Shen Kua
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Shen Kua
Astronomer, Shen Kua was born in China in the year 1026. His family had an
unbroken tradition of being civil servants. Thus his father was a local
administrator of many posts from Szechwan in the west to the international port
of Amoy. At Sixteen years old Shen Kua left his home to travel with his father
from post to post. While traveling with his father, Shen Kua learned the
responsibilities of a local administrator. These responsibilities include a
broad range of technical and managerial problems in public works, finance,
improvement of agriculture, and maintenance of waterways. In 1051 his father
died and after a two year mourning period Shen Kua received his first
appointment as a local administrator at the age of twenty two. Soon after his
appointment he showed his skill in ability to plan by designing and overseeing a
drainage and embankment system that reclaimed some hundred thousand acres of
swampland for agriculture. A few years later he passed the national examinations
and was assigned a post in Yangchow. While in Yangchow he impressed the Governor
Chang Ch'u so much that he recommended that Shen be appointed to the department
of Financial Administration. It was about this time that he began to study
astronomy. His first works as an astronomer came when he set down clear
explanations concerning the sphericity of the sun and the moon as proved by
lunar phases, of eclipse limits and the retrogradation of the lunar nodes. These
explanations gave the ability to visualize motions in space Which in the past
was only best implicit in numerical procedures of traditional astronomy and
seldomly discussed in technical writing. Because of this work Shen was given an
additional appointed as director of the Astronomical Bureau. His first project
as director was a major calendar reform. This reform started with a series of
daily observations of the stars that lasted over five years. While these
observations where being performed Shen realized the need for a major redesign
of major astronomical instruments. The most significant change that Shen made
was to the gnomon. The gnomon was still b...
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