Wan Hu
Wan Hu is a legendary Chinese mandarin who, according to legend , wanted to go into the sky around 1500 on a chair or box kite to which 47 fireworks rockets were attached. When the rockets were ignited, an explosion is said to have occurred in which Wan Hu was killed. The moon crater Wan-Hoo on the far side of the moon is named after him.
The story was rumored by Willy Ley in his book Die Fahrt ins Weltall in 1929 and became very popular. In an earlier version, the Mandarin was called Wang Tu and lived around 2000 BC. The science historian and sinologist Joseph Needham suspects the origin of the legend in the time of the chinoiserie .
literature
- Jennifer Armstrong: Wan Hu Is in the Stars , illustrated by Barry Root, Tambourine Books, New York 1995, ISBN 978-0-688-12457-1
Individual evidence
- ↑ Willy Bräunling: Aircraft Engines: Fundamentals, Aero-Thermodynamics, Ideal and Real Circular Processes, Thermal Turbomachinery, Components, Emissions and Systems , Springer, Berlin Heidelberg 2009, ISBN 3540763686 , 5 f.
- ↑ Willy Ley: Die Fahrt ins Weltall , Hachmeister & Thal, Leipzig 1929, p. 34
- ↑ John Elfreth Watkins: The Modern Icarus , Scientific American , 2 October 1909
- ^ Joseph Needham: Science and Civilization in China: Military technology: the gunpowder epic , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1974, ISBN 0521303583 , p. 509
- ^ WAN Hu is in the Stars , Review in Publishers Weekly , May 1, 1995