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Shen Kuo [a] (Chinese: 沈括; 1031–1095) or Shen Gua [b], courtesy name Cunzhong (存中) and pseudonym Mengqi (now usually given as Mengxi) Weng (夢溪翁), [1] was a Chinese polymath, scientist, and statesman of the Song dynasty (960–1279). Shen was a master in many fields of study including mathematics, optics, and horology.
Shen Kuo was a renowned government official and military general during the Northern Song period of China. However, he was impeached from office by chancellor Cai Que (蔡確; 1036–1093), who wrongly held him responsible for a Song Chinese military defeat by the Tangut-led Western Xia dynasty in 1081 during the Song–Xia wars. [6]
A rainbow is an optical phenomenon caused by refraction, ... In Song dynasty China (960–1279), a polymath scholar-official named Shen Kuo (1031–1095) ...
Even before Shen Kuo and Zhu Yu had described the mariner's magnetic needle compass, the earlier military treatise of the Wujing Zongyao in 1044 had also described a thermoremanence compass. [77] This was a simple iron or steel needle that was heated, cooled, and placed in a bowl of water, producing the effect of weak magnetization, although ...
In his Dream Pool Essays of 1088 CE, Shen related a conversation he had with the director of the Astronomical Observatory, who had asked Shen if the shapes of the Sun and the Moon were round like balls or flat like fans. Shen Kuo explained his reasoning for the former: If they were like balls they would surely obstruct each other when they met.
1088 – In his Dream Pool Essays (夢溪筆談), the Chinese scientist Shen Kuo wrote vivid descriptions of tornadoes, that rainbows were formed by the shadow of the sun in rain, occurring when the sun would shine upon it, and the curious common phenomena of the effect of lightning that, when striking a house, would merely scorch the walls a ...
Geomorphology: In his Dream Pool Essays of 1088, Shen Kuo (1031–1095) wrote about a landslide (near modern Yan'an) where petrified bamboos were discovered in a preserved state underground, in the dry northern climate zone of Shanbei, Shaanxi; Shen reasoned that since bamboo was known only to grow in damp and humid conditions, the climate of ...
In 1193, Zhou Bida, an officer of Southern Song Dynasty, made a set of the clay movable-type method according to the method described by Shen Kuo in his Dream Pool Essays, and printed his book Notes of The Jade Hall (玉堂雜記). [42] Clay type printing was practised in China from the Song, through to the Qing dynasty (1644–1912). [43]