Today's western civilization is inherited from Greek and Roman civilization. The greatest feature of ancient Greek civilization is that it not only achieved the highest scientific achievements in all ancient civilizations, but also created a set of very awesome basic theoretical sciences. Only by following this theory can science continue to develop.
We often say now that if we know what it is, we must know why. For example, a matchlock gun has a short range, is difficult to aim at, and sometimes explodes. Why? What material is used to prevent the barrel from exploding? China can't solve this problem, because China doesn't even have the most basic systematic theory of mathematics and geometry. He has to learn from scratch by translating the original geometry of ancient Greece. In the late Ming Dynasty, China began to contact with western colonial forces. The identical cannon can only be copied in the Ming Dynasty, and its life span and range are very different. However, at that time, the Ming army was able to defeat zero western European warships by fire attacks and other indigenous methods because the development of science and technology was not high enough; The Qing army did the same thing in the first Opium War. The fleet composed of British battleships could not be set on fire by mere fireboats. Obviously it looks like wood, but if you don't eat it, you can't even light a fire. The fear of the Qing army soldiers and civilians can be imagined.
Let me give another example to illustrate this gap. In military terms, this is more intuitive. I don't know if you have noticed that Sun Tzu's Art of War, which is widely circulated in China, is mostly a strategic theory, with little practical operation. What kind of weapons should the infantry use, what kind of formation should be formed, what are the advantages and disadvantages of this formation, how to repair the bunker when defending, why should it be repaired like this, how much dry food should be taken when marching, whether the soldiers should take dried meat or pasta, and how many soldiers should eat 1000 cows? . . Wait a minute. China's systematic works first appeared in the late Ming Dynasty, a thousand years later than the West. Qi Jiguang discussed in detail how the army should be trained and what kind of weapons to use, but no one paid attention to it at all. China has despised theoretical things since ancient times. Now we say that we should pay attention to science. Why? Because if you don't do things scientifically, it means that if the method is wrong, you will get twice the result with half the effort. During the Second Opium War, the hand-to-hand combat of Mongolian cavalry was defeated by Indian cavalry brought by Britain, which turned into a one-sided massacre. Why is this? Because of cavalry fighting, cavalry formation and cavalry tactics, this is also a science. After proper training, the farmer's son can get on the horse and become a better cavalry even if he can't learn to ride and shoot. I forgot to mention here that how to cultivate better horse breeds and improve war horses is also a science.
I won't elaborate on the rest. China's sculpture and painting art were greatly influenced by India when Buddhism was introduced, and Indian sculpture art came from Greece. There are many such things, such as the design of urban sewers, and so on.