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Timeline Of Chinese Astronomy
This is a timeline of Chinese records and investigations in astronomy. *2137 BC - October 22, the Chinese book, the ''Book of Documents'', records the earliest known solar eclipse. *c. 2000 BC - Chinese determine that Jupiter needs 12 years to complete one revolution of its orbit. *c. 1400 BC - Chinese record the regularity of solar and lunar eclipses and the earliest known Solar prominence and two novas (). *c. 1200 BC - Chinese divide the sky into twenty eight regions (Chinese constellations) for recognition of the stars. *c. 1100 BC - Chinese first determine the spring equinox. *776 BC - Chinese make the earliest reliable record of a solar eclipse. *613 BC - In July, a Comet, possibly Comet Halley, is recorded in the ''Spring and Autumn Annals'' (). *532 BC - A nova was recorded in the ''Records of the Grand Historian'' and Zuo Zhuan (). *364 BC - Earliest recorded observation of sunspots made by Gan De. *28 BC - May 10, Chinese imperial history book, the '' Book of Han'', m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timeline
A timeline is a display of a list of events in chronological order. It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labelled with dates paralleling it, and usually contemporaneous events. Timelines can use any suitable scale representing time, suiting the subject and data; many use a linear scale, in which a unit of distance is equal to a set amount of time. This timescale is dependent on the events in the timeline. A timeline of evolution can be over millions of years, whereas a timeline for the day of the September 11 attacks can take place over minutes, and that of an explosion over milliseconds. While many timelines use a linear timescale—especially where very large or small timespans are relevant -- logarithmic timelines entail a logarithmic scale of time; some "hurry up and wait" chronologies are depicted with zoom lens metaphors. History Time and space, particularly the line, are intertwined concepts in human thought. The line is ubiquitous in clocks in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Han
The ''Book of Han'' or ''History of the Former Han'' (Qián Hàn Shū,《前汉书》) is a history of China finished in 111AD, covering the Western, or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. It is also called the ''Book of Former Han''. The work was composed by Ban Gu (32–92 CE), an Eastern Han court official, with the help of his sister Ban Zhao, continuing the work of their father, Ban Biao. They modeled their work on the ''Records of the Grand Historian'', a cross-dynastic general history, but theirs was the first in this annals-biography form to cover a single dynasty. It is the best source, sometimes the only one, for many topics such as literature in this period. A second work, the '' Book of the Later Han'' covers the Eastern Han period from 25 to 220, and was composed in the fifth century by Fan Ye (398–445). Contents This history developed from a continuation of Sima Qian's ''Records of the Grand Historian'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Astronomy
Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, dating back to antiquity, with its origins in the religious, mythological, cosmological, calendrical, and astrological beliefs and practices of prehistory: vestiges of these are still found in astrology, a discipline long interwoven with public and governmental astronomy. It was not completely separated in Europe (see astrology and astronomy) during the Copernican Revolution starting in 1543. In some cultures, astronomical data was used for astrological prognostication. Early history Early cultures identified celestial objects with gods and spirits. They related these objects (and their movements) to phenomena such as rain, drought, seasons, and tides. It is generally believed that the first astronomers were priests, and that they understood celestial objects and events to be manifestations of the divine, hence early astronomy's connection to what is now called astrology. A 32,500-year-old carved ivory mammoth tusk could cont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flat Earth
The flat-Earth model is an archaic and scientifically disproven conception of Earth's shape as a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat-Earth cosmography, including Greece until the classical period (5th century BC), the Bronze and Iron Age civilizations of the Near East until the Hellenistic period (31 BC), and China until the 17th century. The idea of a spherical Earth appeared in ancient Greek philosophy with Pythagoras (6th century BC). However, most pre-Socratics (6th–5th century BC) retained the flat-Earth model. In the early 4th century BC, Plato wrote about a spherical Earth. By about 330 BC, his former student Aristotle had provided strong empirical evidence for a spherical Earth. Knowledge of the Earth's global shape gradually began to spread beyond the Hellenistic world. By the early period of the Christian Church, the spherical view was widely held, with some notable exceptions. It is a historical myth or modern misconception that medieval ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spherical Earth
Spherical Earth or Earth's curvature refers to the approximation of figure of the Earth as a sphere. The earliest documented mention of the concept dates from around the 5th century BC, when it appears in the writings of Greek philosophers. In the 3rd century BC, Hellenistic astronomy established the roughly spherical shape of Earth as a physical fact and calculated the Earth's circumference. This knowledge was gradually adopted throughout the Old World during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.Continuation into Roman and medieval thought: Reinhard Krüger:Materialien und Dokumente zur mittelalterlichen Erdkugeltheorie von der Spätantike bis zur Kolumbusfahrt (1492)Direct adoption by India: D. Pingree: "History of Mathematical Astronomy in India", ''Dictionary of Scientific Biography'', Vol. 15 (1978), pp. 533–633 (554f.); Glick, Thomas F., Livesey, Steven John, Wallis, Faith (eds.): "Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia", Routledge, New York 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compass
A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with magnetic north. Other methods may be used, including gyroscopes, magnetometers, and GPS receivers. Compasses often show angles in degrees: north corresponds to 0°, and the angles increase clockwise, so east is 90°, south is 180°, and west is 270°. These numbers allow the compass to show azimuths or bearings which are commonly stated in degrees. If local variation between magnetic north and true north is known, then direction of magnetic north also gives direction of true north. Among the Four Great Inventions, the magnetic compass was first invented as a device for divination as early as the Chinese Han Dynasty (since c. 206 BC),Li Shu-hua, p. 176 and later adopted for navigation by the Song Dynasty Chinese during the 11th centur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Navigation
Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, marine navigation, aeronautic navigation, and space navigation. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks. All navigational techniques involve locating the navigator's position compared to known locations or patterns. Navigation, in a broader sense, can refer to any skill or study that involves the determination of position and direction. In this sense, navigation includes orienteering and pedestrian navigation. History In the European medieval period, navigation was considered part of the set of '' seven mechanical arts'', none of which were used for long voyages across open ocean. Polynesian navigation is probably the earliest form of open-ocean navigation; it was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
True North
True north (also called geodetic north or geographic north) is the direction along Earth's surface towards the geographic North Pole or True North Pole. Geodetic north differs from ''magnetic'' north (the direction a compass points toward the Magnetic North Pole), and from grid north (the direction northwards along the grid lines of a map projection). Geodetic true north also differs very slightly from ''astronomical'' true north (typically by a few arcseconds) because the local gravitational field may not point at the exact rotational axis of Earth. The direction of astronomical true north is marked in the skies by the north celestial pole. This is within about 1° of the position of Polaris, meaning the star would appear to trace a tiny circle in the sky each sidereal day. Due to the axial precession of Earth, true north rotates in an arc with respect to the stars that takes approximately 25,000 years to complete. Around 2101–2103, Polaris will make its closest approac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pole Star
A pole star or polar star is a star, preferably bright, nearly aligned with the axis of a rotating astronomical body. Currently, Earth's pole stars are Polaris (Alpha Ursae Minoris), a bright magnitude-2 star aligned approximately with its northern axis that serves as a pre-eminent star in celestial navigation, and a much dimmer magnitude-5.5 star on its southern axis, Polaris Australis (Sigma Octantis). From around 1700 BC until just after 300 AD, Kochab (Beta Ursae Minoris) and Pherkad (Gamma Ursae Minoris) were twin northern pole stars, though neither was as close to the pole as Polaris is now. History In classical antiquity, Beta Ursae Minoris (Kochab) was closer to the celestial north pole than Alpha Ursae Minoris. While there was no naked-eye star close to the pole, the midpoint between Alpha and Beta Ursae Minoris was reasonably close to the pole, and it appears that the entire constellation of Ursa Minor, in antiquity known as '':wikt:Cynosura, Cynosura'' (Greek ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shen Kuo
Shen Kuo (; 1031–1095) or Shen Gua, courtesy name Cunzhong (存中) and pseudonym Mengqi (now usually given as Mengxi) Weng (夢溪翁),Yao (2003), 544. was a Chinese polymathic scientist and statesman of the Song dynasty (960–1279). Shen was a master in many fields of study including mathematics, optics, and horology. In his career as a civil servant, he became a finance minister, governmental state inspector, head official for the Bureau of Astronomy in the Song court, Assistant Minister of Imperial Hospitality, and also served as an academic chancellor.Needham (1986), Volume 4, Part 2, 33. At court his political allegiance was to the Reformist faction known as the New Policies Group, headed by Chancellor Wang Anshi (1021–1085). In his ''Dream Pool Essays'' or ''Dream Torrent Essays'' (; ''Mengxi Bitan'') of 1088, Shen was the first to describe the magnetic needle compass, which would be used for navigation (first described in Europe by Alexander Neckam in 1187).Bowma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dream Pool Essays
''The Dream Pool Essays'' (or ''Dream Torrent Essays'') was an extensive book written by the Chinese polymath and statesman Shen Kuo (1031–1095), published in 1088 during the Song dynasty (960–1279) of China. Shen compiled this encyclopedic work while living in forced retirement from government office, naming the book after his private estate near modern Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province. The ''Dream Pool Essays'' was heavily reorganized in reprint editions by later Chinese authors from the late 11th to 17th centuries. In modern times it has been translated from Chinese into several languages. These include English, German, French, and Japanese translations. The ''Dream Pool Essays'' covers a range of topics including discoveries and advancements in Traditional Chinese medicine, mathematics, astronomy, science and technology, optics, architecture and civil engineering, metallurgy, and early archaeology. Observations of the natural world included those of wildlife, meteorolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Messier
Charles Messier (; 26 June 1730 – 12 April 1817) was a French astronomer. He published an astronomical catalogue consisting of 110 nebulae and star clusters, which came to be known as the ''Messier objects''. Messier's purpose for the catalogue was to help astronomical observers distinguish between permanent and transient visually diffuse objects in the sky. Biography Messier was born in Badonviller in the Lorraine region of France, the tenth of twelve children of Françoise B. Grandblaise and Nicolas Messier, a Court usher. Six of his brothers and sisters died while young, and his father died in 1741. Charles' interest in astronomy was stimulated by the appearance of the great six-tailed comet in 1744 and by an annular solar eclipse visible from his hometown on 25 July 1748. In 1751, Messier entered the employ of Joseph Nicolas Delisle, the astronomer of the French Navy, who instructed him to keep careful records of his observations. Messier's first doc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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