Su Song
1020 – 1101 · China · Engineering, Astronomy
Built an astronomical clock tower with the first known escapement chain drive.
Index entry
Su Song is currently a short index entry. The research desk can draft the full profile — achievements, works, living legacy and what is documented about the family line.
Expand this profileContinuity of ideas
Who shaped Su Song, and who they shaped
Inherited from1
- Zhang Heng
78 – 139 · Astronomy, Engineering
Han water-driven armillary astronomy is the engineering line Su Song's clock tower completes.
Passed the work to1
- Shen Kuo
1031 – 1095 · Astronomy, Engineering
Song court instrument-making and Shen Kuo's Dream Pool Essays record the same technical programme.
Sources and references
Numbered markers in the text above point to the entries below. Each links to a primary document, archival collection or scholarly reference where the claim about Su Song can be checked.
- 1.Primary texts and first editions by or about Su Song
Internet Archive · Primary source
- 2.Catalogued holdings and archival finding aids for Su Song
WorldCat (OCLC) · Archive
Nearby in the annals
Sun Tzu
544 BCE – 496 BCEThe Art of War is still on military and business curricula worldwide.
Cai Lun
50 – 121Standardised papermaking, the substrate of recorded civilisation.
Zhang Heng
78 – 139Built the first seismoscope and mapped 2,500 stars.