Science & Discovery in the 11th century

18 sourced entries, 1000 CE to 1092 CE, oldest first. Also see Science & Discovery across every century or everything else in the 11th century.

• 1000Murasaki Shikibu starts to write The Tale of Genji.source
• 1006April 30 – The brightest supernova ever recorded, SN 1006, occurs in the constellation of Lupus. It is observed and described in China, Japan, Iraq, Egypt, and Europe and possibly depicted in North American rock art. Modern astronomers now consider its distance at about 7,200 light-years. The supernova provides enough light to read by on a night with a dark moon.source
• 1023January 24 – A solar eclipse is visible from London.source
• 1023July 20 – A partial solar eclipse, part of the Solar Saros 120 cycle, is visible to the natives of southern South America in what are now Brazil, Uruguay and Chile.source
• 1045Movable type printing is invented by Bi Sheng in China.source
• 1054July 4 (approx.) – SN 1054, a supernova, is first observed by the Chinese, Arabs and possibly Native Americans, near the star Zeta Tauri. For 23 days it remains bright enough to be seen in daylight. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula (NGC 1952).source
• 1064Sunset Crater Volcano (modern-day Arizona) first erupts (approximate date)source
• 1065A "guest star" (i.e. a nova of some kind) is observed from China. It may be related to the Strottner-Drechsler Object 20 nebula.source
• 1066March 20 – Halley's Comet reaches perihelion. Its appearance is subsequently recorded in the Bayeux Tapestry.source
• 1066Chinese imperial official Sima Guang presents the emperor with an eight-volume Tongzhi (通志; "Comprehensive Records"), chronicling Chinese history from 403 BCE to the end of the Qin dynasty in 207 BCE. The emperor then issues an edict for the compilation of Guang's universal history of China, allocating funds for the costs of compilation and research assistants such as Liu Ban, Liu Shu and Fan Zuyu.source
• 1068March 18 – An earthquake affects the Near East, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). The shock has a magnitude greater than 7, and leaves about 20,000 people dead.source
• 1070Song dynasty Chinese astronomer, engineer and statesman Su Song completes the compilation of the Ben Cao Tu Jing, a pharmaceutical treatise with related subjects of botany, zoology, mineralogy and metallurgy.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
• 1079Omar Khayyam, Persian mathematician and astronomer, calculates a 33 year calendar consisting of 25 ordinary years that include 365 days, and 8 leap years that include 366 days, the most accurate calculation of his time. Khayyam, in his Treatise on Demonstrations of Problems in Algebra, produces a complete classification of cubic equations and their geometric solutions (approximate date).source
• 1088April 16 – The 6.5 Ms Tmogvi earthquake affects the southern provinces of Georgia, which causes the destruction of the castle of Tmogvi and many deaths.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
• 1088Su Song, Chinese polymath scientist and statesman, invents the pilot model for his astronomical clock tower constructed in Kaifeng. It features an escapement mechanism – and the world's oldest known power-transmitting chain drive to operate the armillary sphere, opening doors, and mechanical-driven mannequins, that would rotate in shifts to announce the time on plaques.source
• 1092Su Song, a Chinese statesman and scientist, publishes his Xin Yi Xiang Fa Yao, a treatise outlining the construction and operation of his complex astronomical clocktower, built in Kaifeng. It also includes a celestial atlas of five star maps.source