Wang Zhenyi

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wang Zhenyi ( Chinese  王 貞 儀  /  王 贞 仪 , Pinyin Wáng Zhēnyí ) (* 1768; † 1797), also known as Jiangning Nüshi , was a Chinese astronomer , mathematician and poet during the Qing Dynasty and thus one of the few female polymaths of the late Imperial period. She became known mainly through astronomical experiments with which she scientifically explained the phenomenon of lunar eclipses for the first time . In addition, she has written scientific articles and mathematics books in a language that beginners can understand, as well as numerous poems. The Venus crater Wang Zhenyi is named after her.

Life

Zhenyis family was originally from the province of Anhui , but was eventually into today's Nanjing to Jiangning drawn. Zhenyi was the younger of two daughters. Her father, Wang Xichen, was a doctor and the author of a collection of medical prescriptions. Her grandfather Wang Zhefu (王者 辅) had served as governor of Xuanhua and had acquired a collection of over 75 books over the course of his career. Surrounded by books, Zhenyi learned to read at a very early age and read all the books in her grandfather's library, including the works of mathematician Mei Wending and Euclid's Elements . Her grandfather initially taught her astronomy and mathematics, her grandmother Dong taught her poetry and her father medicine and geography.

Wang Zhefu eventually lost his post and was exiled to Jilin . Zhenyi died when he was 11 years old, and she accompanied her grandmother, father, and other relatives on their trip to Jilin to attend the funeral. The trip inspired her to write some poems and in Jilin, where she was to stay with her grandmother for five years, she met other, educated women with whom she developed a lively exchange. She became a student of the Bu Qianyao, with whom she studied the language of the Han Chinese , and made the acquaintance of the learned women Bai Hexian and Chen Wanyu. She also learned equestrian sports and archery from the wife of a Mongolian general.

Zhenyi returned home at the age of 16, but continued to travel with her father, including traveling. a. to Beijing , Shaanxi , Hunan , Hubei and Guangdong . The experiences she had on the road, which at that time were normally reserved for men, made Zhenyi always plead for equality between men and women. “When people talk about learning and science, people don't think of women [...] Women should just cook and sew and shouldn't bother to write articles for publications, study history, write poetry, or do calligraphy . “In one of her poems she wrote:

It is believed
that women are like men;
Are you not convinced
that daughters can be heroic too?

At the age of 18, Wang Zhenyi began studying mathematics and astronomy in depth. In addition, she made contacts with other scholars in Jiangning and called herself Jiangning Nüshi (German: Scholars from Jianging ). At the age of 25, Zhenyi married Zhan Mei and moved to Xuancheng with him . There she taught mathematics and astronomy to students. However, due to her new duties, she had to severely limit her poetry and was often ill.

Wang Zhenyi died childless at the age of 29. Shortly before her death, she sent her manuscripts to her best friend Qian Yuling (also known as Madam Kuai), who she gave to her nephew Qian Yiji, a famous scholar, six years later. Yiji compiled the 5 volumes of Simple Laws of Calculation and wrote the foreword in which he called Wang Zhenyi "the most learned woman since Ban Zhao ". According to an article in the Xuzuan Jiangning fuzhi newspaper in 1880, she left a total of twelve books, including six books on astronomy and mathematics, which have not been preserved. Texts on the two sciences are in their only surviving work, The Denfeng Pavilion's Provisional Collection .

Astronomy and math

Although her grandfather had taught her astronomy and mathematics for a while, Wang Zhenyi acquired most of her knowledge through self-study. One of the most important books for her was Mei Wending's Principles of Calculation . Back then, science books were often written in the difficult language of the aristocracy. To make the knowledge accessible to beginners and ordinary people, Zhenyi began to write more understandable versions, simplifying several dozen mathematical proofs in the process. It also used a simplified multiplication and division system. In her studies of the Pythagorean theorem , she described the ratio of the sides of a right triangle and explained trigonometry. Zhenyi said of her studies, “There were times when I had to put my pen down and sighed. But I love the subject. I'm not giving up. ”At the age of 24, she published the results of her studies as a book entitled Simple Laws of Calculations .

She used her knowledge of mathematics to observe the starry sky and carry out astronomical experiments. So she managed to find a simple method for calculating the equinoxes and explaining their movement. She also studied the movements of the sun, moon and planets to one another and in relation to the earth, whose spherical shape and gravity she explained. Her most famous experiment is the simulation of a lunar eclipse. To do this, she placed a round table in the garden pavilion to simulate the earth, hung up a lamp that was supposed to represent the sun and used a mirror instead of the moon. By imitating the movements of the earth, sun and moon with the objects, she recognized how a lunar eclipse came about, a revolutionary finding for the time. The superstition was still widespread that an eclipse was triggered by angry deities and after her experiment Zhenyi wrote: "In fact, it is clearly due to the moon." Her findings, remarkably accurate, she recorded in various essays.

During the Qing Dynasty, the western calendar began to spread in China. While many Chinese scholars opposed its introduction, Wang Zhenyi was among its proponents. Thanks to her knowledge, she understood and admired the accuracy of the Western calendar, which was based on the sun. "What matters is its usefulness, not whether it is Chinese or Western." She demonstrated the usefulness of her own studies of the sky when she observed clouds and tried to measure the humidity of the atmosphere. She used the data obtained in this way for weather forecasts , in particular to announce droughts or floods. With her methods and knowledge she was way ahead of her time and in 1994 the International Astronomical Union recognized her contributions to astronomy by naming a Venus crater Wang Zhenyi .

poetry

Much of Wang Zhenyi's poems were written on her travels. Her first long trip to Jilin in particular made a deep impression on her. For the first time, she mastered situations normally only experienced by men and saw with her own eyes what was happening within the Chinese Empire. An autobiographical poem describes how travel, as an active, masculine lifestyle, changed them:

I remember my past journeys through mountains and seas,
And how fast I crossed rivers and climbed mountains.
I hiked ten thousand miles and read ten thousand volumes.
I once compared my ambition to something stronger than that of a man.
After Lintong in the west and Heishui in the east,
I rode a horse enthusiastically as a girl to drive the carriage.
I also learned archery and equestrian sports
and was reluctant to ride a horse with makeup on.

According to Zhenyi, these experiences were why, as Yuan Mei said, she did not write poetry "as written by women." Typical female poetry at that time included rhapsodies and a flowery language. In contrast, Zhenyi's style was considered masculine. A friend wrote to Zhenyi that she had replaced the feminine style with a concise, robust style, to which Zhenyi replied, referring to her travels:

“The mountains and rivers on the way were lovely enough to broaden my horizons. Because of this, when my personality got wilder, I didn't notice it. How could I consciously think about robust and concise styles when writing, and where should I find the time to choose the excellent or the inferior [style]? [...] I consciously avoided a feminine style. "

Tai Shan Mountain, the subject of a poem by Wang Zhenyi

Another aspect of her travel poetry was the description of impressive landscapes, such as her visit to Tai Shan . Impressed by the mountain and its atmosphere, Wang Zhenyi wrote a poem about it that she says she could not have written without seeing the mountain with her own eyes. Unlike other poets, she did not focus on the pilgrims who made sacrifices to the gods, but on the sight of the mountain and, in comparison, her own smallness. In doing so, she once again emphasized the influence travel had on poetry. Sometimes she also relentlessly described the misery she found on the trip among the lower strata of the population, which had grown too quickly:

The village is deserted by the smoke from the cooking stoves,
rich families let their hoarded grain rot;
Miserably starved bodies are strewn with wormwood.
Greedy officials , however, raise the taxes on the farms.

Yanning Wang interprets Zhenyi's style as a plea for a return to classical forms. Nowadays only the poems from her Provisional Collection in the Defeng Pavilion have survived .

Known publications

Essays

  • Dispute about the train of equinoxes
  • Dispute about lengths and stars
  • The explanation of a lunar eclipse
  • About the spherical earth
  • The explanation of the Pythagorean theorem and trigonometry

Books

  • The needs of calculation
  • The preliminary collection of the Defeng Pavilion (original title: Denfengting zhuji ), 6 volumes
  • Notes , 10 volumes
  • Explanations of the constellations
  • Additional information on western calculations
  • A woman's collected verses
  • Simple principles of calculations , 5 volumes
  • Beyond the Study of Mathematics , 4 volumes
  • Review of selected prose, poetry and Fu , 10 volumes

literature

  • Barbara Bennett Peterson: Notable Women of China: Shang Dynasty to the Early Twentieth Century . Routledge 2016, ISBN 978-1-317-46372-6
  • Yanning Wang: Reverie and Reality: Poetry on Travel by Late Imperial Chinese Women . Lexington Books 2013, ISBN 978-0-7391-7984-0
  • Lily Xiao Hong Lee, Clara Lau, AD Stefanowska: Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: V. 1: The Qing Period, 1644-1911 . Routledge 2015, ISBN 0-7656-0043-9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Yanning Wang: Reverie and Reality: Poetry on Travel by Late Imperial Chinese Women . Lexington Books 2013, p. 72
  2. ^ A b Lily Xiao Hong Lee, Clara Lau, AD Stefanowska: Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: V. 1: The Qing Period, 1644-1911 . Routledge 2015, p. 230
  3. ↑ a b Yanning Wang: Reverie and Reality: Poetry on Travel by Late Imperial Chinese Women . Lexington Books 2013, p. 70
  4. ↑ a b c d e Barbara Bennett Peterson: Wang Zhenyi . In: Notable Women of China: Shang Dynasty to the Early Twentieth Century . Routledge 2016, p. 345
  5. ^ A b Lily Xiao Hong Lee, Clara Lau, AD Stefanowska: Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: V. 1: The Qing Period, 1644-1911 . Routledge 2015, p. 231
  6. ↑ a b c Olivia Bullock: Badass Ladies of Chinese History: Wang Zhenyi . The World of Chinese, October 17, 2014. Accessed November 20, 2016.
  7. ^ A b c Barbara Bennett Peterson: Wang Zhenyi . In: Notable Women of China: Shang Dynasty to the Early Twentieth Century . Routledge 2016, p. 344
  8. ^ Marilyn Ogilvie, Joy Harvey, The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives From Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century . Routledge 2003, ISBN 978-1-135-96343-9 . P. 1345
  9. ↑ Yanning Wang: Reverie and Reality: Poetry on Travel by Late Imperial Chinese Women . Lexington Books 2013, p. 71
  10. ↑ a b c Yanning Wang: Reverie and Reality: Poetry on Travel by Late Imperial Chinese Women . Lexington Books 2013, p. 73
  11. ↑ Sam Maggs: Wang Zhenyi . In: Wonder Women. 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers who Changed History. Quirk Books 2016, p. 16
  12. ↑ Sam Maggs: Wang Zhenyi . In: Wonder Women. 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers who Changed History. Quirk Books 2016, p. 17
  13. ↑ Yanning Wang: Reverie and Reality: Poetry on Travel by Late Imperial Chinese Women . Lexington Books 2013, p. 74
Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Wang is the family name here, Zhenyi is the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Wang, Zhenyi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 王 贞 仪 (Chinese); Jiangning, Nushi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese astronomer, mathematician and poet
DATE OF BIRTH 1768
DATE OF DEATH 1797