Shen Kuo

Shen Kuo eller Shen Gua (kinesisk: 沈括, pinyin: Shěn Kuò; Wade-Giles: Shen K'uo, stilnavn Cunzhong (存中) og psevdonym Mengqi Weng / Menxi Weng 夢溪翁; født 1031 i Qiantang i Kina, død 1095 i Runzhou/Zhenjiang) var en kinesisk mandarin og medlem av Hanlin-akademiet under Song-dynastiet. Han var en polyhistor som utmerket seg som naturvitenskapsmann, matematiker, geolog, feltherre, diplomat og oppfinner av  kompasset. Han gjelder for å være Song-tidens fremste vitenskapsmann.

Liv og virke
Shen ble oppdratt klassisk og bestod de kinesiske embedseksamener og nådde doktorgraden jinshi.

Han ble leder for det keiserlige akademis skrivere og skattmester. Det tillå hans embedsplikter å holde orden på kanal- og dikearbeidene ved elvene Shuhe og Bianhe.

Senere dro han til Runzhou (i Zhenjiang) i provinsen Jiangsu, der han foretok vitenskapelige studier i Mengxi-haven. I et verk på 30 bind, kalt Meng Xi Bi Tan (drømmeessayene) befattet han seg med matematikk, astronomi, geografi, geologi, mineralogi, kjemi, fysikk, metallurgi, meteorologi, vannvesen, medisin, arkitektur, biologi og jordbruk.

Han oppdaget at kompassnålen ikke pekte mot den geografiske nordpol, men mot den magnetiske nordpol, og at man ved korrekturtabell kunne benytte kompasset bedre i skipsfarten.

På geologiens område utviklet han en hypotese om jordformasjonenes tilblivelse og sedimentering, på grunnlag av funn av fossiliserte sjøsnegler mange hundre kilometer fra havet.

Han beskjeftiget seg med buddhistmunken Yi Xing (672-717) fra Tang-dynastiets tid. Han hadde utviklet et desimalfritt tallsystem som fungerte også i meget store beregninger.

Referanser

Litteratur 

 Anderson, James A. (2008). "'Treacherous Factions': Shifting Frontier Alliances in the Breakdown of Sino-Vietnamese Relations on the Eve of the 1075 Border War," in Battlefronts Real and Imagined: War, Border, and Identity in the Chinese Middle Period, 191–226. Edited by Don J. Wyatt. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-6084-9.
 Barnhart, Richard. "Marriage of the Lord of the River: A Lost Landscape by Tung Yüan," Artibus Asiae. Supplementum (Volume 27, 1970): 3–5, 7, 9, 11–60.
 Biderman, Shlomo and Ben-Ami Scharfstein. (1989). Rationality in Question: On Eastern and Western Views of Rationality. Leiden: E.J. Brill. ISBN 90-04-09212-9.
 Bielenstein, Hans. (1986). "Wang Mang, the Restoration of the Han Dynasty, and Later Han," in The Cambridge History of China: Volume I: the Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C. – A.D. 220, 223–290. Edited by Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-24327-0.
 Bodde, Derk (1991). Chinese Thought, Society, and Science: The Intellectual and Social Background of Science and Technology in Pre-modern China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-1334-5
 Bowman, John S. (2000). Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture. New York: Columbia University Press.
 Chan, Alan Kam-leung and Gregory K. Clancey, Hui-Chieh Loy (2002). Historical Perspectives on East Asian Science, Technology and Medicine. Singapore: Singapore University Press. ISBN 9971-69-259-7
 Cherniack, Susan. "Book Culture and Textual Transmission in Sung China," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (Volume 54, Number 1, 1994): 5–125.
 Chung, Anita. (2004). Drawing Boundaries: Architectural Images in Qing China. Manoa: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 0-8248-2663-9.
 Crespigny, Rafe de. (2007). A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23–220 AD). Leiden: Koninklijke Brill. ISBN 90-04-15605-4.
 Deng, Yinke. (2005). Ancient Chinese Inventions. Translated by Wang Pingxing. Beijing: China Intercontinental Press. ISBN 7-5085-0837-8.
 Desmond, Adrian. "The Discovery of Marine Transgressions and the Explanation of Fossils in Antiquity," American Journal of Science, 1975, Volume 275: 692–707.
 Dong, Paul. (2000). China's Major Mysteries: Paranormal Phenomena and the Unexplained in the People's Republic. San Francisco: China Books and Periodicals, Inc. ISBN 0-8351-2676-5.
 Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, Anne Walthall, and James B. Palais (2006). East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-618-13384-4.
 Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (1999). The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43519-6 (hardback); ISBN 0-521-66991-X (paperback).
 Elisseeff, Vadime. (2000). The Silk Roads: Highways of Culture and Commerce. New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 1-57181-222-9.
 Embree, Ainslie T. and Carol Gluck (1997). Asia in Western and World History: A Guide for Teaching. New York: An East Gate Book, M. E. Sharpe Inc. ISBN 1-56324-265-6.
 Fairbank, John King and Merle Goldman (1992). China: A New History; Second Enlarged Edition (2006). Cambridge: MA; London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-01828-1.
 Fan, Dainian and Robert Sonné Cohen (1996). Chinese Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 0-7923-3463-9
 Fraser, Julius Thomas and Francis C. Haber. (1986). Time, Science, and Society in China and the West. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 0-87023-495-1.
 Gernet, Jacques. (1996). A History of Chinese Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-49781-7.
 Hargett, James M. "Some Preliminary Remarks on the Travel Records of the Song Dynasty (960–1279)," Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) (July 1985): 67–93.
 Hartman, Charles. "Poetry and Politics in 1079: The Crow Terrace Poetry Case of Su Shih," Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) (Volume 12, 1990): 15–44.
 Hartwell, Robert. "Markets, Technology, and the Structure of Enterprise in the Development of the Eleventh-Century Chinese Iron and Steel Industry," The Journal of Economic History (Volume 26, Number 1, 1966): 29–58.
 Henderson, John B. "Ch'ing Scholars' Views of Western Astronomy," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (Volume 46, Number 1, 1986): 121–148.
 Hsu, Mei-ling. "Chinese Marine Cartography: Sea Charts of Pre-Modern China," Imago Mundi (Volume 40, 1988): 96–112.
 Huff, Toby E. (2003). The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52994-8.
 Hymes, Robert P. and Conrad Schirokauer (1993). Ordering the World: Approaches to State and Society in Sung Dynasty China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
 Katz, Victor J. (2007). The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam: A Sourcebook. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-11485-4.
 Kim, Yung Sik. (2000). The Natural Philosophy of Chu Hsi (1130–1200). DIANE Publishing. ISBN 0-87169-235-X.
 Li, Chu-Tsing. "The Autumn Colors on the Ch'iao and Hua Mountains: A Landscape by Chao Meng-Fu," Artibus Asiae (Volume 21, 1965):  4–7, 9–85, 87, 89–109.
 Li, Chu-Tsing. "A Thousand Peaks and Myriad Ravines: Chinese Paintings in the Charles A. Drenowatz Collection," Artibus Asiae (Volume 30, 1974): I-XI, 1–5, 7–49, 51–79, 81–133, 135–161, 163–199, 201–217, 219–289, 291–301, 303–319, I-CV, CVII-CXIV.
 Lian, Xianda. "The Old Drunkard Who Finds Joy in His Own Joy -Elitist Ideas in Ouyang Xiu's Informal Writings," Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) (Volume 23, 2001): 1–29.
 Menzies, Nicholas K. (1994). Forest and Land Management in Imperial China. New York: St. Martin's Press, Inc. ISBN 0-312-10254-2.
 Mohn, Peter (2003). Magnetism in the Solid State: An Introduction. New York: Springer-Verlag Inc. ISBN 3-540-43183-7.
 Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 1, Introductory Orientations. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
 Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 3, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
 Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 1, Physics. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
 Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 3: Civil Engineering and Nautics. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
 Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1: Paper and Printing. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
 Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 7, Military Technology; the Gunpowder Epic. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
 Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 6, Biology and Biological Technology, Part 1: Botany. Taipei, Caves Books Ltd.
 Parker, Joseph D. (1999). Zen Buddhist Landscape Arts of Early Muromachi Japan (1336–1573). Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-3909-7.
 Restivo, Sal. (1992). Mathematics in Society and History: Sociological Inquiries. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 1-4020-0039-1.
 Ropp, Paul S. (1990). Heritage of China: Contemporary Perspectives on Chinese History. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-06440-9
 Salam, Abdus (1984), "Islam and Science" in C. H. Lai (1987), Ideals and Realities: Selected Essays of Abdus Salam, 2nd ed., World Scientific, Singapore.
 Rudolph, R.C. "Preliminary Notes on Sung Archaeology," The Journal of Asian Studies (Volume 22, Number 2, 1963): 169–177.
 Ruitenbeek, Klaas. (1996). Carpentry & Building in Late Imperial China: A Study of the Fifteenth Century Carpenter's Manual Lu Ban Jing. Leiden: E.J. Brill. ISBN 90-04-10529-8.
 Sarkar, Tapan K., Magdalena Salazar-Palma, and Dipak L. Sengupta. (2006). "Development of the Theory of Light," in History of Wireless, 20–28. Edited by Tapan K. Sarkar, Robert J. Mailloux, Arthur A. Oliner, Magdalena Salazar-Palma, and Dipak L. Sengupta. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons Inc. ISBN 0-471-78301-3.
 Sivin, Nathan (1995). Science in Ancient China: Researches and Reflections. Brookfield, Vermont: VARIORUM, Ashgate Publishing.
 Sivin, Nathan. (1984). "Why the Scientific Revolution Did Not Take Place in China—Or Didn't It?" in Transformation and Tradition in the Sciences: Essays in Honor of I. Bernard Cohen, 531–555, ed. Everett Mendelsohn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52485-7.
 Sivin, Nathan. "Science and Medicine in Imperial China—The State of the Field," The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Feb., 1988): 41–90.
 Stanley-Baker, Joan. "The Development of Brush-Modes in Sung and Yüan," Artibus Asiae (Volume 39, Number 1, 1977): 13–59.
 Steinhardt, Nancy Shatzman (1997). Liao Architecture. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
 Stock, Jonathan. "A Historical Account of the Chinese Two-Stringed Fiddle Erhu," The Galpin Society Journal (Volume 46, 1993): 83–113.
 Sung, Tz’u, translated by Brian E. McKnight (1981). The Washing Away of Wrongs: Forensic Medicine in Thirteenth-Century China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-89264-800-7
 Tao, Jie, Zheng Bijun and Shirley L. Mow. (2004). Holding Up Half the Sky: Chinese Women Past, Present, and Future. New York: Feminist Press. ISBN 1-55861-465-6.
 Temple, Robert. (1986). The Genius of China: 3,000 Years of Science, Discovery, and Invention. With a forward by Joseph Needham. New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc. ISBN 0-671-62028-2.
 Wu, Kuang Ch'ing. "Ming Printing and Printers," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (February 1943): 203–260.
 Yao, Xinzhong. (2003). RoutledgeCurzon Encyclopedia of Confucianism: Volume 2, O–Z. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1199-6.
 Zhang, Yunming (1986). Isis: The History of Science Society: Ancient Chinese Sulfur Manufacturing Processes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

Mandariner
Polyhistorer
Kinesiske encyklopedister
Kinesiske oppfinnere
Kinesiske matematikere
Kinesiske geologer
Mineraloger
Kinesiske geografer
Kinesiske ingeniører
Kartografer
Meteorologer
Personer fra Hangzhou
Fødsler i 1031
Dødsfall i 1095