India not ready for space travel and missles... 1850

Robert Kolker

it wasn't always emperically based. How can mathematical formulas be emperically based to hold true universally?

The east went into economic & political decline and consequently academic decline. If thinkers are caught up in the midst of turmoil, conquests, revolutions etc -they will be persecuted or just not be able to find time to invent. I don't know about China -but India and the region west of it including Egypt had to deal with a major disruptive force -Islam. It introduced orthodoxy, bigotry, arrested development etc. to sustain the hegemony of Islam. Egypt at one pt, was known for its engineering excellence and today it is just a 3rd world country in the grip of fanatacism. Hopefully, this region will come of its dark age with a renaissance of its own and things will be better again. Till then, you will have to take my word for it that the finest idiots known to mankind can only be found in the USA :-).

its not necessary that everything west of Rome have something in common with the Chinese. Pasta for one is non-existent in India. If the chinese have a problem, it need not hold true for the entire region east of rome.

yeah -one doesn't have to re-invent computers and software in India to contribute to CSE. Its perfectly legit for people here to re-use technologies invented in the west -and improve on it. It doesn't mean that they cannot invent anything -just that for myraid reasons mentioned above, they are yet to contribute their own share to S&E. As and when the country becomes prosperous with geo-political stability, it will do more fundamental research and contribute its due share to mankind.

regards -kamal