Alternate Names
Born Longmen (now Hancheng, Shaanxi Province), China, circa 145–135 BCE
Died China, circa 90 BCE
Sima Qian was a Chinese historian and astronomer in the Western (Former) Han Dynasty who helped devise a calendar in which a 13 lunar month occurred as needed, rather than always at the end of the solar year.
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Selected References
Cullen, Christopher, “Motivations for Scientific Change in Ancient China: Emperor Wu and the Grand Inception Astronomical Reforms of 104 B.C.,” Journal for the History of Astronomy, 24(3), 1993, 185–203.
Needham, Joseph (with the collaboration of Wang Ling): Science and Civilisation in China, volume 3, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959).
Sivin, N. “Cosmos and computation in early Chinese mathematical astronomy,” T’oung Pao, 55, 1969, 1–73.
Watson, Burton, Ssu-ma Ch’ien: Grand Historian of China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958).
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Hockey, T. (2014). Sima Qian. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1282
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1282
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