Guo Shoujing (Chinese: 郭守敬; Hanyu Pinyin: Guō Shǒujìng; Wade-Giles: Kuo Shou-ching) (1231 – 1316) was a Chineseastronomer, engineer, and mathematician. His grandfather was Guo Yang well known for his skills in numerous topics. By the age of fourteen Guo Shoujing designed a water clock and at sixteen he was studying mathematics. He worked on improving the Chinese gnomon and worked at Kublai Khan's observatory. There he formulated the Shoushi calendar and calculated the year to be 365.2425 days. This is the same as the Gregorian calendar, but almost three centuries earlier. It would be used for the next 364 years. He also did work relating to spherical trigonometry. Pinyin (拼音, Pīnyīn) literally means join (together) sounds (a less literal translation being phoneticize, spell or transcription) in Chinese and usually refers to Hànyǔ Pīnyīn (汉语拼音, literal meaning: Han language pinyin), which is a system of romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration to roman script) for Standard Mandarin used in the... Wade-Giles, sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration) system for the Chinese language based on Mandarin. ... // Events Ardengus becomes bishop of Florence. ... Events Pope John XXII elected to the papacy. ... An astronomer or astrophysicist is a scientist whose area of research is astronomy or astrophysics. ... Look up engineer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... The gnomon is the part of a sundial which casts the shadow. ... Kublai Khan or Khubilai Khan (1215–1294), Mongol military leader, was Khan (1260–1294) of the Mongol Empire and founder and first Emperor (1279–1294) of the Chinese Yuan Dynasty. ... The Gregorian calendar is the calendar that is used nearly everywhere in the world. ... Spherical triangle Spherical trigonometry is a part of spherical geometry that deals with polygons (especially triangles) on the sphere and explains how to find relations between the involved angles. ...
In engineering he is best known for constructing the artificial Kunming Lake in Beijing as a reservoir and part of a new waterway for grain transport. Kunming Lake (Chinese: 昆明湖; pinyin: ) is the central lake on the grounds of the Summer Palace in Beijing, China. ... â–¶ (help· info) or Peking is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). ... A reservoir is an artificial lake created by flooding land behind a dam. ...
External links
Guo Shoujing bio at McTudor
Article on the Shoushi calendar from the National University of Singapore
Guo travelled extensively along with his friend Zhang taking notes of the work which needed to be done to unblock damaged parts of the system and to make improvements to its efficiency.
Guo, together was Wang Xun, were asked to set up a special bureau to undertake the necessary research and to make proposals for the new calendar.
Guo looked at the accumulated difference, namely the difference in degrees moved by the sun in a day compared with the expected degrees moved if the motion was constant.
GuoShoujing’s method was to use a third degree formula of interpretation.
GuoShoujing also designed a new equatorial torquetum on which the positions of the sun, moon, ecliptic, Polaris and other key stars could be placed.
GuoShoujing (Yuan dynasty) was able to solve both of the problems by making use of a cross bar fixed at the top of his 40 foot gnomon and a device called a shadow definer.
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