The book has been analyzed by many historians, such as Joseph Needham. Su Song's treatise about the clock tower, Xinyi Xiangfayao ( 新儀象法要), has survived since its written form in 1092 and official printed publication in 1094. The clock tower had 133 different clock jacks to indicate and sound the hours. Su's clock tower also featured the oldest known endless power-transmitting chain drive, called the tian ti ( 天梯), or "celestial ladder", as depicted in his horological treatise. The escapement mechanism of Su's clock tower had been invented by Buddhist monk Yi Xing and government official Liang Lingzan in 725 AD to operate a water-powered armillary sphere, although Su's armillary sphere was the first to be provided with a mechanical clock drive.Like his contemporary, Shen Kuo (1031–1095), Su Song was a polymath, a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different fields of study. However, Su Song's clock tower still relied on the use of a waterwheel to power it, and was thus not fully mechanical like late medieval European clocks.A scale model of Su Song's Astronomical Clock Tower Career as a scholar-official Su Song was of Hokkien ancestry who was born in modern-day Fujian, near medieval Quanzhou. Although not as prominent as in the Song period, contemporary Chinese texts of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) described a relatively unbroken history of mechanical clocks in China, from the 13th century to the 16th. They thought that advanced mechanical clockworks were new to China and that these mechanisms were something valuable that Europeans could offer to the Chinese. The latter discussed related subjects on mineralogy, zoology, botany, and metallurgy.European Jesuit visitors to China like Matteo Ricci and Nicolas Trigault briefly wrote about Chinese clocks with wheel drives, but others mistakenly believed that the Chinese had never advanced beyond the stage of the clepsydra, incense clock, and sundial. He completed a large celestial atlas of several star maps, several terrestrial maps, as well as a treatise on pharmacology.
![]() In matters of administrative government, he had attained the rank of Ambassador and President of the Ministry of Personnel at the capital of Kaifeng, and was known also as an expert in administration and finance. He was also an antiquarian and collector of old artworks from previous dynasties. In his spare time, he was fond of writing poetry, which he used to praise the works of artists such as the painter Li Gonglin (1049–1106). From an early age, his interests in astronomy and calendrical science led him onto a distinguished path as a state bureaucrat. Turn on universal access for steam on macIn 1077, he was dispatched on a diplomatic mission to the Liao Dynasty of the Khitan people to the north, sharing ideas about calendrical science, as the Liao state had created its own calendar in 994 AD. At court, he chose to distance himself from the political rivalries of the Conservatives, led by Prime Minister Sima Guang (1019–1086), and the Reformists, led by Prime Minister Wang Anshi (1021–1086) although many of his associates were of the Conservative faction. Among many honorable positions and titles conferred upon him, Su Song was also one of the 'Deputy Tutors of the Heir Apparent'. Eventually, Su rose to the post of Vice President of the Chancellery Secretariat. He was appointed as a distinguished editor for the Academy of Scholarly Worthies, where in 1063 he edited, redacted, commented on, and added a preface for the classic work Huainanzi of the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD). Furthermore, Su Song must have taken advantage of the astronomical findings of his political rival and contemporary astronomer Shen Kuo. Astronomy A star map with equidistant cylindrical projection, from Su Song's Xinyi Xiangfayao, 1092 Su Song also created a celestial atlas (in five separate maps), which had the hour circles between the xiu ( lunar mansions) forming the astronomical meridians, with stars marked in an equidistant cylindrical projection on each side of the equator, and thus, was in accordance to their north polar distances. With his extensive knowledge of cartography, Su Song was able to settle a heated border dispute between the Song and Liao dynasties. Historian Liu Heping states that Emperor Zhezong of Song sponsored Su Song's clocktower in 1086 in order to compete with the Liao for "scientific and national superiority." In 1081, the court instructed Su Song to compile into a book the diplomatic history of Song-Liao relations, an elaborate task that, once complete, filled 200 volumes. Su was supposed to travel north to Liao and arrive promptly for a birthday celebration and feast on a day which coincided with the winter solstice of the Song calendar, but was actually a day behind the Liao calendar. It includes valuable information on metallurgy and the steel and iron industries during 11th century China. This treatise documented a wide range of pharmaceutical practices, including the use of ephedrine as a drug. In compiling information for pharmaceutical knowledge, Su Song worked with such notable scholars as Zhang Yuxi, Lin Yi, Zhang Dong, and many others. Pharmacology, botany, zoology, and mineralogy Su categorized and accurately described the attributes of many minerals, including the red, pitted surface of realgar seen above.In 1070, Su Song and a team of scholars compiled and edited the Bencao Tujing ('Illustrated Pharmacopoeia', original source material from 1058–1061), which was a groundbreaking treatise on pharmaceutical botany, zoology, and mineralogy. There were many star maps written before Song's book, but the greatest significance of these star maps by Su Song is, that they represent the oldest extant star maps in printed form. Schafer, Su accurately described the translucent quality of fine realgar, its origin from pods found in rocky river gorges, its matrix being pitted with holes and having a deep red, almost purple color, and that the mineral varied in sizes ranging from the size of a pea to a walnut. Su's book was also the first pharmaceutical treatise written in China to describe the flax, Urtica thunbergiana, and Corchoropsis tomentosa (crenata) plants. Similar to the ore channels formed by circulation of ground water written of by the later German scientist Georgius Agricola, Su Song made similar statements concerning copper carbonate, as did the earlier Rihua Bencao of 970 with copper sulphate. He wrote of the subconchoidal fracture of native cinnabar, signs of ore beds, and provided description on crystal form. ![]()
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