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1 Cai Lun (Tsai Lun)
SUBJECT AREA: Paper and printing[br]b. c.57 AD Chinad. c.121 AD China[br]Chinese Director of Imperial Workshops who is usually credited with the invention of paper.[br]He was a confidential secretary to the Emperor. He became Director of the Imperial Workshops and he is said to have invented, or sponsored the invention of, paper around the year 105 AD. Recent studies, however, suggest that paper was already known in China two centuries earlier. The method of making it has hardly varied in principle since that time. The raw materials, then usually old fishing nets and clothing rags, were boiled with water, to which alkali in the form of wood ash was sometimes added. The resulting pulp was then beaten in a stone mortar with a stone or a wooden mallet. The pulp was then mixed and stirred with a large amount of water, and a sieve or mould (formed on a wooden frame carrying a mat of thin reeds sewn together) was dipped into it and was shaken to help the fibres in the layer of pulp to interlock and thus form a sheet of paper. The rest of the process consisted, then as now, of getting rid of the water: the sheets of paper were dried and bleached by leaving them to lie in the sun.Some of China's many inventions were achieved independently in Western Europe, but it seems that Europe's knowledge of papermaking stems from the Chinese. It was not until the eighth century that it passed into the Islamic world and so, first by contact with the Moors in Spain in the twelfth century, into Western Europe.Cai Lun was later made a marquis. Further promotion followed when he was regarded as the god of papermaking.[br]Further ReadingJ.Needham, 1985, Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Vol. V (1): Clerks and Craftsmen in China and the West, 1970.LRD -
2 Guo Shoujing (Kuo Shou-Ching)
[br]b. 1231 Chinad. 1316 China[br]Chinese mathematician, astronomer and civil engineer.[br]First, from 1262, he was engaged in hydraulic-engineering works for Kublai Khan. He began astronomical and calendrical investigations in 1276, and became the greatest astronomer of the Yuan dynasty. He perfected interpolation formulae (a method of finite differences) and was the founder of the study of spherical trigonometry in China; this was applied to the circles of the heavenly sphere. He planned the Ji Zhou, the summit section of the Grand Canal through the Shandong foothills, in 1283. Although the canal had to await further improvement before it could become fully effective, it was nevertheless the world's first successful entirely artificial summit canal.Guo Shoujing was responsible for the construction of the Tong Hui He (Channel of Communicating Grace) canal with twenty lock gates in 1293, in addition to the overhaul of the entire Grand Canal. He constructed a number of devices, including 40 ft (12 m) gnomons in 1276, with which he made some of the most accurate measurements of the sun's solstitial shadows, the results of which were collected in a book that is now lost. Between 1276 and 1279 he also constructed at least one water-driven mechanical escapement clock with sophisticated jack work, and the Beijing observatory and its equipment.[br]Further ReadingJ.Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959–1971, vols III, pp. 48–50, 109–10, 294, 296, 299, 349, 350; IV. 2, pp. 504–5; IV.3, pp. 312ff., 319, 355; Heavenly Clockwork, 1960, pp. 134, 136ff., 159, 160, 163;Clerks and Craftsmen in China and the West, 1970, pp. 2, 5, 9–10, 16, 96, 398.LRDBiographical history of technology > Guo Shoujing (Kuo Shou-Ching)
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3 Su Song (Su Sung)
SUBJECT AREA: Horology[br]b. 1020 Chinad. 1101 China[br]Chinese astronomer and maker of a mechanical clock.[br]Su Song had a model armillary sphere in his home, which enabled him to study and understand the instrument, but he could not receive an imperial command to make a full-size one before holding an official position. This he attained, and he moved in high official circles in Imperial China; his official appointments included Ambassador, Minister of State and Deputy Imperial Tutor. At the same time he was an outstanding astronomer and calendrical scientist. With the assistance of Han Gonglian, he constructed a water-driven mechanical escapement clock and clocktower in 1088, which he described in detail in his Xin Yi Xian Fa Yao, completed in 1094; this book was noteworthy for illustrations of the armillary sphere and its component parts. The tower included an armillary sphere and celestial globe with clock drive. By applying clockwork to the observational side of the sphere, Su Song anticipated the clockwork drive of the telescope introduced by Robert Hooke six centuries later.Su Song was also the pharmaceutical naturalist of the Tu Jing Ben Cao of 1061.[br]Bibliography1094, Xin Yi Xian Fa Yao.Further ReadingJ.Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959–86, Vols III, pp. 208, 361–6; VI. 1, 140, 174, 227, 252, 281, 335, 475, 477;Heavenly Clockwork, 1960, pp. 2–60, 64, 68, 70, 93–4, 115–18, 123–4, 133, 160, 162;Clerks and Craftsmen in China and the West, 1970, pp. 9, 6–7, 11–12, 91, 130–1, 192, 210ff., 221–3, 235, 280, 406.LRD -
4 Du Shi (Tu Shih)
SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering[br]fl. 25/57 AD China[br]Chinese official of high rank and patron of engineers.[br]He was Prefect of Nanyang, a region that had long been noted as a centre for metallurgical operations. He devised or at least sponsored the construction of water-powered blowing engines (hydraulic reciprocators or shui pai) for blast furnaces and forges in ironworks for making agricultural implements. This invention is significant because it incorporated all the components needed to convert rotary motion to reciprocating motion. The only watermills previously known in China were those recorded by Huan Tan in the first century BC.[br]Further ReadingJoseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965, Vol. IV.2, pp. 31, 32, 85, 370, 377; Clerks and Craftsmen in China andthe West, 1970, pp. 119, 177, 186–7, 189.LRD -
5 Li Gao (Li Kao)
SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping[br]fl. 752/820 China[br]Chinese physicist, technologist and patron of engineers.[br]Li Gao was Prince of Cao (Tshao). He was interested in acoustics and carried out experiments on both hydrostatic and air pressure. He constructed "trick" hydrostatic vessels that could take up different positions according to the amount of water in them. Such vessels had been known since the third century BC and were popular at court for over a thousand years: Li's were made of lacquered wood, c. 790, probably in quantity. He made successful use of paddle warships operated by treadmills. Similar vessels may have been in use as early as the late fifth century, but this is not at all certain. Li Gao's ships are therefore the first practical achievement of an idea for ship propulsion that, probably independently, had been mooted but not realized in early Byzantine times in Europe. His experiments with this type of vessel were made during 782 to 785, while he was Governor of Hungchow. It was said that the ships "went like the wind", faster than a charging horse.[br]Further ReadingJ.Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962, Vols IV. 1, pp. 38, 62; 1965, IV. 2, pp. 417–18, 433, 435; Clerks and Craftsmen in China and the West, 1970, pp. 25, 127–8.LRD
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