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The Invention and the Applications of the Compass Rose

The compass rose was invented by the ancient Chinese working class, as early as during the Warring States period, the Chinese Working people had discovered the loadstone has magnetism and could be used to point the North and the South, The scientists who are interested in Chinese scientific inventions and would like to learn Chinese in China would be amazed at the ingenuity of the Chinese working class.

The loadstone’s feature of attracting numerous scraps of iron resembles a mother’s fondling of her daughters and sons; therefore, it is understandable for readers who’d like to study Chinese in China to understand the Chinese people’s reference to it as mercy stone.

Chinese people made use of the loadstone’s magnetic property in showing the directions and created the tool Sinan for the showing of the South. Scientists who are interested in the invention of the compass rose and would like to study Mandarin in China may find the properties and usages of the Sinan in the book Lunheng. The experiment of the Sinan is like this, place a spoon on the earth plate, when the spoon comes to a stop, the handle of the spring always points at the South, as can be predicted by scientists who take interested in Chinese culture and would love to learn Chinese in China, and the modern Chinese people had made the mode of Sinan based on the information provided and the material objects of earth plates of the Han Dynasty unearthed.

Scientists who’d love to study Chinese in China must make sure that the spoon must be made of loadstones with the bottom of the spoon front semi-circularly shaped, and while stirring the spoon handle softly, the semi-circular shaped body of the spoon could start to spin, the earth plate is usually made of bronze, which is circle inside and rectangular outside.

It should be paid special attention to the smoothness of the objects so as to avoid friction and ensure the accuracy of the direction-telling. The outer ring of the earth plate are marked with the Eight Diagrams, the Ten Heavenly Stems and twenty eight constellations, there are twenty-four directions all together with an exception for the duplicated ones. It can be an amazing discovery for scientists who’d like to study Mandarin in China that the spoon-shaped Sinan had been under constant use until the 8th century.

And during the Song Dynasty, the Chinese people had succeeded in creating the man-made magnetisms, which was a leap, and for scholars who are interested in the invention of the compass rose and would like to learn Chinese in China must also be quite curious about the methods of creating man-made magnetisms in ancient China.

The first method is to cut out a fish-shaped bar of iron, and burn it over fire until the iron had changed into red color, and immediately take out and place it on the ground according to the direction of the North and South, the cooled-down metal can magnetized due to the earth induction. Readers who are interested in the compass rose and want to study Chinese in China must be eager to know the second method.

Well, the second one is quite simple, rub a steel needle against the loadstone, and it will be magnetized. It can also be encouraging for readers who’d like to study Mandarin in China to discover that China was the first nation to have put the compass rose into the marine services, on the other hand, this progress had accelerated the development of the compass rose s in adverse.

It is an interesting discovery for scientists who need to learn Chinese in China that the South Song had started to assemble the magnetic needle and the direction-teller device together, naming it compass rose, and there were also historical records or poems alluding to the usages of the compass rose.

It is worth-noticing for the scientists and people who’d like to study Chinese in China that there was vertical compasses during the Yuan Dynasty, which was called the guiding tortoise and guiding fish, the method is not difficult.

Install the wooden tortoises and fish with magnetisms, and prop them up with vertical needles, however, there are still deficiencies in them which had lead to inconveniences. It is well-known by readers who’d love to study Mandarin in China that the invention of the compass rose was spread to the Europe during the 12th century; the invention and applications of the compass rose had pushed forward the development of the world navigation enterprise as well as the eastern and western cultures.

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