/year

Shen Kuo

Chinese scientist and statesman (1031-1095)

8 dated entries naming Shen Kuo, drawn from 8 separate years between 1031 CE and 1126 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

JSONWikipedia articleWikidata Q270085

11th century

  • 1031Shen Kuo, Chinese polymath scientist and engineer (d. 1095)source
  • 1044The Chinese military treatise of the Wujing Zongyao is written and compiled by scholars Zeng Gongliang (曾公亮), Ding Du (丁度), and Yang Weide (楊惟德), during the Song dynasty. It is the first book in history to include formulas for gunpowder, and its use for various bombs (thrown by sling or trebuchet catapult). It also describes the double-piston pump flamethrower and a thermoremanence compass, a few decades before Shen Kuo wrote of the first known magnetic mariner's compass. Although emphasizing the importance of many weapons, it reserves high respect for the crossbow, and the ability of crossbowmen to fell charging units of nomadic cavalrymen.source
  • 1072Shen Kuo, Chinese polymathic scientist and statesman, is appointed as the head official for the Bureau of Astronomy – where he begins his work with the colleague Wei Pu on accurately plotting the orbital paths of the stars, planets, and moon three times a night for a continuum of five years.source
  • 1075Summer – Shen Kuo, Chinese polymath scientist and statesman, solves a border dispute with the Liao dynasty by dredging up old diplomatic records. He refutes Emperor Dao Zong's bluffs point for point during a meeting at Mt. Yongan (near modern-day Pingquan), reestablishing the rightful borders of the Song dynasty.source
  • 1080Shen Kuo, Chinese polymath scientist and statesman, begins his defensive military campaign against the Tangut people of the Western Xia. He successfully defends the invasion route to Yanzhou (Shaanxi province).source
  • 1088The Dream Pool Essays is published by the Chinese polymath scientist and statesman Shen Kuo. His book represents the earliest known writing about the magnetic compass, movable type printing, experimentation with the camera obscura only decades after Hasan ibn al-Haytham, which includes many different fields of study in essay and encyclopedic form, including geology, astronomy, archaeology, mathematics, pharmacology, magnetism, geography, optics, hydraulics, economics, military strategy, philosophy, etc. Some of Shen's most advanced theories include geomorphology and climate variability, while he improves Chinese astronomy, by fixing the position of the pole star and correcting the lunar error, by plotting its orbital course every night for a continuum of five years. Shen's book is also the first to describe the drydock in China – and discusses the advantages of the recent invention of the canal pound lock, over the old flash lock.source

12th century

  • 1119Zhu Yu, a Chinese historian, publishes his book Pingzhou Table Talks, describing the earliest known use of bulkheads to provide separate hull compartments in ships. Zhu Yu's book is also the first to report the use of a magnetic compass for navigation at sea. (The first actual description, however, of the magnetic compass is by another Chinese writer Shen Kuo in his Dream Pool Essays, published in 1088.)source
  • 1126Two previously written Chinese pharmaceutical works, one by Shen Kuo and one by Su Shi, are combined into one written work.source

Named in the same entries