In the five thousand years of China's history, there have been many able people and wise men, who have amazing talents and advanced ideas, so they are often suspected of being crossers, such as Wang Mang, Liu Xiu, Liu Bowen and so on.
The Qing Dynasty scientist we want to introduce today can also be called an open-hanging existence, leaving a strong mark in the history of modern Chinese science. This person is Xu Shou.
Xu Shou
In 1818, Xu Shou was born in a poor family in Wuxi, his father died when he was 5 years old, and his mother raised him and his two younger sisters.
When he was young, Xu Shou took the imperial examination, but he repeatedly failed, and even the name of Xiucai was not fished. The tempering at the bottom of society made Xu Shou realize early on that the rigid and pedantic Eight Strands of Literature was really useless. Therefore, he resolutely abandoned the imperial examination and instead pursued the study of practical application, that is, the knowledge that can be practically applied.
While others were still pondering how to write the Eight Strands of Literature well, Xu Shou was already studying mathematical, physical, musical, geographical, medical and other scientific knowledge. He likes to learn anything that is useful.
You know, at that time, there were no schools or institutions to teach this knowledge, and the literature and materials were even fewer, but Xu Shou relied on his love for science and his own perseverance to eat this scientific knowledge little by little.
Later, Xu Shou became acquainted with Hua Xiangfang (also a famous scientist in modern times), although Xu Shou was 15 years older than Hua Xiangfang, but the two saw each other as they were, and they hated each other late, and the two often discussed scientific problems together and inspired each other.
Statue of Xu Shou and Hua Xiangfang
In terms of learning methods, Xu Shou also attaches great importance to the combination of theory and practice, experimenting while reading books, and doing it himself without buying experimental instruments.
In order to learn optics and not buy the rare triangular glass, he ground his crystal seal into a triangle to observe the seven-color spectrum of light; in order to verify the principle of the steam engine, he ran to the foreigner's ship to observe; and sometimes even designed his own experiments to verify the theory in the book.
Under Xu Shou's perseverance, he gradually became a well-known scholar who mastered modern scientific knowledge.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" > the shipbuilding road</h1>
Next, the Qing Dynasty suffered disastrous defeats in two consecutive Opium Wars, and in order to achieve a rich country and a strong army, the "foreign affairs faction" appeared in the Qing Dynasty bureaucracy, wanting to "master the art of mastering the yi to control the yi".
However, these ministers were all from the eight strands of literature, and they understood these foreign studies. As a result, Li Hongzhang, Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang and other ministers all thought of the erudite Xu Shou without exception.
In 1862, Xu Shou, along with his son Xu Jianyin, and Hua Xiangfang and others entered the Anqingnei Ordnance Institute founded by Zeng Guofan. After that, Xu Shou began his "road of opening and hanging".
Statue of Xu Shou
At that time, foreign ships were rampaging in China's inland rivers, arrogant to the extreme, but the Qing government had no way, because people were steam-powered ships, while Qing Dynasty sailors were still using sail-powered ships, which were not the same era at all, and they could not catch up, and they could only watch as people flaunted their might there.
Xu Shou and others were very indignant, and with the support of Zeng Guofan, everyone made up their minds to build China's steam engine!
But it is easier said than done, one has no drawings, two have no data, three have no experience, how can we make a steam engine?
Xu Shou did not say a word, ran to the foreigner's ship to study all day, came back to the reference book on the thumbnail and introduction of the steam engine began to build, after repeated research and design, it took only three months, China's first steam engine was finally born.
With the steam engine, the next step was to build ships. Xu Shou's team still started from scratch, designed themselves without drawings, and did them one by one without parts, and two years later, they made China's first steam-powered ship, the Yellow Crane.
Painting of the "Yellow Crane"
The "Yellow Crane" is 55 city feet long, has a displacement of 45 tons, can travel about 12.8 kilometers per hour, and consumes more than 8,000 silver in total. Although it is not as good as the ships of the West, it has achieved a breakthrough from zero to one.
At the inaugural flight ceremony, Zeng Guofan almost burst into tears of excitement and sighed: The wisdom of foreigners, I can do it Chinese! In explaining the meaning of the ship's name, Zeng Guofan said: "The ancient books say that the yellow crane, the big bird, is a thousand miles in one fell swoop. ”
The world's first craftsman plaque
The Tongzhi Emperor even wrote a letter to Xu Shou's father and son, "The World's First Craftsman".
At that time, the report of Shanghai's "Zi Lin Xi Bao" read: "The materials used in the Huang Hu were "all produced by Xu's father and son personally, and there was no foreign model and the help of outsiders."
In 1866, Xu Shou was sent to the Shanghai Jiangnan Machine Manufacturing General Bureau, which was built by Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guofan.
Xu Shou suggested to Zeng Guofan that if we want to run the Jiangnan Manufacturing General Bureau well, we must do four things well, one is to translate Western books, the second is to mine coal and make iron, the third is to build guns and cannons, and the fourth is to train water masters.
From our current point of view, these four suggestions are all "good strategies", but at that time, Zeng Guofan failed to jump out of the limitations of the times, still regarded Xu Shou as a craftsman invited to work, and the qinggao of the literati made him despise Xu Shou's suggestions, so he said to Xu Shou: "Things other than its ships, don't promote it", which means that you are a craftsman who builds ships well, don't think about it all day, and it is not your turn to think about it.
Xu Shou saw that he didn't say anything more and turned his head to work. After that, Xu Shou and others successively designed and manufactured warships such as "Huiji", "Caojiang", "Measuring the Sea", "Chengqing", "Yuyuan" and so on, creating a new situation in China's modern shipbuilding industry.
USS Huiji
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="31" > efforts to disseminate scientific knowledge</h1>
Xu Shou has never forgotten his strategy to save the country, coal mining and training himself is not capable of doing it, and translating Western books can always be done.
So Xu Shou went from many quarters to set up a translation hall in the Jiangnan General Bureau of Machine Manufacturing, recruited Western scholars, gathered talents who understood Western studies, and called his brother Hua Xiangfang and his son Xu Jianyin to translate Books on Western chemistry and steam engines.
In the following 17 years, the translation museum translated and published a total of 13 Western scientific works, including 6 western modern chemical works and 63 volumes, systematically introducing Western chemical knowledge to China.
From left: Xu Jianyin, Hua Xiangfang, Xu Shou
Works translated by the Translation House
One of the most talked about is Xu Shou's translation of the periodic table.
At that time, most of the chemical terms and chemical elements did not have ready-made names in Chinese characters, which became the biggest problem of translation.
Xu Shou was inspired, made full use of the structure of Chinese characters, and thought of a way to transliterate, that is, to use the first syllable or second syllable of the English pronunciation of the element, find the homophone in the Chinese character, and then add a side according to the nature of the element, such as solid metal elements, then use the word "gold", gas next to the word "gas", and non-metallic solids next to the word "stone". Of course, there are a few exceptions, such as "mercury (liquid metals)" and "bromine (liquid non-metals)".
Xu Shou's translation of the periodic table
Xu Shou's naming convention for chemical elements is still in use today. Under this set of rules, even if we have not seen an element that we have not learned, from its Chinese name we can roughly judge whether it is a metal or a gas, and this "superpower" is the only one in the world.
Grace College
Later, Xu Shou thought that after painstakingly translating the book, if no one read it, it would be in vain, so in order to cultivate Chinese scientific talents, in 1874, Xu Shou and Fu Lanya and others jointly founded gezhi academy. It was the first place in China to impart scientific knowledge, offering courses in minerals, electricity, surveying and mapping, engineering, steam engines, and manufacturing. This academy is now Shanghai Gezhi Middle School.
At the same time as founding Gezhi College, Xu Shou also founded the first Chinese scientific and technological journal "Gezhi Compilation" with Fu Lanya, which in addition to introducing Western scientific and technological knowledge, Xu Shou's father and son will also answer readers' questions in the journal, which has played an important role in the dissemination of modern science and technology in China.
Compilation of Personality
In addition, Xu Shou also has a number of inventions for ship guns and bullets, and has participated in the preparation and planning of many factories and mining enterprises, so all kinds of talents have made Xu Shou famous. Li Hongzhang, Ding Richang and other bureaucrats tried to hire Xu Shou with the high-ranking official Houlu, but Xu Shou refused one by one, putting all his thoughts on translating books and disseminating scientific knowledge.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="49" > the first person to publish an article in Nature</h1> magazine
In 1878, Xu Shou published an article entitled "Examining the Laws of Lu Lu" in the "Compilation of Gezhi", which was a study of the very unpopular ancient music law, and the content of the article corrected the ancient Chinese "theory of orchestral combination".
Ancient China has always been "based on the law of strings, fixed by the pipe", that is, the use of string instruments to determine the proportion between the sounds; the use of wind instruments to formulate rhythmic standards, called rhythm pipes.
However, modern physics tells us that the way strings vibrate and the pipe vibrate is different, so there is a difference between string law and pipe law, but ancient music law did not solve this problem.
And the ancient Chinese music law believes that if the string or pipe of a stringed instrument or wind instrument is doubled or shortened by half, the sound emitted will be lowered or increased by an octave.
However, Xu Shou experimented with a copper pipe and found that only when the pipe length ratio is 4:9, the sound blown out will be octave different. That's why there is this "Examination of the Laws of Law".
Originally, this was just an unpopular paper, but by chance, it was revitalized.
One day, he saw his son Xu Jianyin's translation of "Acoustics", which is the work of professor Dingdall, a famous British physicist, and is praised by the European physics community as the 19th century acoustics master.
However, Xu Shou found that the book made the same mistake as in ancient China, and the book wrote: "The kinetic number (that is, frequency) of the sound of the bottom tube and the bottomless tube are inversely proportional to the pipe length." This is the same as the misconception of ancient China.
So Xu Shou asked Fu Lanya to translate his paper into English, and then sent a copy to Professor Dingdall to explain the results of his experiment, and a copy to nature magazine.
The journal Nature published Xu Shou's paper
Although Professor Tindor did not reply, the journal Nature published Xu Shou's paper, and the editor of Nature wrote: "It is very surprising that this paper corrects an ancient law with modern science, and the confirmation of this little-known fact comes from so far away china, and it is achieved with such simple experimental means and so primitive instruments." ”
In this way, Xu Shou became the first person in China to publish an article in nature magazine.
Unfortunately, three years after the publication of this "Nature", Xu Shou died of illness at the Age of 67 at the Zhige Academy in Shanghai.
Commemorative coin for the 180th anniversary of Xu Shou's birth
Throughout Xu Shou's life, it is really awe-inspiring, in the backward and ignorant Qing Dynasty, with a forward-looking keen sense of the importance of scientific knowledge, and made many "Chinese firsts", it is not surprising that people suspect that they are crossers.
What is even more valuable is that Xu Shouneng did not seek to make a meritorious name, did not seek to be a prominent official, and devoted his life to translating books and disseminating scientific and technological knowledge, making immortal contributions to the development of modern science and technology in China, and worthy of being the enlightener and guide of Modern Chinese chemistry.