१३ ऑक्टोबर, २०१८

"For decades, China’s middle school students were introduced to the world’s first seismograph through an image in their history textbooks: a large, bronze urn with eight dragons perched the same distance apart along the outside, each with a copper ball hanging precariously in its mouth."

"Whenever there was a tectonic tremor from a particular direction, the corresponding dragon would drop its copper ball into the gaping mouth of a frog perched below it — or so students were taught. But for a new history textbook being used in public school classrooms across the country this fall, the image of China’s iconic earthquake detector and its accompanying text were removed.... The seismograph is widely believed to have been invented by Zhang Heng, a scholar and polymath who was born in the first century A.D. during the Eastern Han Dynasty.... For decades, the popular conception of Zhang’s seismograph came from a 1951 model by the historian Wang Zhenduo, based on the description in the ancient biography. This image was added to China’s textbooks, but in most cases without a caption explaining that it was merely a scholar’s artistic interpretation. It became so commonly accepted that even U.S. President Richard Nixon was shown a seismograph model based on Wang’s during his historic visit to China in 1972. However, the 1951 model’s fame and ubiquity have worried seismologists, who aren’t convinced that the design holds scientific weight. Most notably, it failed to detect tremors that could have predicted a devastating earthquake in 1976 that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and rescue workers."

Reports Sixth Tone.

Here's the Wikipedia article on Zhang Heng (b. 78 AD, d. 139 AD), with a long section on his seismograph:
During the Han Dynasty, many learned scholars—including Zhang Heng—believed in the "oracles of the winds". These oracles of the occult observed the direction, force, and timing of the winds, to speculate about the operation of the cosmos and to predict events on Earth.... Zhang Heng [wrote]:
The chief cause of earthquake is air, an element naturally swift and shifting from place to place. As long as it is not stirred, but lurks in a vacant space, it reposes innocently, giving no trouble to objects around it. But any cause coming upon it from without rouses it, or compresses it, and drives it into a narrow space ... and when opportunity of escape is cut off, then 'With deep murmur of the Mountain it roars around the barriers', which after long battering it dislodges and tosses on high, growing more fierce the stronger the obstacle with which it has contended.
In 132, Zhang Heng presented to the Han court what many historians consider to be his most impressive invention, the first seismoscope.... It was named "earthquake weathervane" (houfeng didongyi 候風地動儀)...  To indicate the direction of a distant earthquake, Zhang's device dropped a bronze ball from one of eight tubed projections shaped as dragon heads; the ball fell into the mouth of a corresponding metal object shaped as a toad, each representing a direction like the points on a compass rose. His device had eight mobile arms (for all eight directions) connected with cranks having catch mechanisms at the periphery....

२७ टिप्पण्या:

madAsHell म्हणाले...

I'm pretty sure we can discount the Terra Cotta Soldiers as well.

rehajm म्हणाले...

An early use of scientific principles confirmed by the invention of the weather rock centuries later.

Fernandinande म्हणाले...

The Technology of Ancient China features the gizmo on its cover.

Fernandinande म्हणाले...

Earthquakes are Nature's Parkinson's.

Birkel म्हणाले...

Communists lie about long past glory?
Well don't that beat all?

Sloanasaurus म्हणाले...

I had a friend as a teen who had one of these in his house in Minnesota. His father acquired it while travelling in China in the 1970s.

rehajm म्हणाले...

Its a chocolate fountain.

mockturtle म्हणाले...

Cool-looking device, anyway. It would make a fun children's game: Jumping could make just one ball fall, or two...

Unknown म्हणाले...

I cannot getting too shaken up by this.

The Crack Emcee म्हणाले...

I'm not surprised.

I don't know why we let Traditional Chinese Medicine flourish here when we know it's nothing of the kind.

Wince म्हणाले...

"... the corresponding dragon would drop its copper ball into the gaping mouth of a frog perched below it — or so students were taught."

Thus explaining the origins of "tea-bagging" -- all the Tea-bagging in China.

"Or so I have read."

Dave म्हणाले...

Hey Crack,

I have some friends whose last name is Collins. Does that mean anything to you?

gg6 म्हणाले...

If I'm not mistaken, this 'air theory' of earthquakes was first posited by Aristotle centuries earlier and resulted in some flatulence jokes over the years if nothing else. Before that, I believe the theory had been 'water' pressure caused by too much rain. Who knows what the theory will be a hundred years from now. Maybe some day we'll even be able to predict them - which is the actual goal of all the theories in any event?

buwaya म्हणाले...

Zhang Hengs description is poetic, and apt to all sorts of things.

"As long as it is not stirred, but lurks in a vacant space, it reposes innocently..."

History and politics work much like that, things go innocently until any cause from without rouses it (the public mood?), compresses it, and drives it into a narrow space (or spaces). And etc. And for the most part this is not really under conscious or effective human influence, no more than are earthquakes.

mockturtle म्हणाले...

Buwaya writes: History and politics work much like that, things go innocently until any cause from without rouses it (the public mood?), compresses it, and drives it into a narrow space (or spaces). And etc. And for the most part this is not really under conscious or effective human influence, no more than are earthquakes.

Brilliant!

DaveL म्हणाले...

Chinese scientists created a new reproduction of the original, based on hints in the text description, in 2007. It is less ornate than the one in most pictures (appropriate to the time and place the original came from), but it appears to work. Link, which has a video of how they did it: Seismoscope

Darrell म्हणाले...

Zhang Heng created his device for the Chinese Empress to let the gods select her ben wa balls for her and determine her direction of travel while using them. Nothing more.

Rob म्हणाले...

Ancient Chinese secret: https://youtu.be/mzixL7Ef-bI

Howard म्हणाले...

More evidence that the "China is taking over the world" meme is a joke

The Crack Emcee म्हणाले...

Dave said...

"Hey Crack,

I have some friends whose last name is Collins. Does that mean anything to you?"

No - should it?

Char Char Binks, Esq. म्हणाले...

"Its a chocolate fountain."

"As long as it is not stirred, but lurks in a vacant space, it reposes innocently..."

I believe it's the world's first communal melted cheese pot, invented by Hee Fon Du

robother म्हणाले...

Didn't Jewish Physicist Rube Goldberg build something similar? Great minds think alike.

wholelottasplainin म्हणाले...

madAsHell said...
I'm pretty sure we can discount the Terra Cotta Soldiers as well.
**************

why?


https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/archaeology/emperor-qin/

wholelottasplainin म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
wholelottasplainin म्हणाले...

I detect whiff of superiority from many of the posters on this topic, hinting the China was always technologically backward.

Not so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_China

weh म्हणाले...

See, The Rising Sea, by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown.

madAsHell म्हणाले...

why?

Because it is a tourist trap. The soldiers are presented as if we interrupted some archeologist in the middle of an excavation.

How many times has the guide killed the hippo on the Wild Jungle Ride in Anaheim?