Predictions of Eclipse Times Recorded in Chinese History

Yuan-shih, chap. 53; translated by Sivin N. , Yuan history astronomical treatise (unpublished manuscript, 1997).

Sivin N. , “Cosmos and computation in early Chinese mathematical astronomy”, T'oung Pao , lv (1969), 1–73.

Yabuuti Kiyosi , “Chinese astronomy: Development and limiting factors”, in Nakayama Shigeru Sivin N. (eds), Chinese science: Explorations of an ancient tradition (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), 91–103, note 4.

Foley N. B. , “A statistical study of the solar eclipses recorded in Chinese and Korean history during the pre-telescopic era”, M.Sc. thesis, University of Durham, 1989.

Eberhard W. , “The political function of astronomy and astronomers in Han China”, in Fairbank J. K. (ed.), Chinese thought and institutions (Chicago, 1957), 37–70.

Bielenstein H. , “Han portents and prognostications”, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities , lvi (1984), 97–112.

In this paper the terms ‘predicted’ and ‘calculated’ are taken as synonymous and refer to the times that the Chinese astronomers expected that the eclipse would occur. The term ‘computed’ refers to the time of the eclipse as deduced using modern computations.

Stephenson F. R. , “Accuracy of medieval Chinese measurements of lunar and solar eclipse times”, in Il-Seong Nha Stephenson F. R. (eds), Oriental astronomy from Guo Shoujing to King Sejong (Seoul, 1997), 159–87.

Steele J. M. Stephenson F. R. , “Astronomical evidence for the accuracy of clocks in pre-Jesuit China”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxix (1998), 35–48.

Yabuuti Kiyosi , “Astronomical tables in China from the Han to the T'ang dynasties”, in Yabuuti Kiyosi (ed.), Chūgoku chūsei kagaku gijutsushi no kenkyū (Tokyo, 1963), 445–92; Yabuuti Kiyosi , “Astronomical tables in China from the Wutai to the Ch'ing dynasties”, Japanese studies in the history of science , ii (1963), 94–100. Details of the methods of eclipse prediction of three of the calendars used during the Wei, Sui and T’ ang dynasties are given in the first of these two papers.

Ibid. .

Ibid. .

Sivin , op. cit. (ref. 1).

For further details see, for example, Bernard H. , Matteo Ricci's scientific contribution to China (Westport, Conn., 1973) and D'Elia P. M. , Galileo in China (Cambridge, Mass., 1960).

Wong T. , Chronological tables of the Chinese dynasties (Shanghai, 1902).

Chung-San Hsueh Ou-Yang I , A Sino-Western calendar for two thousand years: A.d. 1–2000 (Beijing, 1956).

For a detailed discussion of the units of time used in China see Steele and Stephenson, op. cit. (ref. 9).

Local time (LT) is defined as 12.00 noon when the Sun is directly overhead.

Some commentators, for example Stephenson, op. cit. (ref. 8), have interpreted phrases such as Chih wei hou 3 k'o found in the Sui-shu as meaning “the 3rd mark in the central half of the hour of wei”. However, the practice of splitting the double hour into an initial and a central half did not come into general use until later times. A more likely reading is “after the 3rd mark in the hour of wei”. I am grateful to Dr Liu Ciyuan of Shaanxi Observatory, China, for a helpful discussion of this issue.

Full translations of the eclipse predictions found in these sources will be given in my forthcoming thesis.

The computed times were obtained using an amended version of the solar ephemeris of Newcomb S. , “Tables of the Sun”, Astronomical papers prepared for the use of the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac , vi (1895), Part 1, and a corrected version of the lunar ephemeris designated j = 2, Transactions of the International Astronomical Union , xiiB (1968), 48. Adopted in all computations was a lunar acceleration of–26” cy⁻² as given by Morrison L. V. Ward C. G. , “An analysis of the transits of Mercury”, Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , clxxiii (1975), 183–206, and close to that determined using lunar laser ranging by Dickey J. O. , “Lunar laser ranging: A continuing legacy of the Apollo program”, Science , cclxv (1994), 482–90. Values of the Earth's rotational clock error, ΔT, were taken from the spline fit of Stephenson F. R. Morrison L. V. , “Long-term fluctuations in the Earth's rotation: 700 b.c. to a.d. 1990”, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society , A, ccli (1995), 165–202.

Sivin , op. cit. (ref. 1).

Stephenson , op. cit. (ref. 8).

Steele Stephenson , op. cit. (ref. 9).

Cohen A. P. Newton R. R. , “Solar eclipses recorded in China during the Tarng dynasty”, Monumenta serica , xxxv (1981–83), 347–430.

Yabuuti , op. cit. (ref. 10).

Steele J. M. Stephenson F. R. , “Lunar eclipse times predicted by the Babylonians”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xxviii (1997), 119–31; Steele J. M. , “Solar eclipse times predicted by the Babylonians”, ibid. , 133–9.

Newton R. R. , The crime of Claudius Ptolemy (Baltimore, 1977), 171.