Guo Shoujing lived in China's Song and Yuan dynasties, an era when China's feudal economy and culture were highly developed, and the inventions of gunpowder, compass and printing had an important impact on the development of science and culture in the world. He was diligent and studious, studied hard, was good at learning from the research results of previous scientists, and focused on summarizing the production experience of the working people, the courage to practice and innovation, and made many contributions in science. He was not only proficient in astronomy and calendar, but also good at water conservancy engineering, and also had high attainments in mathematics, geography and mechanical engineering. Guo Shoujing's main scientific achievements were in the two areas of astronomical calendars and water conservancy engineering, of which the astronomical calendars were particularly outstanding. He is listed among the world's ancient famous scientists with the name of an outstanding astronomer.
Yuan Shizu Kublai claimed the title of emperor and entered the Central Plains, ambitious, wide range of talents, the use of "Han method". He drew on the experience of successive reigns, change the old system of Mongolia, the use of Song, Jin since the feudal political and economic system, he not only reuse the Mongolian talent, but also to the Han and other nationalities of the talent to be used, awarded to the official position, so that it for the court to make an effort. This soon contributed to the social progress of Mongolia and the stability and development of the whole country. He also advocated the construction of water conservancy, emphasizing agriculture and mulberry, excavating the Huitong River, Tonghui River, so that the north and south of the waterway. Also the implementation of cantonment, the construction of water conservancy projects, the promotion of advanced technology in agricultural production, these measures are conducive to the development of agricultural production in the Yuan Dynasty. 1262, Kublai summoned Guo Shoujing to listen to his advice on water conservancy in Shangdu, Guo Shoujing put forward to the north of the water conservancy resources and irrigation problems in North China, specific views.
Between 1276 and 1280 A.D. (the thirteenth and seventeenth years of Yuan Shizuizu's reign), Guo Shoujing was appointed by Yuan Shizu Kublai as an official in charge of the calendar, presiding over the revision of the calendar. At the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, because the old calendar was out of repair and the old astronomical instruments were outdated, it was impossible to accurately observe the celestial phenomena, and there were all kinds of shortcomings such as errors in the festivals and inaccurate eclipses of the sun and the moon. In 1276 AD, Kublai ordered the revision of the calendar, by Xu Heng, Zhang Wenqian, Wang Xun and Guo Shoujing presided over, but the actual responsible Guo Shoujing. He believed that "the calendar is based on the test; and the instrument of the test, not the first instrument." So he took the development of astronomical instruments as the main issue. In the process of fixing the calendar, Guo Shoujing a **** created a simple meter, high table, waiting for the polar meter, the armillary sphere meter, Linglong Yi, Yang Yi, Li Yun Yi, the evidence of the instrument, the King Fu, peep a few, the eclipse instrument, star sundials, timer and so on thirteen pieces of exquisite astronomical instruments, these instruments are mainly used for observation of the celestial bodies, the sun, the moon, the stars and eclipses, and so on. The Yuan history that he developed these astronomical instruments "are perfect in the subtle, brilliant, covered with the ancients have not been." These instruments are characterized by delicacy, dexterity, simplicity and accuracy, which were not only absent in the history of China before the Yuan Dynasty, but also reached the advanced level of the world at that time.
After the astronomical instruments were made in 1279, Guo Shoujing designed and built an observatory for celestial phenomena, Lingtai, in the east of the city of Dudu (now Beijing). The Spirit Terrace was equipped with all kinds of books and instruments related to astronomy, and it was the best-equipped astronomical observatory in the world at that time. The observatories of the Ming and Qing dynasties were expanded on the basis of the Lingtai.
Guo Shoujing, through his observation work, made an important discovery on the determination of the "yellow-red distance" (yellow refers to the sun, red refers to the equator, and red distance refers to the angle of intersection between the equatorial plane and the sun's plane, which is one of the most basic data in astronomy) and the distance of the twenty-eight constellations (i.e., difference of equinoxes), which were two important achievements for him in astronomy. These were also two of his major achievements in astronomy, and were of great significance to the improvement of the calendar. In the spring of 1280, he compiled a new calendar, "The Calendar of the Seasons", which was promulgated to the whole country in the following year. The Calendar of the Ruling of the Hours determines that a year lasts 365.2425 days, which is only 26 seconds longer than the actual number of hours that the earth revolves around the sun, and is exactly the same as the Gregorian calendar that is commonly used in the modern world, but it was discovered three hundred years earlier than it was. It is one of the finest calendars in ancient China, reflecting Guo Shoujing's innovative spirit in science.
Besides astronomy, Guo Shoujing also made a lot of achievements and contributions in water conservancy engineering. As he was good at geography and proficient in mathematics, at the age of twenty, he had dredged and rebuilt the old stone bridge outside Xingzhou city, which solved the needs of local transportation and agricultural irrigation. Later, with the support of the Yuan government, he formulated plans for river training, agricultural water conservancy and shipping development in North China on the basis of surveying the topography and rivers of various places. For example, in the Yuan Shangdu design, construction of the Iron Hanking Canal; repair and expansion of the Northwest Loop Plain irrigation channels; opened up the metropolis water source and chiseling Tonghui Canal, etc..
Yuan Shangdu city was built, due to the city and the city around the rivers, lakes more, flash floods down, endangering the city. 1293 due to heavy rain, flooding Shangdu city, the emperor sent 30,000 Huben (guards) army to repair. In order to solve the problem of flood prevention and drainage flood in Shangdu City, Dade two years (1298) Guo Shoujing designed the famous water conservancy project "Iron Hatan Pole Drainage" after field survey. In the north-west of the city of Tihankan Mountain (Tihankan dozens of feet high, so that the town of the sea) on the construction of the canal, the Tihankan mountain flood water to the Luan River. The east bank of the Tihatan pole ditch is only one kilometer from the west wall of the city on the city, the water conservancy project site still exists. This is the only preserved water conservancy project in the northern grasslands of China.
1264 (Yuan Shizu to Yuan years), Guo Shoujing along with the Xixia Zhongxing and other road provinces (now Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai area), Zhang Wenqian, governor of the Northwest China, responsible for the restoration of the Hetao Plain water conservancy. The Hetao Plain, with its fertile land and many rivers, is a rice and grain river in the northwest region that produces a lot of grains. The people here dug canals to utilize the water of the Yellow River to irrigate their farmland. Two of these canals were the longest, one Tanglai Canal, four hundred miles long; the other was called Hanyan Canal, two hundred and fifty miles long (both in present-day Ningxia). In addition, there were dozens of trunk and branch canals. At the beginning of Yuan Dynasty, due to war and other reasons, these water conservancy projects were seriously damaged, affecting agricultural production. Due to Guo Shoujing's careful design, he led the local people to spend more than two years repairing the old aqueducts, but also built a lot of new channels, and built dams and sluices to regulate the amount of water at the entrance of each channel. These dams and gates are well-designed, strong and sturdy, and continued to be used until the middle of the Ming Dynasty.
After the Yuan Dynasty built its capital in Dadu, it became the political, economic and cultural center of the country. In order to solve the metropolis of the material supply, the grain and other items from the south to the capital, the urgent need to open a communication between the metropolis and Tongzhou canal, in order to connect with the Grand Canal from Hangzhou to Tongzhou. 1292-1293 Guo Shoujing was authorized to open up a new source of water and excavation of the new canal task. The project was a difficult one, with several unsuccessful attempts since the Liao and Jin dynasties. Guo Shoujing after the topography around the metropolis, hydrological surveys, investigations, finally found a water source, to develop a practical plan. He built a 30-kilometer-long Baifu Weir in the northwest of Dadu, introducing Baifu spring water near Shenshan south of Changping into Dadu City, and then using the old grain transport road to flow eastward, connecting Tongzhou with the Grand Canal. In order to solve the problem of the inclined slope of the riverbed, Guo Shoujing also designed to set up twenty sluice gates and bucket gates to regulate the water level and control the flow to ensure the smooth passage of boats. The canal was more than 160 miles long and took more than 20,000 craftsmen, soldiers and sailors more than a year to complete. The completion of the Tonghui River not only solved the transportation problem of the metropolis, but also promoted the economic and cultural exchanges between the north and the south of the Yuan Dynasty. He also measured the topography of North China "and tried to teach the difference between the heights of the topography from Beijing to Bianliang (present-day Kaifeng) with the surface of the sea", which was the first time that "elevation" was used to measure the topography of China's geography.
Qi Qinbaatar This article refers to the "History of Ancient Chinese Scientists", "A Brief History of the Mongols" and other books
Mentioning the name of Nobel, the world almost no one knows no one knows. Nobel is a Swedish scientist and inventor, who became rich by inventing dynamite and detonator and operating and producing these two things. Before his death, Nobel left a will, decided after his death part of his estate as a fund, with all the interest divided into five equal parts, as "the most important contributor to human happiness," the prize, that is: the Nobel Prize for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and the cause of peace five prizes (in 1968 the addition of the Prize for Economics).
The Nobel family are native Swedes. His father was an inventor, and he made many inventions in his life. Noble grew up by his father's cultivation, has a strong interest in science.
Nobel childhood, the family is not good, his father in order to make a living for the family, only to go to Poland, but still can not get a good occupation, and later turned to Russia.
Nobel's father went to Poland for his family's livelihood, but was unable to find a good job, and then moved to Russia. Due to the extremely difficult life, Nobel was malnourished, weak and sickly, and often suffered from colds and fevers, and his mother did not worry about him. 8 years old, he was enrolled in an elementary school in the town, and because of his physical weakness he had to take frequent vacations, but he was a clever man and his grades not only didn't fall behind, but were even better than the rest.
Nobel was physically weak and did not have many playmates, he was not as active as the average child, but often played alone. He liked to quietly read fairy tales, or to walk on the prairie, to touch the grass, bugs, picking up small stones to enjoy. In the schoolyard, he often sat alone in the shade away from his classmates, watching the changing clouds in the sky or the various movements of insects on the ground. Therefore, the teacher thought he might become a poet or a writer in the future. Nobel's grandmother loved him very much and often told him some Swedish and Danish fairy tales, at which time he always listened quietly and obediently, his mind filled with endless reveries. The countless fantasies ignited in his young mind may be the germ of future inventions!
When Nobel was nine years old, his father wrote from Russia that he had opened a factory in St. Petersburg to manufacture military machinery, and that Russia attached great importance to him. On December 22, 1843, Nobel's 10th birthday, the family left Sweden and sailed across the Baltic Sea to St. Petersburg.
The father met them at the dock. Sitting in the carriage, Nobel looked around at the towering towers and onion-shaped roofs of the monasteries and marveled at everything in the foreign city. After arriving at their new home and settling down, the father said to the three children; "In the future, you three brothers should encourage each other to study hard, in order to make a great career." The father asked the oldest, Robert, "What do you plan to be when you grow up?" Robert said, "I will be a great mechanic!" Father then asked Ludwig, the second, "What about you?" Ludwig said, "Our family has always been poor, so I'm going to be a great entrepreneur and make lots and lots of money." Without waiting for his father to ask him, Noble snaps, "Dad, I'm going to be an inventor someday!" His mother said seriously, "Well, well, well, whatever you want to do in the future is fine, but at present the most important thing is to study hard."
Nobel lived up to his parents' expectations. He studied hard and quickly learned Russian, then English and German. He had a wide range of interests, not only read books on mechanics, physics and chemistry, but also enjoyed literature, and occasionally wrote poems for his own enjoyment.
Sometimes, Noble and his brothers went to his father's factory, and he was always fascinated by the rotating machines, but he found something more interesting and fun, which was the gunpowder that was loaded into the mines. The gunpowder of the time, whether for guns or mines, was all black. Noble would sneak some gunpowder home, and in order to avoid being scolded if his father found out, he would often put the powder into a paper bag and quietly take it away.
Nobel used the gunpowder he brought home to make fireworks. He put the gunpowder in a paper tube and stood it up on the grass, and when he lit the fire, the gunpowder would "swoosh--", sending out beautiful sparks in the dark night. He imitated his father's invention and tried to make landmines for fun. First, he wrapped the powdered gunpowder into a ball of paper, and then rolled it into a long strip of tough, unbreakable paper to make a fuse. He didn't think that was funny enough, so he put the powder into a small empty can, sealed the lid tightly, and then lit the fuse. "Bang!" The exploding jar made a loud noise, the lid flew up, and everyone was startled and ran out to see what was going on. Noble's mischief was soon known to his father, who sternly forbade him to play with gunpowder again.
When the factory employees heard about this, they stopped letting Noble near the gunpowder. Nobel thought to himself, "Hmph, no? I'll just make my own gunpowder." He flipped through his chemistry textbook and it turned out to be a mixture of saltpeter, charcoal and sulfur, so no wonder the gunpowder was all black. Noble's experiment was successful, so he started playing with fireworks again. This is a very dangerous game, and inevitably ended up being banned by his father when he found out. But from playing, Nobel discovered the basic principle that the tightness of the gunpowder bandage is directly proportional to the force of the explosion.
In the blink of an eye, Nobel grew to 17 years old. By this time his two older brothers were working in their father's factory. Father and mother to discuss, want to let Nobel also work in the factory, specializing in research and development of new products. In order to give him a solid foundation, his father first sent him to the United States to spend some time studying with the Swede who had invented the propeller-type steamboat.
So Nobel left his parents for the first time and traveled to the United States. He joined the Swedish-born American inventor Ericsson. Alexson welcomed him with open arms.
Nobel learned a great deal about various mechanical techniques and helped Alexon work on the hot-air engine. The hot air engine, which is known today as a combustion turbine, was not in common use at the time. From this research, Noble learned the principle that the combustion of an object generates heat that expands the gas to produce force, and learned a lot of new knowledge.
But Nobel came alone to a distant country, his heart intertwined with complex emotions, which made him more interested in literature than in the study of machinery. Whenever he felt lonely and homesick, the poems of the great poet Shelley became his support, and writing poetry became his main pastime.
A year passed. Noble said goodbye to Alexon and left the United States on his way home. When he passed through Paris, he wanted to study chemistry and physics here; another intention was to enjoy the beautiful scenery of Paris in order to cultivate his inspiration for writing poetry.
Nobel already had a basic knowledge of French when he was in St. Petersburg, and in order to make himself more fluent, he enrolled in a French conversation cram school. In the class, he met a beautiful girl. The two fell in love at first sight, love each other, swore an oath of friendship for life, but regrettably, he loved the girl died soon due to illness! This blow, so that Nobel did not want to stay in Paris. After the funeral of the young girl, he left this heartbreaking and unforgettable place, focusing on future ideals and career, back to his second home in St. Petersburg.
Nobel, who had just turned 19, returned to his relatives after a two-year absence. His parents were in good health, and the company was doing well. His eldest brother was the company manager; his second brother was the factory director, and both had become excellent technicians and were able to do their jobs on their own. His father decided to place Noble in the unit where he directed inventions.
Nobel went to work at the factory the next day. His daily work was quite demanding and he finally became sick from the strain. His family wanted him to go to the warm countryside in the south to recuperate, but Nobel wanted to go to Germany. He wanted to take the opportunity to learn German. In particular, he believed that Germany had the best chemical technology, so he traveled to a spa near the Alps to recuperate. As soon as he recovered, he set sail back to St. Petersburg.
At this time, Russia was at war with the British and French allies. The Nobel family's factory was mass-producing mines, and demand outstripped supply. After the power of the mines was proven, two chemical experts came to visit the factory, Drs. Hinen and Trapp, who left many feats in Russian academia.
Father introduced Noble to the two experts. Hinin said, "In order to end the war as soon as possible by making Russia victorious, we would like to make powerful bombs, can we work on them with your factory ****?" Noble said, "Of course, but this is a big sudden, not a clue ah." Dr. Trapp said, "This point you do not need to rush, I have a strong liquid explosive here, but its power can not be determined, there is no practical value, not yet sure." He said as he took out a bottle filled with a clear liquid.
Nobel said at first sight, "Ah, pinned glycerine!" He knew from books that it had been invented by the Italian scientist Sabrino in 1847, and today he was seeing it for the first time. Sabrino was injured when the nitroglycerin in his test tube suddenly exploded, and has since stopped experimenting.
The two experts kept the bottle for Nobel to experiment with. Nobel could never have imagined that this incident would later attract worldwide attention and bring him a brilliant life.
Nobel and his father began to study nitroglycerin carefully. Because of its liquefied state, a little mishandling will be a terrible explosion. But nitroglycerin was an effective medical treatment for heart patients and is still widely used today.
Russia was eventually defeated. The Nobel family's military factory was in trouble and forced to shut down. The parents took Noble's younger brother back to Sweden, while Noble and his two brothers remained in St. Petersburg. The factory was under new ownership. Nobel was highly regarded by the owner because he had improved and patented the barometer and water meter. At this time, his father wrote that he had begun to do research on nitroglycerin, and asked Nobel's progress. Nobel was determined to continue his research and not lose out to his father.
After many trials, Nobel invented the idea of putting nitroglycerin into a small glass tube and then putting it into a tin can, stuffing it with black gunpowder all around, and then lighting it with a fuse. "Boom!" With a loud bang, the test was successful! This can make the gunpowder completely exploded small glass tube, is Nobel's invention "detonator".
Because of Nobel's invention of the detonator, so that nitroglycerin can be safely used in mines, tunnels, blasting works, so he was happy to bring this invention to his father. His father, on the other hand, had made no progress in this area.
Nobel and his father planned to set up a Nobel Nitroglycerin Company. In order to raise the money, Nobel traveled to France and visited Parisian banks, explaining to them that he was engaged in a business with a great vision. However, none of the banks were willing to lend him money. Later, the gods of fortune finally came to his aid, King Napoleon III was very interested in his invention, that nitroglycerin will have a wide range of uses in the military. Nobel was thus granted a loan of 100,000 francs.