Shen Kuo

Shen Kuo or Shen Kua () (1031 - 1095) Chinese scientist, polymath, general, diplomat, financial officer was the inventor of compasses for navigation.

In his book Meng Xi Bi Tan (梦溪笔谈; Dream Pool Essays) (1086) he wrote about mineralogy, erosion, sedimentation and uplift, mathematics, astronomy, and metereology.

He found out, that the compasses do not point north but to the magnetic north pole. That was the decisive step to make them useful for navigation.

He formulated an hypothesis for the process of land formation: based on his observation of fossil shells in a geological stratum in a mountain hundreds of miles from the ocean, he inferred that the land was formed by erosion of the mountains and by deposition of silt. Shen Kua was not only a geologist; his memoirs list "regularities underlying phenomena" in magnetism, astronomy, and engineering, to name a few fields.

He also wrote about Yi Xing (672-717), a Buddhist monk and his calculation of possible positions on a go board though without a sign for zero he had difficulties of expressing the number.

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Shen Kua: mathematician, engineer, physicist, and astronomer