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Revisiting An Eighth-Century Chinese Table of Tangents

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History of Oriental Astronomy

Part of the book series: Astrophysics and Space Science Library ((ASSL,volume 275))

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Abstract

In ancient and medieval China,1 astronomers always made use of a gnomon to measure the solar motion. Calendar-makers usually gave lengths of the solar shadow at noon on the days of 24 solar seasons (qi) a in their calendar-making system.2 Those data were measured at the Imperial Observatory.

Research supported by a special fund of the Education Section of Shaanxi Province, and the China Scholarship Council (97861043).

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References

  • A. Beer, Ho Ping-yu, Lu Gweidjen, J. Needham, E.g. Pulleyblank, and G. Thompson. “An 8th-Century Meridian Line: YI-XING’s Chain of Gnomons and the Pre-history of the Metrid System” Vistas in Astronomy, Vol. 4 (1961), pp. 3–28

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© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Anjing, Q. (2002). Revisiting An Eighth-Century Chinese Table of Tangents. In: Ansari, S.M.R. (eds) History of Oriental Astronomy. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 275. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9862-0_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9862-0_17

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6033-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9862-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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