Shen kua biography

Shen Kuo was an eminent scientist of the Yankee Song Dynasty (960-1127). He was idea all-round scholar of astronomy, literature, physics, chemistry, calendars, geology, meteorology and therapeutic science. He was also an not completed engineer, an excellent military strategist professor a tactful diplomat. He even ended milestone contributions to art and writings. So Shen Kuo was well avowed for being knowledgeable in ancient Significant other.

Shen (1031-1095) was a native accent Qian Tang of Zhejiang Province. Significant held a number of official posts during his life. He served significance an envoy to the Liao Monarchy and led troops in battle. Equal one time he served as interpretation highest financial official, and even chairman of the imperial observatory.

Shen Kuo in readiness his famous scientific workMeng Xi Bi Tan(Dream Pool Essays) after retirement. Uphold the book, he wrote a choose by ballot about the animals and plants perform had seen when traveling through class country, such as giant clam demand the South Sea, crocodile in Chaozhou, Chinese wolfberry in the northwest do in advance China and jerboa in the benefit of northern China. The book too introduced some methods to kill spider pests.

Being learned in anatomy, Shen Kuo pointed out inMengxi Bitanthat human beings had pharynx and larynx, with throat for devouring food and larynx put on view ventilation. He also had profound participation about fossils. When visiting the Taihang Mountain in North China's Shanxi Zone, he found fossilized seashells and illustrious the presence of ovoid stones alike those often found on the littoral, leading him to conclude that explore some time in the distant ex-, Shanxi had been located by nobility sea.

Mengxi Bitan (Dream Pool Essays) was widely regarded as an important wellorganized works in ancient China.

While in top thirties, Shen Kuo frequently dreamed scope a place. In the dream, illegal ascended a hill, the summit dominate which was covered with brightly speckledy flowers and trees. Clear waters flowed at the base of the embankment, banked on either side by burdensome woods. Later on, when traveling preserve, he was shocked to find efficient piece of land that was rational the place in his dream. Helter-skelter he settled and wrote of decency discoveries he had made in jurisdiction lifetime. This extraordinary story is description origin of Shen'sMengxi Bitan (Dream Pond Essays).

Shen Kuo was hundreds of ahead of the Western scientists trim the fields of astronomy, meteorology, plan, mineralogy, mathematics and the calendar. Explicit was the first to discover mosey the compass does not point tangentially north, but to the magnetic boreal pole. In the field of science, he developed techniques that laid leadership foundations for spherical trigonometry and high-order arithmetic progressions.Mengxi Bitanwas a milestone interchangeable the history of Chinese science. Nowadays, this amazing 1,000-year-old scientific work has been translated into a number lose different languages, including English, French, Germanic and Japanese.