Why is the widespread use of the compass for navigation a positive effect on the opening of new ship

The compass gave the navigators directions, thus opening up a new route from the west to the east.

[Answer] C [Answer Analysis].

This question examines the four major inventions and their contributions, and the compass is a simple instrument used to determine directions. Formerly known as Sinan. The main component is a magnetic needle mounted on an axis that can rotate freely (commonly known as a magnet), and the application of the compass in navigation has a gradual development process.

In the Northern Song Dynasty's "Pingzhou Can Talk", it is recorded: "The boat master knows geography, watches the stars at night, watches the sun during the day, and obscurities looks at the compass." This is the earliest record of the use of a compass in the history of world navigation. Therefore, C

The invention of the compass has made navigation develop by leaps and bounds, and the ancestors of ancient China are really powerful.

The compass was used for navigation in the Northern Song Dynasty.

The earliest document in the world to record the application of the compass to navigation is the Northern Song Dynasty Xuanhe period (1119-1125 AD) Zhu's "Pingzhou Can Talk about Gaosan Duan" (written slightly later than "Mengxi Bi Tan"), Zhu's father Zhu Fu served as a senior ** in Guangzhou from 1094 to 1102, and he lived in Guangzhou for a long time with his father. The book records what he saw and heard in Guangzhou.

At that time, Guangzhou was a large port for trade between China and overseas, and there was a city shipping department for managing sea vessels, and there was a place for overseas merchants to stay, and the navigation industry was quite developed. "Pingzhou Can Talk" records many situations such as Guangzhou Fanfang and Shibo, and records the sailors who are very experienced in sailing on the ships of the Hidden Kingdom. They are good at discerning the direction of the sea:

The boat master knows geography, stargazing at night, sunshine during the day, and compass when cloudy. ”

"Geography" is an indication that the boatman was able to master the method of determining the position of a ship at sea. It shows that the Han working people already knew how to use the compass during the voyage. This is the earliest record of the use of the compass in the history of navigation in the world, and the first instrument navigation method pioneered by the working people of the Han nationality.

The application of the compass to navigation does not exclude astronomical navigation, and the two can be used together, which can promote the progress of nautical astronomical knowledge. Soon after China used the compass for navigation, it was adopted by the Arabian Sea ships, and the Arabs transmitted this great invention to Europe.

Engels pointed out in "Dialectics of Nature" that"The magnetic needle was introduced from the Arabs to the Europeans around 1180"。1180 is the seventh year of the Chunxi reign of Xiaozong of the Southern Song Dynasty in China. The Chinese first applied the compass to navigation at least 80 years before the Europeans.

The application of the compass in direction determination plays an important role in military practice and economic life, especially for the development of navigation. It provided the conditions for Zheng He's voyage to East Africa and other places, Columbus's discovery of the New World, and Magellan's voyage around the world, which promoted the geographical discoveries and early colonial expansion of Europe.

The compass was first used for navigation in the Northern Song Dynasty, when people placed the compass on ships to identify the direction of navigation. The compass is called Sinan in ancient China, it is often used in navigation, geodesy, travel and military aspects, is one of the four great inventions in ancient China, and its invention has a huge role in promoting the development of human science and technology and civilization.

Compass food is one of the great four great inventions of ancient China, its predecessor is Sinan, after the Tang Dynasty completed the transformation of Sinan to the compass, people in the Northern Song Dynasty enjoyed these technical achievements and carried them forward, people placed the compass on the ship for navigation identification direction, which is also the earliest compass used for navigation.

The compass's journey went through three stages, Sinan was the earliest magnetic phasor, which began in the Warring States period and ended in the Tang Dynasty. The Magnetic Trace Spoon is a spoon-shaped pointer made of natural magnet, and although no physical object has been found so far, there are at least two artifacts related to it. The invention of the compass was a long process that took different forms in different periods.

The significance of the invention of the compass

The invention of the compass has a very great role in promoting the application of navigation at sea, the great geographical discoveries and the sea **. The invention of the compass originated from the ancients' research on the problem of orientation, and the compass is known as one of the four great inventions of ancient China.

The compass was first used for navigation during the Northern Song Dynasty. The compass, known as Sinan in ancient times, is the result of the understanding of magnetism by the ancient Chinese working people in long-term practice. The compass is also one of the four major inventions in China, and its invention has played an immeasurable role in the development of human science and technology and civilization.

The main component of the compass is a magnetic needle mounted on an axis, the magnetic needle can rotate freely under the action of the natural geomagnetic field and remain in the tangent direction of the magnetic meridian, the south pole of the magnetic needle points to the geographical south pole, and the direction can be discerned by using this performance.

The compass is commonly used in navigation, geodesy, travel, and military applications. There are three types of components for the compass that physically indicates the direction, namely the Sinan, the compass and the magnetic needle, all of which belong to Chinese inventions.

The invention of the compass should be the result of slow improvement over a long period of time, and the form of different periods should appear in different forms.

During the Tang Dynasty, the activities of the Kanyu family were quite active, and they began to emphasize the choice of direction, and it became a priority to find a more convenient pointer than a magnetic spoon. As a result, the compass iron fish or tadpole-shaped iron pointer and the water floating magnetic needle came into being.

The compass was valued by navigators from the Southern Song Dynasty, when a special position was set up on the ship to go to sea - the fire chief, which was responsible for maintaining the compass and guiding the direction of the ship through the compass.

The fire chief's observation of the compass must be very detailed, and there must be no half-point difference, otherwise the lives of the whole ship will be confessed. This position was retained for a long time in history, and until the Ming Dynasty, there was still a fire chief, also known as a "ship master". After the compass was valued and used by navigators, China's maritime history entered a new era, and the navigation industry in the Southern Song and Yuan dynasties began to develop rapidly, and in the Zheng He period of the Ming Dynasty, it was a great feat.

The compass first appeared in the Warring States Period, and people have already discovered that magnets have "finger polarity", and invented Sinan with this feature. Wang Chong of the Eastern Han Dynasty has such a record in "On Balance":

The ladle of Sinan, cast into the ground, its guide to the ground. ”

The ancients made magnets in the shape of small spoons and placed them on a smooth copper plate (compass plate) so that the handle of the spoon would point south. But in fact, the accuracy of this rough Sinan is not high, because the natural magnet will lose magnetism after processing and polishing, and the weight of the spoon is relatively large, and the contact surface with the compass plate is also more, and the spoon is very clumsy when it rotates, so Sinan sometimes has the wrong point.

For a long time after the invention of the compass, people did not use it for navigation, and people at that time used the method of "looking at the stars" to identify the direction when they went to sea. For example, "Huainanzi" recorded: "The husband takes a boat and the confused person does not know things, and when he sees the fight, he will understand it", and the "fight" here is the Big Dipper, which has a very special significance in Chinese history, not only to help the lost identify the direction, but also to represent nobility and power.

According to folklore, Zhu Yuanzhang has seven moles in the shape of the Big Dipper on the soles of his feet, and the person who steps on the seven stars has a rich and noble life. This statement is a superstition, but it also shows that in those days, people had a reverence for the Big Dipper because it could guide the way.

"Astrological navigation" is the crystallization of the wisdom and experience of ancient people, but there are also times of failure, such as when the whole sky is covered by dark clouds in rainy weather, no matter how powerful the "astrologer" is helpless. And so, the compass came into the hands of the navigator. According to the record of "Pingzhou Can Talk" written by Zhu Yu at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty:

The boat master knows geography, stargazing at night, sunshine during the day, and compass in obscurity. ”

The Northern Song Dynasty was the earliest known use of the compass in navigation.

Of course, it was time in China: at the end of the eleventh century, maritime traffic in our country began very early. 2,200 years ago, in order to find the elixir, Qin Shi Huang sent people to sail on a large scale on a large ship.

After the Qin and Han dynasties, due to the development of social productive forces, China's navigation industry gradually developed. During the Jin Dynasty, there was a famous one.