Many inventions found throughout the world have their origins set in the far east, many machines that different nations claim as their own, can often be found to have primitive traces of development many centuries earlier within China. And our next artefact is no exception. Dating back over 2000 years, this rare and enigmatic piece of once very high technology, can only be seen as a demonstration of their superior ingenuity. It seems the invention of the first seismoscope can be traced back to 132 AD, when a Chinese inventor called Zhang Heng perfected a device remarkably accurate at detecting earthquakes, even from afar. Although the ancient Chinese did not fully understand the causes of earthquakes, they did see it as very important to keep track of such events, perceiving these disturbances with cosmic yin and yang. It was therefore important for the Chinese emperor to be alerted of any earthquakes occurring anywhere in their kingdom. Zhang's ingenious seismoscope was almost 6 feet across and made of solid bronze, decorated with Eight dragons marking compass directions, within each dragon's mouth, was a small bronze ball, and beneath, sat eight bronze toads. A mechanism within would somehow detect an earthquake occurring in the distance, this would then cause a ball to dropout of one of the eight dragons mouths. What is fascinating regarding Zhangs invention, is the fact that no one seems to be able to figure out for a certainty how it worked… One theory is that a thin stick was set loosely down the centre of the barrel. When an earthquake occurred, a stick would topple over in the direction of the seismic shock. The dragons mouth would open, releasing a bronze ball which would strike one of the eight toads, indicating the direction of origin. According to legend, when Chang first shown his invention to the emperor, it indicated that a quake had occurred to the west of Luoyang, the capital city at the time. A few days later, a messenger from the region arrived reporting that there had indeed been an earthquake there. Around the time Zhangs machine had indicated. When specialists first realised what the machine was, they struggled to believe that this 2000-year-old invention could actually work... So in 2005, scientists in Zengzhou China used it to detect several earthquakes, the seismoscope detected all of them. In fact, the data gathered from this 2000-year-old machine, corresponded with that gathered by modern-day seismometers! A marvellous machine left to us by a once ingenious civilization.
Ancient "Earthquake Machine" Found In China - YouTube |
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| People & Blogs | Upload TimePublished on 24 Sep 2017 |
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