The hexagram "Feng" in "the book of changes" as the earliest written record of sunspot
Abstract
The hexagram "Feng" of the "Book of Changes" (completed before 800 B.C.) contains the statements "a dou is seen in the Sun" and "a mei is seen in the Sun". The character dou (bushel) is generally understood to refer to an obscured region in this context. As to the character mei, a passage in the "Biography of Wang Mang" in "The History of the Later Han Dynasty" written in 450 A.D. shoes that it is synonymous with the character xing (star), and according to "Kaiyuan Treatise on Prognostication" written in 729 A.D., both dou and xing in this context refer to an obscuration. Lastly, in the years 1626, 1643 and 1684, years of relatively high solar activities over the period 1610-1700 (Eddy, Science192 (1976) 1189), when sunspots were seen in telescopes in Europe (cf. Bray and Loughhead, "Sunspots" 1964, Plate 1.1), these two very same statements are found in some Local Gazettes of China (Xu Zhen-tao and Jiang Yao-tiao, Annals of Nanjing University, (Natural Sciences Series), No. 2, 1979). Thus, the earliest written record of a sunspot is found in China, in this book which was completed before 800 B.C.
- Publication:
-
Chinese Astronomy
- Pub Date:
- December 1980
- DOI:
- 10.1016/0146-6364(80)90034-1
- Bibcode:
- 1980ChA.....4..406X