The Chinese have long been undermined by the western world as not being well known for their technological accomplishments. However this is completely untrue, and thanks to the efforts of a British philanthropist Joseph Needham the Chinese have been accredited with the discovery of an independent invention of the decimal system, seismological detectors, the blast furnace, gunpowder, paper money, the wheel barrow, paper, printing, the compass, natural gas as a fuel, the rotary fan, the suspension bridge, spaghetti and many more, as well as having made a huge contribution to the fields of medicine, astronomy and logic.

The four most important discoveries by the Chinese which influenced the western world to a huge degree were spaghetti, paper money, chopsticks and whiskey (joke), no they were actually gunpowder, paper and printing and the compass.

Gunpowder has certainly made one of the biggest impressions on the world, it has been responsible for a hell of a lot more deaths than lives, and is one of the most important warfare discoveries of ancient times. It was invented by and alchemist who was actually trying to invent the elixir of life for a Chinese Emperor in the Tang Dynasty. Elixirs of life have been considered to be vital to the Chinese people for centuries.

The inventor of paper Cai Lun, really did the world a favor, without him we might not have written history. He was a Chinese Eunuch and he made his discovery in 105 AD. Paper making was spread to the rest of the world in 751 AD, over 600 years later, when Arabs captured some Chinese papermakers after the battle of Talas River. To my way of thinking paper was the ultimate Chinese invention.

The compass was originally used as a religious accruement; the Chinese people believed that when you built a new house, it had to be perfectly aligned with nature, so the compass was used to ensure this alignment. Obviously perfect alignment with nature must have been true north. This was a simply wooden circle, with notches carved on it, on which the monk balanced a magnetic spoon. Navigation throughout the world has been developed and dictated to by the compass.

Chinese medicine and their wide ranging pharmacopeias are well known throughout the world. Acupuncture also came from China, and it is believe that as far back as 4000 years ago in the New Stone Age, Chinese physicians were familiar with brain surgery. Skulls which have tested this ancient by Carbon dating, have been found to have indications that some kind of surgery took place after which the patient survived for some time.

The first clocks were invented by the Chinese; they made toys, houses and many other things from bamboo. The Chinese built the first planetarium, made the first kites and learned how to use them even in battle. They invented and experiment for parity which revolutionized the science of particle physics, we cold go on with this subject ad infinitum, but I think you get the picture now.