for readers with little prior knowledge of physics.

I prefer to call Chinese physics 'eastern', to distinguish it from western physics. Because of their many common grounds, the same words / concepts are used regularly in a slightly different meaning. When necessary, for example, with the word 'quantum phenomenon', I can now distinguish between 'eastern' and  'western' formulations. Sometimes I have to resort to new words too. In both cases, I have definitions for the words in my manuscript, and added them to a glossary.

In my manuscript, I will test the scientific value of the ancient theory with phenomena that are inexplicable by western theories. The quantum character of the ancient theory, however, sometimes complicates things. Apparently unimportant phenomena which, according to West, are due to coincidence, prove to be of interest when they appear not to be coincidental.

Continue to: 1.4. Subjective scientific observation using a reference frame