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Research on Scale and Precision of the Water Clock in Ancient China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Quan Hejun
Quan Hejun*
Affiliation:
Shanghai Observatory, Academia Sinica, China

Extract

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The instruments of measuring time have been closely related to astronomy, especially to astrometry. In ancient China, before mechanical clocks were imported from European countries, accurate Water Clocks, main tools for measuring time, had been developed two thousand years ago.

In this paper the sizes (mainly the height) of five single vessel-type Clocks of Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-25 A.D.), which were either unearthed in recent years or recorded in some historical documents, are taken as a sample for studying the scaling of indicator-rods and precision of Clock.

Type
Ancient Astronomy and its Characteristics
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 91: History of Oriental Astronomy , 1987 , pp. 57 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987