 Compared to the flourishing of science and technology in the Song dynasty , the Ming dynasty perhaps saw fewer advancements in science and technology compared to the pace of discovery in the Western world . In fact , key advances in Chinese science in the late Ming were spurred by contact with Europe . In 1626 Johann Adam Schall von Bell wrote the first Chinese treatise on the telescope , the Yuanjingshuo ( Far Seeing Optic Glass ) ; in 1634 the Chongzhen Emperor acquired the telescope of the late Johann Schreck ( 1576 – 1630 ) . The heliocentric model of the solar system was rejected by the Catholic missionaries in China , but Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei 's ideas slowly trickled into China starting with the Polish Jesuit Michael Boym ( 1612 – 59 ) in 1627 , Adam Schall von Bell 's treatise in 1640 , and finally Joseph Edkins , Alex Wylie , and John Fryer in the 19th century . Catholic Jesuits in China would promote Copernican theory at court , yet at the same time embrace the Ptolemaic system in their writing ; it was not until 1865 that Catholic missionaries in China sponsored the heliocentric model as their Protestant peers did . Although Shen Kuo ( 1031 – 95 ) and Guo Shoujing ( 1231 – 1316 ) had laid the basis for trigonometry in China , another important work in Chinese trigonometry would not be published again until 1607 with the efforts of Xu Guangqi and Matteo Ricci . Ironically , some inventions which had their origins in ancient China were reintroduced to China from Europe during the late Ming ; for example , the field mill . 
