Abstract: The "second" was originally a unit of length, and it was only after the time reform of the late Ming missionary Matteo Ricci that it began to become a unit of time. After the three-hand clock with the second hand entered China in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the time scale of "seconds" was really used for measurement. However, for a long time, Chinese treated the three-needle watch as only a high-end jewelry. Therefore, Chinese time consciousness about "seconds" did not awaken because of the popularity of the three-needle scale. Later, with the unstoppable influx of Western scientific knowledge and cultural ideas into late Qing China, the more precise "time" symbolized by the "second hand" finally began to be associated with science and civilization like the steam engine and "electricity". And science novels that actively use the "time" element and are created entirely by Chinese also began to appear during this period. Among them, Xu Nianci's "New Law Luo Mr. Tan" is a pioneering work. In this novel, Through the setting and contrast of the time systems between the underground state and the real world, Xu Nianci completes the parody of the classic theme of Chinese literature that tells about the relativity of time, bringing a new enlightenment to the Chinese at that time about "seconds" and even "time" itself.
introduction
In the spring of the ninth year of the Ming Dynasty (1581), the Italian missionary Michele Ruggieri came to Guangzhou again from Macao. This time, he carefully prepared a self-chiming bell and gave it to a local military attaché named Huang Yingjia. At the recommendation of this military attaché, Luo Mingjian finally came into contact with the imperial court, and his missionary activities ushered in a turnaround. [1] This chiming bell is the earliest known mechanical clock in China. [2] In the twenty-sixth year of the Wanli Calendar (1598), Luo Mingjian's successor, Matteo Ricci, the most prestigious missionary of the Ming and Qing dynasties, held a special "exhibition" on the streets of Nanjing, publicly displaying a variety of Western machinery, including self-chiming bells. As a result, ordinary Chinese people were able to appreciate the style of mechanical clocks for the first time. Three years later, in the twenty-ninth year of the Wanli Calendar (1601), Matteo Ricci replaced the Roman numerals on the two self-chiming bells with twelve earth branches and engraved them with dragon stripes, which were dedicated to the emperor at that time, Myōjinzong. [3] Since then, Western mechanical clocks and time systems have begun to spread in China.
In view of the timing instruments and time system in modern China, the research results so far, including history and literature, cannot be described as fruitful. However, while the time system such as the Western calendar, the twenty-four-hour system, and the weekly system has been hotly discussed by scholars at home and abroad, few people have paid attention to the concept of "seconds" time. At present, only the scholar Zhan Xiaobai discussed the precision of time measurement in modern China in his monograph, and discussed the popularity of "seconds" in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. [4] How was "second" initially recognized by the Chinese people step by step, and how did this cognition change? This article will focus on these two outstanding issues.
First, what is "seconds"?
"The transition between the two ultrafine energy levels of the cesium-133 atom corresponds to the duration of 9192631770 cycles of radiation", which is the definition of the second at the 13th International Conference of Weights and Measures held in 1967. [5] Except for researchers in related professions, including the author, ordinary people naturally cannot understand the specific meaning of this paragraph. Perhaps it is not an exaggeration to simply think of it as a precise calculation result obtained through modern science and technology and scientific instruments. The point I want to express is that it is indeed not an easy task to explain the concept of "seconds" time.
In ancient times, the "second" was not originally a unit of time, but a unit of length. Written in the Sun Tzu Arithmetic Classic[6] during the Southern and Northern Dynasties of the Wei and Jin Dynasties, it is recorded as follows:
The beginning of the degree begins with the sudden. To know its suddenness, the silkworm is born, and the spit is sudden. Ten suddenly is one second, ten seconds is one millimeter, ten millimeters is one centimeter, ten centimeters is one minute, ten inches is one inch, ten feet is one foot, ten feet is one lead; fifty feet is one end; forty feet is one horse; and six feet is a step. Two hundred and forty steps for one acre. Three hundred steps is one mile. [7]
Ten silks are placed side by side, and their width is the length of "one second". Although the Official Unit of Weights and Measures is recorded in the Book of Han and the Chronicle of the Laws as "minutes, inches, rulers, zhang, and quotations", and does not mention "sudden, second, millimeter, and centimeter", fortunately, in the Book of Han, we can also see the following explanations:
Yuanyuan Benben, the number begins with one, produces the yellow bell, and makes the counting seconds suddenly. Eight tones and seven beginnings, five sounds and six laws, measurement and trade-offs, the calendar is calculated. [8]
"Make a second flicker", which means that the calculation starts from the "second flicker". In addition, regarding the practical application of "seconds", we can also see in the Book of Sui that the pi value calculated by Zu Chongzhi during the Southern and Northern Dynasties was between "three zhang, one foot, four inches, one minute, five centimeters, nine milliseconds and six seconds" and "three feet and four inches, one minute, five centimeters, nine minutes, two seconds, seven strokes.". [9]
In the Tang Dynasty, the degree minute and second measurement system began to form, and the "second" as an angle unit was used in astronomical calculations. For example, with regard to the trajectory of the year star (Jupiter) after its appearance, the Old Book of Tang has the following description:
One hundred and seventy-six minutes and fifty seconds a day, one minute late. One hundred and fourteen days of nineteen degrees two hundred and nine minutes. [10]
On the other hand, regarding the measurement system of time, one of the most basic time systems in ancient China is the hundred-engraving system, as the name suggests, the time of a day and night is divided into a hundred moments, and the "engraving" becomes the most basic unit of time, which is used with missing engraving. The Hundred Engraving System is believed to have originated in the Yin Shang and was implemented until the end of the Ming Dynasty. [11] Of course, there have been many missed engravings with an accuracy of more than 100 engraves in Chinese history, such as the "Lotus Leak" invented by Yan Su in the Northern Song Dynasty (Figure 1), each moment can be subdivided into sixty "points".
Figure 1 The lotus flower leak diagram invented by Yan Su recorded in the third volume of Yang Jia's "Six Classics Diagram" of the Southern Song Dynasty
Long Tu Yan Gong Su Ya Duo ingenious, Ren Zi Tong Day, taste the lotus flower leaked under the Que, later as the Fan Qing Society, out of the Dongying, according to its method, its system is a quarter pot, jagged water dispenser on the top, carved wood for the four square arrows, arrows four Yao, face twenty-five carvings, carved sixty. Hundreds of engravings on all sides, a total of six thousand points, to serve the day... [12]
A day of "six thousand minutes", "one minute" is the modern 14.4 seconds. In addition to Yan Su, the missing engraving invented by Zhao Youqin of the Yuan Dynasty even increased the accuracy of its measurement to 6 seconds. [13] It must be emphasized, however, that while the accuracy of time measurement before the end of the Ming Dynasty continued to improve with the progress of manufacturing techniques, the time units that matched them were not added. Unlike the Chinese situation, in 14th-century Europe, although the second hand had not yet been "created", the modern "hour, minute, second" chronograph system had appeared as early as around 1345. [14] As mentioned in the introduction to this article, this chronography system finally came to China through missionaries at the end of the 16th century.
So, in the late Ming Dynasty without modern precision science instruments, how exactly is the "second" measured and defined? Matteo Ricci, who brought the chiming bell to China, has the perfect answer to this.
Matteo Ricci came to China, and in addition to the machines such as the chiming bell, he also brought a large number of Western works such as science and astronomy, including his teacher Christoph Clau's Astrorabium ("Astrolabe"). Kravis participated in the revision of the Gregorian calendar, which is now the common Gregorian calendar, and has made extraordinary achievements in mathematics, astronomy and other fields, which can be described as famous. Astrorabium was later dictated by Matteo Ricci and translated in 1607 by the hand of Li Zhizao as the Hun Gai Tong Constitutional Diagram, meaning to illustrate the movement of celestial bodies in an illustrative manner. The book details the instruments required to determine the moment and the specific measurement methods (Figure 2).
Fig. 2 Time ruler indexing diagram (hun gai tong constitutional diagram, volume below)
The instrument in the lower left of Figure 2 is called the "瞡筩" and is an indispensable tool for measurement. There is a "pivot" in the middle of the "pivot" - a small circular hole, on which the "pivot" is embedded with a "divided ruler", and then the time can be determined by comparing the celestial angle and the value on the ruler. [15] As for the specific scale on the ruler, as shown in Figure 2, it is 90 degrees from 卯 to noon, that is, 30 degrees is one hour. As for the conversion of specific degrees and the length of the time, the book has specially produced a "degree map" (Figure 3) for reference.
Figure 3 Degree Diagram (Volume 2 of the "Hun Gai Tong Constitutional Diagram")
The "degree" in the first row above the degree chart represents the degree, while the "hour" and "minute" immediately after the "degree" actually represent the time, "hour" is an hour, and "minute" is one minute, which is no different from modern times. The rightmost column of the table, that is, the length of time corresponding to 1 degree to 30 degrees, is the value shown in the second and third columns, respectively, 1 degree is equal to "〇時四 minutes", that is, 4 minutes, 2 degrees is 8 minutes, 3 degrees is 12 minutes... And so on. The middle is the same as the "degree" column on the left, that is, the time corresponding to 31 degrees to 60 degrees is 2 hours and 4 minutes to 4 hours, and the time corresponding to 70 degrees to 360 degrees is 4 hours and 40 minutes to 24 hours. [16]
It should be noted that in order to facilitate calculation and measurement, Matteo Ricci directly used the Western timing system. As for why China's time system is not convenient to calculate, Matteo Ricci specifically explained:
Whoever counts 100 minutes of the day shall be 60 points per hour. At each hour, there are eight and twenty minutes to make two small moments, and this verse the remaining minutes are removed so that they can be engraved. Therefore, the daily ends at ninety-six minutes. [17]
As mentioned earlier, until the end of the Ming Dynasty, the hundred engraving system was the basic time system in China. In addition to the hundred engraving system, the well-known twelve-hour system has appeared as early as the Han Dynasty. In fact, Chinese has long been timed by the cooperation of these two systems. But, as Matteo Ricci said, if the two are converted together, at 1 hour, that is, 81/3 hours, there will be a remainder anyway. In order to eliminate the remainder of 1/3 of the tick, the concept of "small tick" was created. Divide 1 tick into 60 equal parts, where 10 points is 1 "small tick", so that 1/3 tick is 2 small ticks, and 1 hour is 8 ticks and 2 small ticks.
After Ricci realized that the above conversion was particularly inconvenient, he advocated simply changing the 100 minutes of a day to 96 minutes, so that 1 hour was equal to 8 minutes. At the same time as this improvement, Matteo Ricci also introduced the Western "hours, minutes and seconds" timing system, specifically:
And four moments for a moment to calculate. Sixty minutes per hour, fifteen minutes per moment, and sixty seconds in one minute, sixty seconds in one second. [18]
At this point, "seconds" finally appeared as a unit of time. Now, let's look back at the "degree chart" (Figure 3) just now, and there are three markers in the bottom row of the table: "minutes", "seconds", and "suddens". It should be noted that the "minutes and seconds" below the "degree" column are still the degree units, and only the "minutes and seconds" and "seconds" represented below the vertical columns of "hours" and "minutes" are the above time units. That is to say, when the unit of "degrees" becomes "minutes", the time unit of the "time" column also becomes "minutes" correspondingly, and the units of the "minutes" column become "seconds". According to the method just now, read down from the top, the corresponding time of "〇度一分" is "〇分四秒" that is, 4 seconds, and "〇度二分" is 8 seconds... The final "360 minutes" is 24 minutes. While 1 degree is equal to 60 points, 360 points is 6 degrees, and according to the value of 6 degrees in the table, the corresponding time is "〇時二四分" that is, 24 minutes, and the two values coincide.
Similarly, when the unit of degrees is "seconds", the time units correspondingly change to "seconds" and "sudden". Therefore, according to this table, it can be easily known that 1 second is 0 degrees 0 minutes and 15 seconds.
In the late Ming Dynasty, where there are no modern precision science instruments, how exactly is "second" measured and defined? Answer this question with the answer given by Matteo Ricci, that is, the time it takes for the sun to move 0 degrees 0 degrees 0 minutes and 15 seconds angle, that is, 1 second.
So, let's try to ask, why is the "second" as an angle unit used as a unit of time? In Europe, "second" (second) is originally an angle and time unit, so when the Western timing system was introduced, the Chinese angle unit "second" was also used as a time unit, which is naturally not difficult to speculate. Fundamentally, the history of human perception and measurement of time itself begins by observing the movements of the sun, moon, and stars and changes in position. For humans, perspective may be a certain and convincing thing from the beginning. Therefore, the angle unit can be converted into a unit of time, which is a very natural thing. And through this transformation, the ambiguity of time is diluted, and the success of time becomes a thing that can be controlled by human beings and can be described, which can be said to be an extremely important step in the history of human domination of time.
Second, "three-needle foreign watch is the most fashionable"
In the ninth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1670), the "seconds" brought by Matteo Ricci were written into the Qinghui Canon, and the "seconds" officially became a unit of time. [19]
Sunday twelve o'clock, eight o'clock, fifteen o'clock, sixty minutes. [20]
However, it must be pointed out that although the "second" has officially become a unit of time, it only exists in theory. Because it is really necessary to measure the time of one second, it is needless to say that even using the timing method of Matteo Ricci described in the previous section, measuring the displacement of the sun at 0 degrees 0 minutes and 15 seconds is absolutely impossible, even if it is barely done, it does not have any practical significance. What changes the status quo so that the "seconds" can really be measured and captured is naturally the arrival of the three-hand meter with the second hand. Regarding the appearance of the three-hand table[21], the famous historian David S. Landes has the following research:
The earliest known spring-driven clock with a second hand – and probably the earliest of all types of clocks – was an unsigned "Orpheus" clock in the Fremersdorf collection. It was made between about 1560 and 1570. [22]
Since Luo Mingjian brought mechanical clocks to China in the late 16th century, by the middle of the 18th century, not to mention the people, there were countless clocks and watches in the imperial palace alone. The missionary Valentin Chalier, who was in charge of the management and maintenance of mechanical clocks in the court in the 1730s and 1740s, according to him, there were more than 4,000 masterpieces in the court at that time by the best watchmakers in Paris and London alone, and in the 1730s. [23] As for when the three-needle watch entered China, unfortunately, the exact time is not known. However, in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing, we can indeed see the exquisite three-needle watch of the Qianlong period such as "copper gilded moon top man playing music bell" and "copper gilded leather ball flower clock". At the same time, many poems about the chiming of the bell left by the Qianlong Emperor can also be used as evidence. For example, in the Song of the Bell, it is written:
Rare sea boats, refined Shenggong lotus. Water and fire are not obvious, and the seconds are secretly moving. [24]
Here we also have to mention xu dynasty's "Self-chiming Clock Illustration" that was written in 1809. The book was the first in China to systematically introduce the internal structure and maintenance methods of mechanical clocks and watches, "reflecting the level of Chinese watch technology before the end of the 18th century". The book has the following description of the three-needle table:
A table. The shaft is like a clock, the large is small, there is a single needle, two needles, three needles, four needles. A single needle points to the hour, two stitches and points, three stitches and seconds, and four stitches to the sun. [26]
In fact, not only in the imperial palace, but even in the folk, the three-needle watch was once very popular. [27] The poet Lin Sumen during the Qianlong and Jiaqing dynasties was good at composing custom poems, and wrote the poetry collection "Three Hundred Yin of the Han River" (1808). It contains a poem entitled "With a Three-Needle Watch", which reads: "Three stitches are needed in the second clear month"[28], which records the situation of Yangzhou people buying three-needle watches. Rather than the verses, we should pay more attention to the preface to the poem, about the structure of the three-needle table and the social background at that time, the preface has the following instructions:
This is also a fixed moment thing also. Copper tire porcelain surface and glass cover, the inside are screw sealed. All by law. The painting on the surface is like a gossip, and the other is embedded with a needle timing. If you look at the needle somewhere in the hood, you will know that it is at the end of a certain moment. Foreigners sell a needle watch for only a few tens of gold. Recently, the three-needle calibration on the surface is more accurate, and its price is more expensive. Yangzhou city tends to be worn more by the name of timing than at the waist. [29]
It can be seen that although the three-hand watch has been sought after by the people since the end of the 18th century, Chinese is not seeking a more accurate time, and in the final analysis, the three-hand watch is just a more advanced and expensive accessory or toy. Of course, this situation is not only happening in Jiangnan, but also in Beijing. For example, in the poet Yang Miren's "Bamboo Branches of dumen" (1795), he chanted:
The three-needle foreign watch is the most fashionable, with a hand wrapped in cowhide and an eagle. [30]
Regarding the attitude of Chinese to Western machinery, the Italian historian Carlo Maria Cipolla once made a wonderful statement:
While Europeans used lenses to make microscopes, telescopes, and glasses, Chinese were happy to play with it as a mesmerizing toy. The same is true of clocks. Lenses, clocks, and other instruments appeared in Europe to meet the specific needs of the European social and cultural environment, but in China, these inventions were a windfall from the sky, so it was only natural for Chinese to treat these things as strange tricks. [31]
As for the invention of the second hand, what kind of needs were it based on, and how did it "push" European society forward? In other words, what exactly does Europe's "second hand" society look like? This was probably a difficult or even unimaginable question for Chinese before the 19th century. Therefore, perhaps only when Chinese go to the world and witness the "second hand" society in Europe can we truly understand the connotation of the second hand and know the "correct way to play" the second hand.
3. Steam, Electrical, Seconds
In the second year of Guangxu (1876), Guo Songtao (1818-1891) was ordered by the Qing court to go to Britain, becoming the first foreign minister in Chinese history. During his tenure in Europe, he went deep into European society and visited many factories, schools and government agencies. Fortunately, he wrote down everything he saw and heard in his diary, allowing future generations to get a glimpse of it.
On May 23 of the third year of Guangxu (July 3, 1877), on this day, Guo Songtao came to the "Greenwich" Observatory in the United Kingdom. On the first floor of the observatory, he saw hundreds of clocks on display, all sent by the Navy for testing:
The test has different degrees of heat and cold, and the flow of hot gas is accelerated, and the cold gas is condensed and delayed, and it must be cold and hot as one, and the line is accurate. Its hot cabinet stores hot water under it, and dozens of clocks and watches are placed on top, and they are covered on it. The same is true of the freezer with ice. There is a large hour clock under its bell house, which is placed in the middle of the place, and the air is equalized at four o'clock, and the cold and heat are not damaged. Therefore, those who take the time to divide the time will be determined by this clock. [32]
Why is the manufacturing technique of Western watches changing with each passing day? Guo Songtao analyzed it in his diary:
The water master clocks and watches are for the use of the state, and should be sent for testing. Watch shops manufacture utensils and cannot send them for inspection. The experiments of the disciples who take the Grimri Clock as the norms taken by the various parts of the Lun Sect are particularly exquisite. For each time a clock is most accurate, the equal difference is determined by Greenley, that is, the sound price increases suddenly. It is to be happy to win the weight of one word, and to compete with the amazing, and the skills are also improved by day. [33]
It can be seen that including the development and improvement of military equipment, the progress of Western watchmaking techniques is directly related to its social needs, and the two often promote each other.
In addition to the clock, in the diary of this day, there are other interesting records about the time. For example, whether it is a "stargazing far-range mirror" or a wind gauge, the recorded measurements of these instruments can be accurate to the second at that time, and obviously, Guo Songtao did not ignore these details.
Because of his advocacy of emulating the Western political system, Guo Songtao was impeached and recalled in the fifth year of Guangxu (1879). In the same year, another Chinese began his own journey to Europe, Xu Jianyin (1845-1901), who was sent to Germany by Li Hongzhang to investigate. Unlike Guo Songtao, Xu Jianyin learned "Western Studies" from an early age under the influence of his father Xu Shou (1818-1884) and was one of the few scientists in the Qing Dynasty. His trip to Germany also made him one of the first engineering and technical personnel in Chinese history to go abroad.
On July 29, 1881 (August 23, 1881), Xu Jianyin came to the German shipyard "Si Dan Ding Volchon" to inspect the "Thunder Boat", and in his "Miscellaneous Records of European Travels", there is the following record of the situation on that day:
Tongjin translated the denglei boat trial, the first time to the halfway steam engine incident fever and stopped, failed to try the exact number, about an hour. By half past eleven o'clock another nautical mile was three minutes and twenty-six seconds. A nautical mile back, three minutes and eleven and a half seconds. However, the table of the General Office of Kazakhstan was only three minutes and ten and a half seconds, and it was already explained that it was an eleven-second count. Later, Zheng Qinglian was sent to test the number and register it with Yi. [34]
From this seemingly bland account, we can find that for Xu Jianyin, "seconds" can not even meet his measurement requirements for ship speed, but has to use "half a second" to record, and for the measurement error of only "one second" in the end, he even sent someone to check and verify again. Xu Jianyin's "calculation" of time may be based on the instinct and consciousness of a technical expert, but there is no doubt that compared with the "trending people" who competed to buy three-needle watches in China, he was the person who really understood the value of the "second hand" in that era.
Of course, at that time, it was not limited to "thunder boats", including the speed measurement of steam-powered machinery such as trains and steamboats, and even the measurement of the firing rate of weapons such as guns and artillery, and it was necessary to be accurate to "seconds" on various occasions, and these would accelerate the process of time precision in Western society. On the other hand, another pusher behind the Western "second hand" society is "electricity". On this point, let us return our attention to Guo Songtao's diary.
On September 10, 1877 ( October 16 , 1877 ) , Guo Songtao saw and used the telephone that Alexander Graham Bell had just invented in the past year. In his diary for the day, he wrote as follows:
In recent years, the sound reports produced by Berle have also been electrically used. The upper and lower floors lead from right to left, about tens of meters apart, with wires and small wooden cases for sitting. At both ends are round handles of wooden pestles, which contain wires, about three inches long. There is a disc on it, two inches in diameter, where two layers. The inner layer is reduced by five inches, and the upper layer is a round hole, eight inches in diameter. Among them, the horse tooth discus is only as thin as half of the bamboo bud. Thin tin is attached up and down, and iron columns are placed in the middle, surrounded by wires. In the placement handle, the discus is less than one pole away from the middle of the iron pillar. According to Grimm: "When the human voice is sent into the dish, the discus is automatic, the sound is moved to two hundred, the heavier the sound, the faster it moves, and the pole is up to a thousand, and the same machine pestle [杼] is the same as the membrane sounder in the ear." The sound is in the ear, such as the cone stabbing, then it is self-aware of the pain, and the pain is not in the cone. The iron membrane moves, corresponding to the membrane in the ear, and naturally sounds. ”[35]
Although Guo Songtao originally recorded the explanation of the working principle of telephone calls by foreigners in his travels, he had to sigh "I can't understand the reasoning in the end" [36]. Regarding "electricity", Guo Songtao also specifically explained the definition of electricity in his diary.
The number of measuring electricity is known as Fara, and the Number of Ancient Roads is known as Fara. Each flower [hair] pulls the electricity generated by a battery for a second and a breath of resistance. [37]
"Fara" is the international unit of capacitance, named after the British physicist Michael Faraday, the original "Megaru Faraday". Guo Songtao probably still didn't know anything about the specific meaning of his above records, but these unfamiliar and abstract terms and definitions had actually begun to enter the vision of ordinary Chinese at that time. In 1876, the year that Guo Songtao came to Britain, China's first natural science magazine, Gezhi Compilation, was founded. The journal aimed to popularize true Western basic scientific knowledge to Chinese, and at that time it gained and cultivated a large number of Chinese readers. After Western scientific knowledge, including "electricity", as well as machinery and utensils driven by "electricity", were continuously imported into the Qing Empire through various ways and means, the true meaning of the existence of the time unit "second", whether intentional or unintentional, was also perceived by more and more Chinese.
The German historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch wrote in his Journey to the Railway: Geschichte der Eisenbahnreise: Zur Industrialisierung von Raum und Zeit im 19. Jahrhundert argues that the invention of the railway abolished the traditional concepts of space and time,[38] and not just steam-powered machinery represented by trains, including guns and guns using gunpowder and machines using "electricity", can also be regarded as extremely compressing traditional space and time. That said, these things have one thing in common, and that is that the motivation for inventing them is fundamentally to improve efficiency. And to improve efficiency, in other words, to shorten the time. The reason why Western society gradually entered the "second hand" society in the early 18th century was not only because these machines were invented by the Western world, but also because the use of these machines directly promoted the transformation of the West into a more efficient society. The operation mechanism of the U.S. Fire Department, recorded in the late Qing Dynasty Li Gui's overseas travelogue Around the Globe (1878), is perhaps the simplest and clearest example of the above point:
Yuqi has a motor on the left wall of the garage and a copper bell next to it. Where there is a fire, the telecommunications arrive, the bell also sounds by electricity, and the horse rope tied in the back slot also comes off. Ma Wenzhong all ran out, each standing in front of the car, five seconds to prepare to go out. If at night, the sound of the horse running floor is very loud, and the firemen upstairs are alarmed, and the clothes, pants, boots and hats are prepared when lying down, and they can be worn in only five seconds. Counting the telecommunications to the carriage out, the day is five seconds, and the night is ten seconds. One mile per tick. The car rings a bell to make pedestrians avoid the road, otherwise they will be killed or injured. [39]
Through this series of vivid and detailed descriptions, we may be able to think that Li Gui personally like Xu Jianyin, the "second" sense of time has awakened, but the Pursuit of Efficient Western Society itself, which he reflects in his eyes, is still a distant existence for the Qing Empire in the 1870s. However, when the latest Western machines, sciences, and even culture and ideas entered China with an irresistible trend, the social life of Chinese changed accordingly. The same is true of the concept of time Chinese, such as the "cat's eye timing" that was popular in the Ming and Qing dynasties, which gradually became the object of criticism after the late Qing Dynasty. [40] In addition, the introduction of the week system and the popularity of "Sunday" also reflected a great change in the concept of time in the Chinese. [41] The concept of "seconds", perhaps different from "week", did not play any substantial role in the daily life of the late Qing dynasty and Chinese, but the constantly precise time itself represented by the second hand gradually juxtaposed with the steam engine and electricity, began to transform into a symbol of science and civilization, and brought Chinese new revelations about time. The "science novel" born in the late Qing Dynasty provided a new soil for the development of this concept and Chinese time cognition at the right time.
MR. Faluo's "Time Travel"
The late Qing Dynasty was the age of the novel. After Liang Qichao published "On the Relationship between Novels and Mass Governance" (1902), a literary theory that advocated novel creation and affirmed the value of novels, novels that have always been regarded as the last class finally ushered in unprecedented prosperity. "Science fiction" is one of the many new genres of fiction that were born during this period. Although it is called "science", because of the influence of Western literature represented by Jules Verne, such novels have a very strong science fiction color from the beginning.
Before the late Qing Dynasty, some science fiction elements and depictions had actually begun to appear in a number of novels such as "Mirror Flower Edge" and "Dang Kou Zhi",[42] but it must be noted that the science fiction elements in these novels were not related to "time", and "time" never participated in the construction of these novel subjects. On the other hand, for example, the "Journey to the West Supplement" written at the end of the Ming Dynasty involves the concept of "future world", but this "future" still exists in the world view and time frame of "Journey to the West" from beginning to end. However, when Western science fiction novels represented by Verne, especially those works that directly involve "time" in the construction of novel content and themes, were successively introduced to China at the end of the Qing Dynasty, not only Chinese's concept of novel creation was renewed, but even the concept of time also underwent tremendous changes. Liang Qichao's "New China Future" (1902), as the first attempt to completely break free from the shackles of traditional concepts of time,[43] began with this novel, "playing" with the elements of time, aiming to put "time" itself at the core of novel creation, and finally began to appear in China.
In the thirty-first year of Guangxu (1905), the Shanghai Novel Lin Society published a "science novel" entitled "Mr. Tan of the New Law Luo". The author is signed "Donghai Jue I", that is, one of the editors of the novel Lin She, a famous translator and writer in the late Qing Dynasty, Xu Nianci. Back in the summer of 1904, Xu Nianci's good friend Bao Tianxiao, who was also a famous writer in the late Qing Dynasty, completed the translation of "Mr. Faluo Tan". Xu Nianci, who was greatly stimulated after reading this work, immediately decided to create a Chinese version of "Mr. Faluo". Bao Tianxiao's "Mr. Faluo Tan", translated from the Japanese writer Iwatani Xiaobo's "Mr. Faluo - Duyi の部" (1899) and "Mr. Faluo - Duyi の部" (1900)[44], was originally created by the German writer Rudolf Erich Raspe, "Baron Min Hehhausen Recounts His Wonderful Travels and Battles in Russia" (1875), which is a household name in Europe.
Xu Nianci's "Mr. Xinfaluo" has a roughly following "wonderful journey": One day, Mr. Xinfaluo climbed to the top of a mountain that was 360,000 feet high. Suddenly, a wind that reached millions of feet per second blew from overhead, eventually separating his body from his soul. It took Mr. Xinfa Luo forty-eight hours to figure out what had happened, but through various experiments, he succeeded in discovering the secret of the free union and separation of the body and the soul. The separated soul can also shine, so he stands on the top of the mountain and makes the soul shine brightly to illuminate the whole world. He had wanted to wake up the sleeping Chinese in his trance, so that he could strive to be strong and create a true civilized world beyond the West, but Chinese was completely unmoved and was still in the golden tent. Mr. Xinfa Luo was furious and turned his flesh into countless fireballs, intending to burn the eastern half of the eastern hemisphere in one fell swoop, but did not want to throw his soul down by mistake. This throw caused a quarter of the soul to fall into the ground with the body and enter another China underground, while the other three-quarters of the souls floated into the universe and landed on Venus, and on the way saw the Mercury man's "man-making technique". Eventually, three-quarters of the souls traveled back to Earth on the cosmic currents, successfully bonding with the flesh that had emerged from the underworld.
In Xu Nianci's "Mr. Tan of the New Faluo", although we can see the figure of genre novels such as Verne's "Journey to the Moon" and "Adventures in the Center of the Earth" represented by the solar system roaming and underground roaming, as the earliest science novel written by Chinese, the story of "Mr. Tan of the New FaLuo" is relatively complete, and it shows a certain novel imagery, which greatly leads the trend of science novels in the late Qing Dynasty. [45] Other scholars have argued that the work "subverted the classical form of exploration and secret search and provided a new conception of sublime".
These "scientific" elements involved in books such as "man-making", "hypnosis", and "brain waves" are naturally some concrete embodiments of the novel's novel imagery, and in order to fit the label of "science novel", in addition to the frequent use of new terms related to physics, chemistry, biology, medicine and other disciplines, the book is also quite careful about various numerical settings, and it seems that it is also showing the "science" of this novel. For example, when Mr. Xinfa Luo fell, the description in the book is as follows:
Press (1) second 14 feet 22. The second is forty-two feet six six. Seventy-one feet one in the third second. A public example of the rate of gradual acceleration of falling objects. Like a blurt of a cannonball. Straight down. [47]
The so-called "common example", which is known as the free fall motion formula: y = 1/2gt2. Through this formula, we can easily know that the displacement distance of the second second is three times that of the first second, and the displacement distance of the third second is five times that of the first second. This all coincides with the numerical values in the novel, so it seems inconceivable that Xu Nianci is calculating and writing against the formula. [48] On the other hand, in addition to the very specific numerical settings mentioned above, such as the "millions of feet" per second wind speed mentioned in the preceding synopsis, it is also very common to deviate from scientific common sense. And this tendency also appears in other late Qing science novels. The extremely exaggerated figures of "millions" and "tens of billions" seem to express the respect for science and the infinite yearning for the future at that time while creating a fantasy atmosphere. The concept of time , " seconds " , provides such a concrete and vast space for such a narrative and imagination.
Unlike Liang Qichao, Xu Nianci's interest in "time" is not reflected in the concept of "future" time. In fact, "time", as an important element that constitutes the "New Law Luo Mr. Tan", has not received the attention it deserves so far. So, what exactly does Xu Nianci's thinking about "time" implied in the novel, and how does he "play" with time itself? We need to cast our eyes on the underground "adventure" of Mr. New Faluo.
After Mr. Xinfa Luo's flesh fell into the underground country, he met a white-haired old man named "Yellow Ancestor". But the wonderful thing is that the old man claimed that he was only a few dozen days old. Mr. Xinfa Luo naturally did not believe the old man's words, and jokingly said that his thirty-year-old self was not the ancestor of the old man? However, the old man explained to him that the people of the country have people who are born in seconds and minutes, and the longest life is only four hours. Subsequently, facing the "timer" on the table, Mr. Xinfa Luo and the old man launched a dialogue about "time", as follows:
Yu is on the table. Sure enough, there is a strange timer. This device is about five feet a week. There are three stitches. The needle is eight inches long. But smell the pendulum. And none of the three stitches move slightly. Yu Yue: This device has a second hand. Weng Yue. This elderly second hand also. Yu Yue. The second hand does not move. This needle fits badly. Weng Yue. No no. The second hand can not see its movers at a glance. Yu Yue. What is it. Weng Yue. Junshang didn't know. What age is it? And the naivety of the intellect is also. Yu Yujun. When a day is divided into twenty-four. Sixty minutes at every hour. Sixty seconds per minute. Yu Yue. correct. Weng Yue. Twelve hundred and ninety-six million micrograms per second. Yu Yue. Weng mistakenly. Sixty micro-ears per second. Weng Yue. not. Yu did not hear that there were sixty micro for one second. Yu's timer. Solid to 12.96 million micro for one second also. [49]
"Twelve hundred and ninety-six thousand" is undoubtedly also a carefully set value, and what is different from other values is that Xu Nianci carefully explains the time conversion problem here to the reader in the form of a sandwich batch.
I know twelve hundred and ninety-six million micro. for 216,000 seconds of the clock. That is, three thousand six hundred points. That is, sixty hours. That is, two and a half days. It is a timer for the yellow old man. Take one second today as two and a half days. One cent of the present day is one hundred and fifty days. One hour today is twenty-five years. Twenty-four hours today is six hundred years. Suitable for the longest-lived person. Not more than four hours. Obscure towards the fungus. Spring and autumn. I am not even in the world. There really is such a thing. [50]
As Xu Nianci explains, if a day underground is equivalent to six hundred years in the real world on earth, then it is easy to reverse the calculation that one second underground is equal to "two and a half days" on earth, that is, "twelve hundred and ninety-six million micro.". But if you think about it, the setting of the value of "two and a half days" itself is really a bit strange, and why does one day have to correspond to the time of "six hundred years"? Of course, attributing everything to the author's personal preference is also a solution to the problem, but even Xu Nianci, who has to refer to the physical formula for the numerical setting of the fall distance, arbitrarily sets a set of values in the places that need to be explained, which is a possibility that is unconvincing. In fact, we have reason to believe that the numbers here are still rooted in sources, and that the key to solving the problem is neither "two and a half days" nor "six hundred years", but "twelve hundred and ninety-six million micro".
The number 12,960,000, known in the West as plato's number, is one of the holy numbers. In Hinduism, there is the "tretā-yuga" (three-minute time) that represents the unit of time in the universe, that is, 1296,000 years. Although the number of digits is different, the essence is the same. After such a "three-minute time" was introduced to China from India, it led to the emergence of the time unit "Yuan", which is 129600.
Pangu, who is now familiar to Chinese, said that the universe was born in a pioneering way, basically according to the theory in the Northern Song Dynasty Yi scholar Shao Kangjie (1011-1077) in the "Imperial Pole Classic Book". Shao Kangjie's cosmology not only covers the real world, but also fictional Chinese novels such as "Fengshen Yanyi" and "Journey to the West", which are essentially in his cosmic model. [51] Shao Kangjie believes that the universe from birth to extinction is a cycle that lasts 129,600 years and is called "one yuan". The one yuan is divided into twelve "meetings", one will (1800 years) is divided into 30 "luck", and one (360 years) is divided into 12 "worlds", and the first is thirty years. The time system of "Yuan, Hui, Yun, and Shi" is actually copied from "Year, Month, Day, and Chen". Xu Nianci adopts "1296", a figure that symbolizes the life of the universe and is full of formalistic (maniérisme), and its setting of "time" cannot be described as meticulous, and its playfulness of "time" has finally jumped on the paper.
The "1296" number question is set aside, and the "time paradise" of the underground country shown in this novel—the otherworld flowing with different times—can also be seen as one of the products of the Chinese circular view of time. [53] For Chinese, the relativity of time has never been an unfamiliar concept. In the history of Chinese literature, the most well-known "paradise of time" is undoubtedly the legend of "Rotten Ke" recorded in the Book of Jin and the Book of Shuyi, that is, the story of a man named Wang Qiang who watched a boy play chess on the way up the mountain to cut firewood, and suddenly time flew by so that the axe handle had rotted. After wang qian returned home, "there was no one to return to the time", and the story ended, and in the version of the "Dongyang Ji" included in books such as "Taiping Imperial Records", you can see a more detailed explanation: "It has been decades since I went home.".
In fact, there are many more examples of the relativity of time in more detail than "rotten". For example, in the "Biography of the Immortals" written in the fourth century, there is a story of Lü Gong staying with the immortals for two days in the immortal world, and two hundred years have passed in the human world. In addition to the Immortal Realm, the speed of time in hell also seems to be different from that in the human world, and the earliest example can be seen in the Tang Dynasty's "Youyang Miscellaneous".
Yuan hechu, Shangdu Dongshi evil young Li Hezi, the father's name Nuyan. Hezi is tolerant of nature, and often eats dogs and cats, which is a problem for the market. Standing in Qu, Chang Arm Harrier saw the two men dressed in purple, and exclaimed, "Gongfei Li Nu's eye name and Zi Hu?" "And the son is the same as the son." It is also said: "There is a reason, but there is a gap in the words." Because of the few steps, he stopped outside the people, and said, "After the priest, you can go immediately." Hezi Chu was not affected, and said: "Man also, He Qiyan! He also said, "I am a ghost." "Because in the arms of the probe, out of a squirrel, the seal is still wet." See his name is clear, for the cat and dog 460 head on the lawsuit. Fearful, Hezi abandoned the harrier and prayed to him, saying, "If I die, I will stay for me, and I will have less wine." "The ghost is not dead. At first, it will enter the Biluo, the ghost covers its nose, and refuses to go forward. Nai Yan is in the Qiting Du family, and he lets people talk alone, and people think that they are crazy. Nine bowls of wine, three bowls of self-drinking, and six bowls of wine are set up in the West Seat, and it is convenient to avoid. The two ghosts looked at each other: "I have received the grace of drunkenness, and I must make a plan." Because of the beginning: "I am a few moments late, and I should return." Before moving, he said: "The king has four hundred thousand dollars, and he has three years of life for the king." "And the son promised, promised the next day and noon." Because the reward wine is straight, and the wine is returned. Taste it, taste like water, cold and ice teeth. Hezi returned, the goods and clothing were chiseled, and they were prepared to burn as scheduled, and they saw the two ghosts take their money and leave. and three days, and the pawn. The ghost talks for three years, and covers the human world for three days. [54]
From this point of view, Mr. Xinfa Luo's "time travel" in the underground country is not so much a reference to the hollow earth theory such as Verne's "Adventures in the Center of the Earth", but rather rooted in the eternal motif of telling the relativity of time, which is the eternal and unchanging motif in the history of Chinese literature. The more precise Western time system symbolized by "seconds" and "micro" is only brought into this motif by Xu Nianci as a new element this time.
However, one thing that has to be said is that Xu Nianci's purpose in creating this novel is by no means just to use the traditional bridges and motifs in Chinese literature to create a story that tells the relativity of time. On the contrary, how to break the shackles and shackles of traditional literature is the concern of many novelists in the late Qing Dynasty, and is Xu Nianci the same? In fact, when we carefully study the time setting in this novel, we will suddenly realize that whether it is the underground country or the earthly world, there is no difference in the time flow rate between the two. In other words, the "density" of time is the same, except for the definition of time, the unit of time. If we have spent the "one day" of the underground country in the underground country, then our perception of the time of this "day" is actually six hundred years on earth, and it is definitely not a day on earth. Therefore, in the novel, after Mr. Xinfa Luo returned to the human world from the underground country, he did not come to the world tens or hundreds of years later like the royal hostage in "Rotten Ke".
Ming ming is in the same "time", but the definition and cognition of "time" itself is indeed very different, is this not a true portrayal of the Western world and China at that time? And a second of time can be subdivided into 12.96 million micro, so the time system of the underground country, to some extent, is the extreme exaggeration of the reality that should be consistent in the West but can be finely recognized and measured. In this way, we may be able to read this novel from another new perspective, that is, Xu Nianci's setting of the time system of the underground country and the play of "time", as a parody of the traditional motif of telling the relativity of time, hinting to the Chinese of the time the infinite possibilities contained in time.
epilogue
As mentioned earlier, the "second" was originally used as a unit of length in China, and since the Tang Dynasty, it has been converted into an angle unit, which is mainly used for astronomical calculations. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, after the time reform of the missionary Matteo Ricci, the "second" began to become a unit of time. However, the concept of time "seconds" initially existed only in theory, and it was not until the three-needle clock with a second hand was invented and introduced to China in the middle of the Qing Dynasty that "seconds" could really be used for time measurement. However, for a long time, the three-needle watch was only sought after by Chinese as a high-end jewelry or a toy. In other words, Chinese at that time loved the three-needle watch, not for the sake of more precise time. Therefore, Chinese time consciousness about "seconds" has not awakened because of the popularity of the three-needle table. But as Western scientific knowledge and cultural ideas poured into late Qing China, the more precise "time" symbolized by the "second hand" began to be gradually regarded as a sign of science and civilization by Chinese like the steam engine and "electricity". Science novels that explore the theme of "time" and use the elements of "time" also began to appear during this period. Among them, as the first complete work created entirely by Chinese, is Xu Nianci's "New Law Luo Mr. Tan". At the end of this article, by focusing on the theme of time in the novel, this article specifically analyzes how Xu Nianci "plays" with the time element, and reveals the new cognition and exploration of "second" and even "time" itself by the Chinese literati in the late Qing Dynasty.
How to Play With the Second Hand: Time Consciousness About
“The Second” in Late Qing China
Jin Bonan
（Graduate School of Humanities and Human Sciences, Hokkaido University, JAPAN SAPPORO 001-0014）
Abstract：At first, “the second”（秒） was a unit of length in China. It was not until the end of Ming Dynasty, after the time reform by Matteo Ricci’s, that “the second” began to become a unit of time. After the three-hand watch with the second hand entered China in the middle of the Qing Dynasty that “the second” was really used as a measure of time. However, for a long time, the Chinese regarded the three-hand watch as a high-end accessory. Therefore, the Chinese people’s time awareness about “the second” had not been awakened by the popularity of the three-hand watch. Later, as Western scientific knowledge and cultural thoughts poured into late Qing China irresistibly, the precise time symbolized by the “second hand”, finally began to be gradually regarded by the Chinese as a symbol of science and civilization, which like the steam engine and electricity. Scientific novels that were written by Chinese who actively used the element of “time” also began to appear during this period. Among them, Xu Nianci（徐念慈）’s Xin Fa Luo Xian Sheng Tan（《新法螺先生谭》） was a pioneering work. In this novel, Xu Nianci completed the parody of the classic Chinese literary motif of telling time relativity through the setting and comparison of the time systems of the underground country and the real world, and showed the Chinese in the late Qing Dynasty the infinite possibilities of “the second” and even “time” itself.
Keywords：The Second; Xin Fa Luo Xian Sheng Tan（《新法螺先生谭》）; Late Qing Novel; China’s Time System; Consciousness of Time
The original article was published in Yangtze River Academic Journal, No. 1, 2022
About author:Jin Bonan (1992-), male, from Xi'an, Shaanxi, Ph.D. candidate, School of Liberal Arts, Hokkaido University, Japan, mainly engaged in Ming and Qing Dynasty literature and Chinese time consciousness research.
* Japanese original text "How to play the second hand: On the time consciousness of "seconds" at the end of Qing", "饕餮餮", (The Chinese Literary Society of Japan) No. 28, 2020, the rebirth of the reorganized author.
[1] See H. Bernard, Catholic Missionary History in China in the Sixteenth Century, ed., translated by Xiao Maohua, Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1936, p. 190. See also Zhang Baichun, "The Introduction of European Mechanical Clock Technology in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and Related Problems", Natural Dialectics Newsletter, No. 2, 1995. At the invitation of the missionary Alexander Valignani, Luo Mingjian came to Macau from Italy in 1579 and made his first trip to Guangzhou in the interior in December 1580.
[2] See Li Youru, Clocks, Clock Towers, and Standard Time: Western-Style Chronograph Instruments and Their Interaction with Chinese Society (1582-1949), National Chengchi University History Series 25, Taipei: Department of History, National Chengchi University, Taiwan, 2011 edition, pp. 16-17. Li Also believes that the chiming bell may have entered China earlier, because the earliest record of the chiming bell entering Japan is 1551, and China should have been earlier than Japan.
[3] See Lu Jiaxi, editor-in-chief, A History of Science and Technology in China: A Mechanical Volume, Beijing: Science Press, 2000, p. 405.
[4] See Zhan Xiaobai, The Social and Cultural History of Time, Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2014, pp. 117-121.
[5] In 2019, the International Advisory Committee on Time Frequencies revised the description to specifically define it as fixing the value of the unturbed ground-state ultrafine energy level transition frequency ΔνCs of cesium-133 atoms to 9192631770 hertz, which is equal to s-1.
[6] Scholars have not yet determined the specific time of the writing of sun tzu's arithmetic. Qian Baochun, on the other hand, believed in the "Examination of Sun Tzu's Arithmetic Scriptures" (Science, No. 2, 1929) that it was written in the Two Jin Dynasties (266-420). Needham wrote in his History of Science and Technology in China that the book may have appeared in the Three Kingdoms, Jin Dynasty, or Liu Song Dynasty, specifically from 280 to 473 AD.
[7] On the volume of Sun Tzu's Arithmetic Classic, Guo Shuchun School Point, Ten Books of Arithmetic Classics II, Guo Shuchun and Liu Du School Point, Shenyang: Liaoning Education Publishing House, 1998 edition. In the "Sun Tzu Arithmetic Classic" Song carved book and other biographies, the relevant records are "ten suddenly a thread, ten silk is one millimeter", but the record in the Sui Shu Vinaya is "Sun Tzu Arithmetic Cloud: The silk born of the silkworm is sudden, ten sudden is a second, ten seconds is a millimeter, ten millimeters is a centimeter, and ten centimeters is a minute." In this regard, Guo Shuchun examined it in this way: "During the Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Two Han Dynasties, the units of degree were sudden, second, millimeter, centimeter, minute, and inch; since the Tang Dynasty, 'second' has been changed to 'silk', and the Song carved version has been changed accordingly. ”
[8] [Han] Ban Gu: Book of Han, vol. 100, 70th Commentary, [Tang] Yan Shigu, Beijing: Zhonghua Bookstore, 1962 edition, p. 4241. Another [Han] Liu De believes that "seconds, Hemang also." Suddenly, the spider web is also thin"; Yan Shigu also has this explanation for the word "second": "Second, the sound, its word from he." ”
[9] [Tang] Wei Zheng: Book of Sui, Vol. 16, 11th Chronicle, Beijing: Zhonghua Bookstore, 1973 edition, p. 388.
[10] [Later Jin] Liu Xun: Old Book of Tang, vol. 32, 12th Calendar I, Beijing: Zhonghua Bookstore, 1975 edition, p. 4241.
[11] See Yan Linshan, Quan Hejun, "On the Mainland's 100-Hour Chronograph System", Collected Works of the History of Science and Technology, Vol. 6, Astronomy History Album 2, Shanghai: Shanghai Science and Technology Publishing House, 1980, pp. 1-6.
[12] [Song] Wu Chuhou: Miscellaneous Records of the Green Box, vol. 9, Yan Yiping's Selected Works: The Integration of 100 Books: The Original Engraving Jingyin, 1st Ofe-4 Barnyard Sea, Taipei: Yiwen Publishing House, 1965.
[13] See Lu Jiaxi, editor-in-chief, History of Science and Technology in China: A Volume of Physics, Beijing: Science Press, 2001, p. 146.
[14]参见Thorndike Lynn, Science and thought in the 15th century: Studies in the History of Medicine and Surgery, Natural and Mathematical Science, Philosophy and Politics, Columbia University Press, 1929, CHAPTER Ⅰ. 另参见Jacques Attali, Histoire du temps, Fayard, 1982, CHAPTER Ⅱ.
[15] Due to changes in the position of the Sun, the length of day and night and the time of sunrise and sunset vary from day to day, and the book also has a detailed list of specific parameters.
[16] The numbers in the table are read from left to right.
[17] [18] [Ming] Li Zhizao: "Hun Gai Tong Xian Tu Shu", Yan Yiping Selected Series: "Hundred Books Series Integration: Original Engraving Jingyin" Integration Of 52 "Shoushan Pavilion Series", Taipei: Art Publishing House, 1968 edition.
[19] See Zhan Xiaobai, The Social and Cultural History of Time, Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2014, p. 118.
[20] [Qing] Kungang continued: "The Great Qing Huidian of the Qing Dynasty", vol. 81 "Missing Engraving Section", photocopied of the Guangxu 25th year engraving in the 12th year of the Qing Dynasty, Taipei: Qiwen Publishing House, 1963 edition.
[21] In this treatise, clocks with hours, minutes, and seconds refer specifically.
[22] David S. Landes, Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World, Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1983: 417—418. “The earliest known spring-driven timepiece with a second hand—perhaps the earliest timepiece of any kind—is an unsigned Orpheus clock in the Fremersdorf collection. The date is estimated at between 1560 and 1570”。 The "Orpheus" clock is a common timepiece of the European Renaissance, and the storyline of Orpheus is engraved around the clock.
[23]参见Paul Pelliott, BULLETIN CRITIQUE（Reviewed Work: La montre “chinoise” by Alfred Chapuis）, T’oung Pao（通報）, 1920, Second Series, Vol. 20, No. 1: 66. 另参见Carlo M. Cipolla, Clock and Culture: 1300—1700, Walker, 1967: 86.
[24] [Qing] Gaozong: Three Collections of Imperial Poetry, vol. 89, Ten Complete Poems of Emperor Gaozong, edited by Wang Yunwu, ed., The First Compilation of The Series of Books, 2179-2188, Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1936.
[25] Zhang Baichun, "The Introduction of European Mechanical Clock Technology and Related Problems in the Ming and Qing Dynasties", Natural Dialectics Newsletter, No. 2, 1995.
[26] [Qing] Xu Chaohou: "The Catalogue of Clocks and Watches" of "Self-Chiming Clocks and Watches", Xu Chaohou: "Gao Hou Mengqiu" Three Episodes, Tongwenguan, 1887 engraving.
[27] See Li Youru, Clocks, Clock Towers, and Standard Time: Western-Style Chronograph Instruments and Their Interaction with Chinese Society (1582-1949), "Chengchi University History Series",25, Taipei: Department of History, National Chengchi University, Taiwan, 2011 edition, p. 75.
[28] [29] [Qing] Lin Sumen: "Three Hundred Yin of the Han River", edited by Zhang Zhi, terroir series, 27, Yangzhou: Guangling Book Society, 2003. "Two distinct months" is another name for Yangzhou.
[30] [Qing] Yang Miren: "Bamboo Branch Words in Dumen", Selected By Road Workers: "Bamboo Branch Words in Beijing in the Qing Dynasty (Thirteen Kinds)", Beijing: Beijing Ancient Books Publishing House, 1982 edition, p. 19. The Book of the Later Han Dynasty records that Liang Yi loved "arm eagles and running dogs", and later generations used "arm eagles" to refer to hunting or going out to play. "Hand wrapped in cowhide" or finger leather gloves.
[31] Carlo M. Cipolla, Clock and Culture: 1300—1700, Walker, 1967: 88. “While the Europeans were using lenses to produce microscopes, telescopes and spectacles, the Chinese delighted in using them as charming toys. They did the same with clocks. Lenses, clocks, and other instruments had been developed in Europe to satisfy specific needs felt by European socio-cultural environment. In China the contrivances fell unexpectedly out of the blue and quite naturally the Chinese regarded them merely as amusing oddities”.
[32] [33] [Qing] Guo Songtao: Diary of London and Paris, Edited by Zhong Shuhe, Towards the World Series, Changsha: Yuelu Book Society, 1984, p. 243. This book is compiled from the manuscript of Guo Songtao's diary in the Hunan Provincial Library, the original diary is not titled, and the current title is added by the editor Zhong Shuhe and others.
[34] [Qing] Xu Jianyin: Miscellaneous Records of European Travels, edited by Zhong Shuhe, Series of Books Toward the World, Changsha: Yuelu Book Society, 1984, p. 776.
[35] [36] [37] [Qing] Guo Songtao, Diary of London and Paris, edited by Zhong Shuhe, ed., Towards the World Series, Changsha: Yuelu Book Society, 1984, pp. 326, 326, 620.
[38] See [de] Wolfgang Schifferbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Space and Time in the 19th Century, translated by Jin Yi, Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2018 edition, chapter 3.
[39] [Qing] Li Gui: "A New Record of Circumnavigating the Earth", edited by Zhong Shuhe, "Towards the World Series", Changsha: Yuelu Book Club, 1984 edition, p. 274.
[40] Hiroo Sanko: "A Study of "Cat Clocks: Did the Chinese Read The Time in The Eyes of Cats?", "饕餮", No.26, 2018, The Chinese Literary Society of Japan, pp.2–19.
[41] Hiroo Kane: "Acceptance of "Sunday" at the End of Qing, Time Studies, No.10, 2019, Japan Time Society, pp.39–57.
[42] Masaya Takeda: Museum of Fantasy And Literature of Chinese Science (Part 1), Tokyo: Daishukan Shoten 2001 edition, Chapter 2.
[43] See Jin Bonan, "Reincarnation of "Nongyin": Liang Qichao's "New China's Future" Concept of Time", Yangtze River Academic, No. 1, 2021.
[44] Both translations were published in Iwatani Koba's collection of fairy tales, The World of Kamikaga (1899–1908). The "Mr. FaLuo" in the original title of the Japanese translation is Baron Shihehausen, and the Japanese "法螺吹き" means blowing the Faluo, which means to say big words. Also "獨逸の部" means "German roll".
[45] Masaya Takeda: Museum of Fantasy And Literature of Chinese Science (Part 1), Tokyo: Daishukan Shoten 2001 edition, Chapter 2.
[46] David Der-wei Wang, Fin-de-Siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1848—1911（Stanford University Press, 1997）CHAPTER Ⅴ, 258. Chinese translation is quoted from Wang Dewei: "Repressed Modernity: A New Theory of Late Qing Novels", translated by Song Weijie, Beijing: Peking University Press, 2005, p. 297.
[47] [Qing] Donghai Jue I: "Mr. Tan of the New Law Luo", Shanghai: Novel Lin She, 1905 edition, p. 11. The content of the parentheses is corrected by the author.
[48] In the mechanical work "Heavy Studies" (1859), first dictated by the missionary Joseph Ejos, li Shanlan translated the value of gravity as "twenty-seven feet six inches", and the number given by Xu Nianci was reversed, and the gravity value obtained was "twenty-eight feet four inches and four minutes". There is a slight discrepancy between the two, so it is not known what bibliography Xu Nianci specifically referred to for the calculation.
[49] [50] [Qing] Donghai Jue I: "Mr. Tan of the New Law Luo", Shanghai: Novel Lin She, 1905 edition, pp. 14-15. "Chao fungus does not know obscurity, and cockroaches do not know spring and autumn" is from the "Zhuangzi Getaway" chapter, "cockroach" is one of the cicadas. The book is recorded as "caddisflies", which is a kind of cricket, which is suspected to be a clerical error.
[51] Masaya Takeda: Mechanics of Togengo, Tokyo: Works Company, 1995, pp.14.
[52] See [Song] Shao Yong: The Book of the Imperial Pole, Vol. 12, 60, Shanghai: Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 1990.
[53] Miyoko Nakano: Hyotan Manyu: The Earth In Memory, Tokyo: Asahi Shin-Sha 1991 Edition, Chapter 1" Paradise and Hell;
[54] [Tang] Written by Duan Chengshi, Xu Yimin School Notes: "Youyang Miscellaneous School Notes", vol. 1, Beijing: Zhonghua Bookstore 2015 edition, p. 1483.