The appearance of 1006 and 1054 supernovae, especially the supernova record of 1054, has become very important data in contemporary astronomical research. At the location where this supernova appears, there is now a crab nebula, which is one of the most interesting research objects in contemporary times.
During this period, five star positions were measured successively: the first time in Dazhong Xiangfu for three years (A.D. 10 10), the second time in dry year (A.D. 1034 ~ 1038) and the third time in dry year (A.D./kloc-0)
The observation results in Yuanfeng period are also stored in Su Song's New Instrument and New Image Method in the form of star map. Image Essentials of New Instruments is a manual written for the water transport instrument platform made in the seventh year of Yuan Dynasty (AD 1092). It not only describes 150 kinds of mechanical parts, but also has more than 60 drawings, which is an excellent material for studying ancient instruments.
Su Song and Han Gonglian, after completing the water transport platform, created the phenomenon of the armillary sphere, the diameter of which is larger than the height of people, so people can enter the interior to watch. There are holes in the sphere according to the position of the stars, and people see little light in it, just like the stars in the sky. Nowadays, this instrument, also known as the fake planetarium, is the pioneer of the starry sky demonstration in the modern planetarium.
Shen Kuo, a contemporary of Su Song, also made important contributions to astronomy. In the seventh year of Xining (AD 1074), he omitted the white ring when making the armillary sphere, and found the white coordinates of the moon by calculation, which was the beginning of China armillary sphere from complexity to simplicity. Shen Kuo also used the method of reducing the aperture at the lower end of the peephole to limit the range of motion of human eyes, so as to reduce the collimation error. Correct the installation direction of the polar axis of the armillary sphere by observing the position of the North Pole Star. He also improved the broken kettle wine, theoretically studied the problem of unequal water velocity in different seasons, and put forward the problem of the difference between the length of true sun day and peaceful sun day (see the sun). More importantly, Shen Kuo is unique in the calendar and put forward the twelve-gas calendar. "One day in beginning of spring is one day in Meng Chun and one day in mid-spring, with a maximum of 3 1 day and a minimum of 30 days; Every year, there will never be a leap month. " (Meng Qian Bi Tan Bu Bi Tan, Volume 2) This is actually a solar calendar, but due to traditional habits, this calendar has not been implemented.
There are 18 kinds of calendars that have been practiced for more than 300 years in the Song Dynasty, among which the more creative ones are Era written by Yao Shunfu in the Northern Song Dynasty (1 107) and Unified Calendar written by Yang Zhongfu in the late Southern Dynasty (1 199). The epoch calendar pioneered the method of determining the position of the sun by observing Venus. The number of return years determined in Tongtian Calendar is 365.2425 days, which is exactly the same as the average calendar year of the current Gregorian calendar, but 383 years earlier than the promulgation of the Gregorian calendar (1582). The length of the tropical year proposed in Tongtian Calendar is changing, and its value is old and small.
Thinkers in the Song Dynasty discussed many natural phenomena. In astronomy, there are many discussions about the operation and formation of celestial bodies. Among them, the more representative figures are Zhang Zai and Zhu.
Zhang Zai pointed out that the change of the length of day and night in a year is caused by the ups and downs of Yin and Yang, which makes the earth rise and fall. The rise and fall of celestial bodies in a day is the result of the earth being turned left by air. Zhang Zai also thinks that space and time are the forms of material existence, and the universe is full of gas everywhere. "Qi can't help but gather for everything, and everything can't help but scatter into the void, and it is a last resort."
Although Zhu advocates the theory of cosmic circulation, he has a complete view on the formation process of concrete heaven and earth (equivalent to the solar system). Starting from the phenomenon that whirlpool water sucks objects into the center of whirlpool, he thinks that "the beginning of heaven and earth is only yin and yang." This gas flows around. The grinding was urgent, and a lot of dregs were smashed, and there was nowhere to go, and a piece of land was formed in the middle. Those who purify qi are the sky, the sun, the moon and the stars, which are only outside and always run; The ground will only stay in the center, not in the next place "("Zhuzi Language "Volume I). Today, this theory naturally has many mistakes, but compared with Zhu's previous thoughts on celestial evolution, it is an improvement. After the Yuan Army captured Lin 'an (now Hangzhou), the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, in 1276, Kublai Khan concentrated the personnel of Jin and Song Tianshi in Dadu (now Beijing), and together with some newly selected talents, formed a powerful astronomical team. Under the auspices of Wang Xun and Guo Shoujing, this team engaged in making instruments, measuring and compiling new calendars, and made great achievements in just five years (1276 ~ 1280), pushing ancient astronomy in China to a new peak.
First, a variety of new instruments have been manufactured, among which simple instruments, upright instruments, high tables, landscape signs, positive schemes and exquisite instruments are all innovative. Jane instrument is a revolutionary reform of armillary sphere, and its design and manufacturing level is ahead of the world for more than 300 years. Until 1598, the instrument invented by the famous astronomer Tycho could not be compared with it. Inverted instrument uses pinhole imaging principle to project the sun onto a hemispherical instrument surface and directly read its spherical coordinate values. High meter is to raise the traditional eight-foot meter to four feet, so that the error is reduced to one-fifth of the original under the same measurement accuracy. Landscape symbol is an auxiliary instrument of altimeter. Using pinhole imaging principle, the shortcoming of fuzzy shadow end of altimeter is eliminated and the observation accuracy is improved. The front plan is to draw 19 concentric circles on a four-foot square board and set a table in the center. When the shadow end of the table is painted with 19 concentric circles, set up a table in the center. When the shadow end of the table falls on a circle, write it down. Connect two points on the same circle from morning till night, and the connecting line between their midpoint and the center is positive north-south direction; If you stand it horizontally, you can also measure the height of the North Pole, which is an instrument that can be easily carried to the wild. Linglong musical instrument is similar to "Huntian Tu" created by Su Song and Han Gonglian, and it is a kind of playing instrument that people can watch in it.
128 1 year later, Guo Shoujing also created many new musical instruments, among which the light leakage in Daming Hall is the most prominent one. It is a mechanical timer, which looks like a lantern ball and is driven by water. It is also decorated with animal models that can jump on time, just like all kinds of performance machines attached to mechanical clocks in Europe.
The second is to carry out unprecedented scale observation. Observatories are set up in 27 places across the country to measure the local geographical latitude, and an observatory is set up every 10 degree from the South China Sea (north latitude 15 degree) to the North Sea (north latitude 65 degree) to measure the length of the sun shadow and the length of day and night from the summer solstice.
Thirdly, a series of astronomical data are measured, and the old data are checked, and the accurate data are selected. For example, the tropical year values are taken from the Tongtian calendar in the Southern Song Dynasty, and the values of the first month, the last month and the first month are taken from the Daming Calendar (1 18 1 year) rebuilt by Jin and the Western Expedition Yuan Calendar written by Yelu Chucai in the early Yuan Dynasty. The average error of measuring the distance between 28 places is less than 5', and the accuracy is twice that of Song Dynasty. The newly measured declination angle error is only 65438 0 ′.
Fourthly, on the basis of a lot of observation and research, the time calendar was compiled in the seventeenth year of the Yuan Dynasty (AD 1280) and implemented in the following year. The apparent running speed of the sun on the ecliptic and the daily running speed of the moon around the earth are calculated by cubic difference interpolation method, and the declination, declination angle and the distance between the declination intersection point of the right meridian of the sun and the Huangchi are calculated by vector tangent circle method similar to spherical triangle. These two methods play an important role in the history of astronomy and mathematics.
The Chronological Calendar was used from the Yuan Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1644). It was renamed "Dali" in the Ming Dynasty, but the method only changed the sunrise time seen in Beijing to that seen in Nanjing, taking the seventeenth year of Hongwu (A.D. 1384) as the era, omitting the law of the rise and fall of the century-old tropic year, and nothing else changed.
In the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, besides the general calendar method, a hijri calendar from Arabia was also popular among the ethnic minorities in China. In the 4th year of Zhiyuan (A.D. 1267), Jamalidin, an astronomer from the western regions, put forward the "perpetual calendar", which Kublai Khan once published. In the same year, Jamalidin made seven pieces of Arab astronomical instruments, including Ptolemy's zodiac armillary sphere, ruler, globe and astrolabe. In the eighth year of Zhiyuan (AD 127 1), the rooftop of Huiji was established in Shangdu (now Zhenglan Banner of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region), and the calendar of Huiji was issued every year. When the Yuan Dynasty perished and the Ming Dynasty flourished, the staff of the Huisi Tian Jian moved to the capital and set up the Huisi in Tian Jian, Qin Tian, which was responsible for calculating the astronomical phenomena, issuing almanac, comparing it with the almanac, and translating some astronomical books. The fusion of Chinese and western astronomy. During the 200 years from the early Ming Dynasty to the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, the main advances in astronomy were: translating Arabic astronomical books; During the ocean voyage from 1405 to 1432, Zheng He used the "star-holding technique" to locate and orient, and developed maritime astronomy. Observe strange astronomical phenomena (such as supernovae of 1572 and 1604). Generally speaking, there are few inventions, which can be considered as a low tide in the history of astronomy development in China.
The germination of capitalism in the late Ming Dynasty prompted people to have new requirements for science and technology. Although 1595 and 16 10 failed to be realized, people paid attention to the idea of calendar reform. At this time, European Jesuit missionaries came to China. Knowing China's pursuit of new knowledge, they adopted the policy of academic missionary.
Matteo Ricci, an Italian who came to China in the early period (1583), reported to Europe many times about China's interest and demand for astronomical knowledge. Under his influence and request, most Jesuits who came to China later knew some astronomical knowledge, and some even received special training. Their knowledge of European astronomy was welcomed by progressive intellectuals at that time and was translated and introduced.
The early published works on European astronomy include: the constitutional graph theory of Henggaitong (1607), the theory of Jane Ping (161year), the theory of deixis (16 14 year) and the theory of expression. Most of these works introduce European astronomical instruments.
"Hungaitongxian" and "Jane Pingyi" are both astrolabes, "dial" is the western sundial, and "telescope" is galileo telescope. In Introduction to Heaven, the twelve heavens of Ptolemy's geocentric system and some brand-new results observed by Galileo through telescope are introduced. Among them, all the books were written by Jesuits with the assistance of China scholars, except the book On the Constitution of Honggaitong, which was written by Li Zhizao himself.
China scholars not only participated in the translation and introduction of European astronomy knowledge, but also learned the calculation methods of European astronomy from Jesuits. Therefore, in the thirty-eighth year of Wanli (A.D. 16 10), Xu Guangqi was able to forecast the solar eclipse of this year 1 1 month (65438+February 15) with western methods. It has been proved by observation that this forecast is more accurate, thus attracting people's attention to the west of France.
In May of the second year of Chongzhen, there was a solar eclipse (June 2 1, 1629), and Qin's forecast was obviously wrong. Determined to change the calendar, the Ming government ordered Xu Guangqi to set up a 100-member calendar bureau in Xuanwu Gate, and hired Jesuits Deng and giacomo Luo to participate in the compilation. After five years of hard work, I wrote a book, 138.
The most remarkable differences between the almanac of Chongzhen and the ancient astronomical system in China are: Tycho's cosmic system and geometric calculation system were adopted; Introduce the concepts of latitude and longitude of the earth and geography; The application of sphericity; The measurement unit commonly used in Europe is adopted, with the circumference of 360 degrees, 96 minutes and 24 hours a day, and the decimal system is adopted for degrees and hours below. The almanac of Chongzhen was compiled in 1634, but it was never published. 1644 After the Qing army entered the customs, Tang Ruowang reduced the book to volume 103, renamed it "Western New Law Almanac" and presented it to the Qing government. The Qing government appointed Tang Ruowang as the supervisor of Qin Tian, and compiled the following year's folk almanac with the "New Western Law", which was named "Shi Xian Li". Since then, except for the period from the third year to the seventh year of Kangxi (A.D. 1664 ~ 1668), Tang Ruowang was banned because of Yang Guangxian's accusation, and until the sixth year of Daoguang (A.D. 1826), the Qing government hired European missionaries to take charge of Qin Tianjian, and sometimes appointed two or three missionaries at the same time.
During this period, Qin mainly did the following three tasks: From the eighth year to the twelfth year of Kangxi, ferdinand verbiest (1659 came to China) was responsible for building six large-scale Tycho classical instruments (existing in the Beijing Ancient Observatory) and compiling a manual, namely "Records of the Lingtai".
In 1961, on the basis of revising the calendar of western new laws, Kangxi compiled a book "Examination of Calendar Images". In the seventh year of Qianlong (A.D. 1742), it was compiled as Postscript to the Calendar Examination (Volume 10), and Kepler's first and second laws of planetary motion were applied for the first time, but it was the earth that focused on the ellipse, not the sun.
In the seventeenth year of Qianlong (A.D. 1752), there were 32 volumes and 3083 stars in the catalogue. During the Daoguang period, after the missionaries left, Chinese astronomers re-measured the catalogue of "Yi Xiang Kao", which was compiled into 32 volumes in the 24th year of Daoguang (AD 1844) and received 3,240 stars.
The Qing government not only organized Qin to edit these books, but also organized two large-scale investigations during the reign of Kanggan. During the period from 47 to 57, Kangxi surveyed the latitude and longitude of more than 630 places in China and established a latitude and longitude network centered on Beijing. It is decided that 65,438+0,800 feet should be 65,438+0 Li, and 200 Li should be 65,438+0 degrees of the meridian of the earth. This method of linking the length unit with the arc length of the earth meridian 1 degree is a pioneering work in the world, which was earlier than the French Constitutional Convention's decision that the arc length of 40 million times the earth meridian should be 1 meter. In this survey, it is also found that the arc length per degree between 38' and 39' is 258 feet different from that between 4 1' and 47', that is, even between 4 1' and 47', the mileage per degree is different. This is the first time in the world that the earth is an ellipsoid through field measurement.
In the Qing Dynasty, there were also a group of folk astronomers who took their research seriously. No matter ancient or foreign, they all studied and criticized the development seriously, and made due contributions to the integration of Chinese and western astronomy. Among them, Xue Fengzuo, Wang Xichan, Mei Wending and Xue Fengzuo are the most famous. On the basis of translating western astronomical works, they have written more than ten kinds of works, such as Li Xuehui Tong, which not only introduced the general theory, but also systematically and in detail introduced various methods for calculating the motion of celestial bodies. For the convenience of calculation, he changed the base number from 60 to 10, and re-compiled mathematical tables such as trigonometric functions.
Wang Xichan and his contemporary Xue Fengzuo are called "the king of the south and the king of the north", but Wang's achievements are greater than Xue's. He is the author of the New Law of Xiao 'an and Five-Star Interpretation. In the previous book, he put forward transit of venus's calculation method and improved the calculation method of solar eclipse; In the latter book, a set of formulas for calculating the position of planets is derived, and the accuracy of the calculation results is higher than that of the previous book. Mei Wending wrote many books and made great contributions to the popularization of astronomical knowledge. He and Jiang Yong and others sprouted the idea of gravity in the process of studying planetary motion. Jiang Yong made it particularly clear: "The five stars are all centered on the sun."
After Mei Wending, the main contribution of Ganjia scholars in astronomy was to use the astronomical knowledge at that time to cast aside, sort out, analyze and compile the astronomical data in classics and history books, so that many chaotic data were cleared up. The most important one is Li Rui's research on the three calendars, the quadrant calendar and the dry calendar in the Han Dynasty. Gu studied ancient six calendars and weekly articles. In addition, Ruan Yuan and others also compiled Biography of People in the Domain, and Wang wrote Summary of Ancient Masters. These are all useful reference books for studying the history of astronomy.