Chapter 2292 Pendulum Clock
What is "induction from heaven and man"?
To put it simply, heaven and humans are connected and respond to each other. Heaven can intervene in human affairs, and humans can also respond to heaven. If the emperor disobeys the will of God and acts unkindly and unjustly, God will cause disasters to condemn and warn; if he is diligent, loves the people, and is harmonious, God will send down auspicious signs to encourage...
Confucius, who wrote "Spring and Autumn", believed that disasters were caused by the monarch's lack of virtue. He once said: "If a country is experiencing a drought, does it mean that it has lost all punishments and virtues?" He also advised the monarch to "correct punishments and virtues in order to serve heaven."
When a country is about to prosper, there must be good fortune; when a country is about to perish, there must be monsters. I saw a turtle, all four parts of it moving.
This is the theory of "Induction between Heaven and Man"...
It was simply a sharp sword hanging over the emperor's head.
If the emperor has done something bad and is punished by a warning from heaven, he will naturally feel guilty and quickly correct his evil ways; but sometimes, even though he has done nothing, there are still violent storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, and unlucky ones such as a solar or lunar eclipse. How can we not feel aggrieved by the disaster?
Emperors throughout the ages have gnashed their teeth and hated this theory of "response between heaven and man". However, Confucian disciples firmly believe in it. Anyone who dares to question it is going against the will and going against heaven. Even if the emperor questions it, he will bite it like crazy. After a while, the emperor must realize that he has never made a mistake.
This is the case with His Majesty Li Er.
Well, it’s not that he felt unjust because he didn’t do anything, but that he felt guilty after doing a lot of bad things. He felt anxious every time there was a disaster, fearing that the ministers would coerce him into issuing a “Edict of Sin”...
His Majesty Li Er felt happy when he heard Fang Jun's argument that all this was a natural phenomenon and could not be intervened by human power.
What a good son-in-law...
He quickly asked Li Chunfeng to calculate the time of solar and lunar eclipses. This is the responsibility of the Taishi Bureau. As long as Fang Junsuo can be proven right, the sharp sword of "celestial induction" can be thrown into the toilet by His Majesty Li Er. Don't be angry anymore.
Li Chunfeng is indeed the greatest mathematician of this era, and the term "xudite heavenly being" is the best annotation for him.
He had been calculating the patterns of solar and lunar eclipses very early on, but he didn't know what he was doing, so he didn't implement it resolutely enough. He just made the calculations when he had nothing to do, and the scale and accuracy were far behind. Nothing has come of it.
Now that the imperial edict was issued, Li Chunfeng immediately summoned all the mathematicians in the world to gather at the Taishi Bureau, and mobilized the entire Taishi Bureau to jointly calculate the patterns of solar and lunar eclipses.
In fact, the "Santong Calendar" of the Han Dynasty included calculations for solar eclipses, believing that the occurrence of solar eclipses has a cycle of 130 synodic months. However, this cycle is only a rough estimate and cannot determine the occurrence of solar eclipses. The exact time a lunar eclipse occurs.
On the basis of "Three Unification Calendar", Li Chunfeng conducted in-depth research, and through the calculation of Arabic numerals, he became more and more confused. The path seemed to be correct, but there were always errors of one kind or another that led to inconsistent results.
Since it is inconsistent, it means it is wrong.
But what exactly is the problem?
In the end, these top mathematicians of the Tang Dynasty came to a conclusion, that is, the error of time...
Simply put, it is because the calendar is not perfect enough, resulting in too many errors in calculations.
If you want to accurately calculate the time of solar and lunar eclipses, the top priority is to perfect a new calendar. The prerequisite for perfecting the calendar is to have a more accurate time measuring instrument - dividing the day into ten parts. A two-hour sundial is unqualified because the calculations of the ecliptic show that the time in a day is not a complete twelve hours, or more or less...
How to make a more accurate instrument to measure time?
Li Chunfeng once again demonstrated his amazing scientific talent.
……
"Your Majesty, please see, this is the new time-measuring mechanism developed by Weichen..."
In this house by the stream in the academy mountain, Li Chunfeng explained his new machine to His Majesty Li Er who came to inspect.
"Initially, the pivot wheel is held against the spokes by the left and right heavenly locks, and the entire pivot wheel cannot rotate. When the water poured into the pot reaches a certain weight, the grid fork cannot hold the kettle and begins to fall. The grid fork drops, and the kettle also stops. As it descends, the iron teeth mounted on the side of the pot click downwards on the closing tongue, which pulls the Tiantiao connected to it, and the Tiantiao then moves. Pull down the Tianquan end of the Tianheng; the Tianguan end of the Tianheng is raised accordingly, driving the Tianguan, and opening the left Tianlock; when the left Tianlock is opened, the pivot wheel is allowed to rotate one turn under the gravity of the water in the kettle. The spokes... go round and round, one catching, one vertical, one closing, one releasing, so Wei Chen named it the escapement. ”
His Majesty Li Er, who has always been wise and powerful, is looking at a book from heaven at this moment, with a confused look on his face...
However, as the water flow drives, the entire escapement operates slowly, and finally acts on the scale. It beats the drum every moment and strikes the bell every hour, and gradually I understand.
Fang Jun was even more shocked on the sidelines...
Mother!
Isn’t this just ringing the bell?
What a genius! It seems that these principles were not invented until Monk and his team built the water-moving armillary sphere. Is Li Chunfeng more powerful, or has these principles actually been around for a long time, but has never been applied?
Fang Jun had no answer, but when he looked at this primitive bell, some memories suddenly flashed through his mind...
"This machine is extremely sophisticated, and the principle is even more insightful. However, the gears will inevitably wear out after long-term use, which will cause the scale to advance slowly and lag behind. This may seem like a very small error, but for measuring time, it is only a tiny bit different. ”
Saying this is tantamount to denying all of Li Chunfeng's achievements, which is somewhat inappropriate.
However, Fang Jun feels that when dealing with science, we must uphold a rigorous ethos and not be modest because of human factors and other factors.
Although Li Chunfeng was in the officialdom, he was essentially like a Taoist disciple who was closer to a scientist. He was not angry because of Fang Jun's outspoken words. He just smiled bitterly and said: "The poor Taoist naturally knows this truth, but he can only use stronger tools." Use fine steel to make gears to minimize errors. ”
His Majesty Li Er frowned, clasped his hands behind his back, glared at Fang Jun, and said displeasedly: "This kind of machine can be said to be an ingenious work of nature, and Taishi Ling has contributed a lot to it. How can you be allowed to pick and choose and deny it? You are really capable. You build a better one, or just shut up and stay aside.”
He had long been conquered by this sophisticated machine. Even though he had great respect for Fang Jun in his heart, he couldn't see him nitpicking here.
Fang Jun was speechless, what did you say?
Typical "If you can do it, go ahead, if you can't do it, don't beep"!
When problems are discovered, they should be raised and people should concentrate their efforts to solve them. This is a prudent scientific outlook, rather than prevaricating and perfunctory while knowing the flaws.
Li Chunfeng's eyes lit up, he took Fang Jun's hand, and said happily: "Does Erlang have a better way? Don't care about the poor Taoist's face, as long as Erlang has a better way, even if he smashes the escapement with his own hands, it won't matter. What’s the harm?”
All the officials from the Taishi Bureau were watching eagerly. No one was angry at Fang Jun's fault finding, because they all knew that the emergence of this escapement still relied on other people's arithmetic theory, otherwise even if it was built, the error would be It would also make its existence worthless.
Besides, no one in the world knows that Fang Jun is the best at such strange and cunning things...
Fang Jun glanced at His Majesty Li Er. Since you said to me, "If you can do it, go ahead, if you can't, don't beep." Then we really have to show you what technology transcends time and space is!
He rolled up his sleeves, pointed at the escapement and said: "The precision of this machine's structure is unprecedented. However, it is an indisputable fact that the operation of the gears will cause the error to gradually increase. Therefore, this principle can be used, But replace the gear with a pendulum ”
Everyone is baffled.
Li Chunfeng was confused: "What is the pendulum?"
Fang Jun: "..."
Yes, there is not a single clock in the world, so who can know what a pendulum is?
Since we don’t even know what a pendulum is, who can know what “isochrony” is?
Alas, the road to scientific plagiarism is long and arduous...
He looked around, took four nails, and two wires, cut the wires into regular lengths, then tied nails to both ends, nailed one end of the nail to the door frame, and let the other end hang down.
Everyone stared blankly at the two threads hanging from the door frame, with a nail hanging underneath each...
What is this for?
Fang Jun held a nail in one hand, raised one to a slightly larger angle, and the other to a smaller angle, and then let go together.
"Everyone, please take a look and pay attention to the timing of each swing of these two nails..." (End of Chapter)