What was the understanding of the universe in ancient China? Thank you

Etymology The earliest use of the word universe in ancient Chinese books is the Zhuangzi Qi Wu Theory. The meaning of "yu" includes all places in all directions, such as east, west, north and south. "Universe" includes the past, present, day, night, that is, all different specific times.

The corpse leader at the end of the Warring States period said: "The four directions are called the universe, and the past is called the universe." "Universe" refers to space, "Universe" refers to time, and "Universe" is the unity of time and space.

Later, the term "universe" was used to refer to the entire objective world. Concepts equivalent to the universe include "heaven and earth", "Qiankun", "Liuhe", etc., but these concepts only refer to the spatial aspects of the universe. The word "Zhouhe", which refers to time and "He" (i.e., "Liuhe"), refers to space, which is closest to the concept of "universe".

Ancient Chinese astronomy is rich in ideas about the structure of the universe. As far back as the early days of human society, ancient China gradually formed a simple intuitive view that "the sky is round like a lid, and the place is like a chess game". In the Western Zhou Dynasty 3,000 years ago, the "Gaitian Theory" was gradually formed.

Gaitian said that the earth is not flat and square, but arched, the sky is like a hat, and the earth is like an inverted plate. In the book "Corpse", the corpse leader of the Warring States period clearly wrote about the concept of the universe: "The four directions are called the universe, and the past and the present are called the universe." Meaning:

Yu represents six directions, southeast, northwest, up and down, that is, space. The universe represents the past, present, and future, that is, time. Zhang Heng, a famous astronomer of the Eastern Han Dynasty, wrote in the book "Notes on the Armillary Sphere":

The sky is like a chicken, the celestial body is round like a projectile, the earth is like a chicken in the yellow, living alone, the sky is big and the earth is small, there is water in the sky, the sky is wrapped in the earth, and the shell is wrapped in yellow. "What is described here is the Armillian Theory. The greatest achievement of this doctrine is the affirmation that the earth is spherical, and that the earth is a sphere suspended in space.

The Development of the Concept of Cosmological Evolution In China, as early as the Western Han Dynasty, Huainanzi Yu Zhenxun pointed out: "There is a beginning, there is a beginning, there is "Huainanzi Tianwen Xun" also specifically outlines the process of the world's evolution from the invisible material state to the chaotic state and then to the generation and evolution of all things in heaven and earth.

At first, the sky was like a round cover, and the earth was like a chessboard.

Later, Zhang Heng thought: The sky is like a chicken, and the ground is like a chicken.

The upper and lower squares are called the universe.

It has been called the Celestial Universe throughout the ages.

China is one of the earliest and fastest-developing countries in the world for astronomy, and astronomy is also one of the four most developed natural sciences in ancient China.

Lunar eclipses were first recorded

On August 21, 776 B.C., the Book of Songs Xiaoya recorded a partial lunar eclipse that occurred at that time, 55 years before the earliest record of a total lunar eclipse in Egypt (February 19, 721 B.C.). It can be said that in terms of space exploration, the Chinese took the first step a long time ago.

The earliest record of the date of the sun is recorded

Solar is a very intense solar activity produced on the chromosphere of the sun, and during a total solar eclipse, the human eye can see that the sun is surrounded by a red ring with a bright red tongue of fire pulsing on it, and this tongue of fire is called a sun.

The earliest record of the sun in China is in the oracle bone inscription of the 14th century BC.

The earliest record of Halley's Comet

Halley's Comet is the first recorded periodic comet of mankind, and the "Spring and Autumn Period" records: "In July of the 14th year of Lu Wengong, there was a star Li into the Beidou. This is 600 years before European observations recorded Halley's Comet as early as 66 AD.

From the seventh year of Qin Shi Huang (240 BC) to the second year of Xuantong of the Qing Dynasty (1910), there were 29 records of comets.

The earliest record of a nova

In the book "Hanshu Astronomical Chronicles": "In May of the first year of Yuanguang, the guest star was seen in the room. "The house is the house of the 28 Pleiades, which is now the head of the constellation Scorpio.

This nova was discovered in 134 BC. Later, the Frenchman Biot compiled the "Compilation of New Stars" and listed the new star of "Hanshu Astronomical Chronicles" as the first star.

The first recorded supernova explosion

According to the Book of the Later Han Dynasty and the Astronomical Chronicles: "In October of the second year of Zhongping (185 AD), the guest star went out of the south gate, as big as a half feast, with five colors of joy and anger, slightly smaller, and disappeared in June of the following year.

The universe is physically defined as all space and time (collectively referred to as space-time) and their connotations, including all forms of energy, such as electromagnetic radiation, ordinary matter, dark matter, dark energy, etc., of which ordinary matter includes planets, moons, stars, galaxies, galaxy clusters and intergalactic matter. The universe also includes physical laws that affect matter and energy, such as conservation laws, classical mechanics, relativity, etc.

The size and region of the universe.

The size of the universe is still difficult to define. According to a more rigorous definition, the universe is anything and space that is connected to itself, and people can interact with time and space. According to the general theory of relativity, some regions of the universe may never be able to interact with people during the time of the universe due to the finite speed of light and the continuous expansion of space.

For example, a broadcast message from the Earth, even if the universe exists forever, may never reach a part of the universe: space will take longer to expand than it will take light to reach that area.

The above content refers to Encyclopedia - Universe.

What was the cosmology of the ancients? Some of the fables that we have been exposed to since childhood are includedThe ancient understanding of the celestial bodies and the universe. Next, let's learn about the understanding of the universe by the ancients.

There is no reason to worryThere is no reason to worryWe have known this story since childhood, and it is about an old man who worries every day that the sky will fall. Later a wise man said to the old manThere is a mass of gas between heaven and earth, and with the support of gas, the sky will not fall, the old man gradually let go of his worries. In fact, this fable contains the ancients' understanding of the celestial bodies and the universe, and the ancients believed that the reason why the sky is high and high is because of itFloating gases in the universe, floating and moving in space.

These gases are made up of:Sun and Moon EssenceThese ethereal gases, produced by the nutrients produced, reflect the ancient Chinese understanding of the universe and their identification of the universe as oneInfinite space

The beginning of heaven and earthHow did heaven and earth come about? This question we have not yet solved from the ancient ChinesePangu opened the world,Until nowThe Great Theory of the UniverseNone of the studies have a definitive conclusion. And the ancient Chinese when they understood the world with a simple cosmology, they thoughtdaysThe earth was originally chaotic, and in the chaos, there are certain objective laws, which are understood in Taoism as this primitive law"The Way".

Under the adjustment of the regular order of the "Tao".The clear ones float up, the turbid ones sink, and then the wontons become clear, so that there is heaven and earth.

The heavens are round over time and the theories among the ancient philosophers, the ancient Chinese philosophers who have continued from generation to generation began to study what the world we live in is like after the reasons for the origin of heaven and earth have been explained by their predecessors, the ancient Chinese believedThe whole world is round.

Under the conditions of the limited level of ancient observation technology, the ancients passedWatching the sky at night,It is believed that a person can wander around the whole world, look up at the sky, and see the stars at the same distance as himself, so the ancients simply thoughtThe heavens are flat, and the earth is flatand it's like one between the two."workThe top is the sun, moon and stars, and the bottom is like a chessboard, on which are divided into four vertical and eight horizontal mountains and lakes and ponds. Therefore, in ancient China, China was called"The land of Kyushu"., and thus there isFive sides and four corners.

Before the Western scientific and technological civilization reached China, our understanding of the universe stayed above the round sky for a long time. But even so, it has developed something unique to us Chineseideas and peculiar philosophies, the philosophical idea of the round sky and the place has created the Chinese"And".In the astronomical observations and philosophical books that have been handed down to this day, the understanding of the universe and the choice of the meaning of life are all worthy of reference for us at present. All these have created the unique spiritual core of the Chinese, which is worthy of our inheritance and development, the Chinese nationIndustrious, brave and wisewill not be left behind at any time.

There are heavens outside the heavens, there are nine heavens above the nine heavens, and there are four seas beyond the four seas

Answer: Ancient people understood the universe and thought that the earth was flat, and the sun, moon and stars revolved around the earth

The earth is the center, the stars are the foil, and the sun and moon are gods.

1.Our ancestors began to think about the structure of the universe in which we live very early, so they formed myths such as Pangu opening the heavens and the earth, and Nuwa refining stones to make up the heavens. And the scientific concept of heaven and earth was gradually formed at the same time.

The ancients had three main theories on the structure of the universe: the Gaitian Theory, the Hun Tian Theory, and the Xuanye Theory.

2.Gai Tian said that it may appear on the occasion of Yin Zhou. The ancients were right"days"The visual appearance of a large, crystalline vault hung over their heads, hanging far and far on all sides, covering the earth; The ancients were right"The visual representation of "earth" is a flat, vast and deep (with valleys) of land that extends outward to the sky.

Therefore, on the basis of this understanding, the early theory of the universe with a round sky and a place was formed"Gai Tian said".

3.The early Gaitian theory believed that "the sky is round like a cover, and the place is like a chess game.""In the later period, the mature Gaitian theory can be found in the astronomical arithmetic work "Zhoupai Shujing" written in the Han Dynasty, which believes that not only the sky is round like a cover, but the earth is also disc-shaped, and it is slightly curved and convex ("The celestial phenomenon covers the hat, and the earth law covers the disk"Heaven and earth are 80,000 li apart, the center of the earth is the North Pole, the highest terrain, and China is 103,000 li south of the North Pole.

4.The most peculiar thing is that Gaitian does not think that the sun, moon and stars will fall below the horizon, but that the heavenly dome is like a huge umbrella cover that clasps the earth, with the north pole in the center of the earth as the axis, grazing the "horizon" where heaven and earth meet"Turning, the sun, moon and stars also rotate with the heavenly dome.

5.Since the sun and moon are always in the sky, how can the change of day and night be explained? Gai Tianjia thinks:

Light"There is a limit of 10,000 miles in the distance of travel, and the sun, moon and stars are far beyond this distance, for example, when the sky dome turns to the far northwest, we gradually lose sight of them. This explanation seems absurd now, but in fact this line of thinking is very scientific, because Gai Tianjia recognized that the rise and fall of the sun and moon is a superficial phenomenon, and it is the task of science to create a hypothesis to explain the essence of the superficial phenomenon.

6.Therefore, although the theory of Gaitian is very different from our concept of the earth and the movement of the sun and the moon today, it is still a theory with great insight. It ends with the phrase "The shadow of the sun is a thousand miles away.""The sunshine range is limited" and other conditions, using logical deduction methods and geometric tools to deduce an interesting model of the universe, which is unique in ancient times and has some similarities with the thinking of the ancient Greeks.

In addition, the canopy with the center of the heavenly pole has a number of circles with Hu Jingtong's heart, called"Seven balances and six rooms"It is the different movement trajectory of the sun with the sky cover in different solar terms, the summer solstice is the innermost, and the winter solstice is the most outermost, which is a bit like the current "Tropic of Cancer.""Equator"Tropic of Capricorn"Conception.