Meng Qian talks about calligraphy and the translation of key words

Meng Qian talks about calligraphy and the translation of key words

1. When the ancients made mirrors, the big mirror was cast flat and the small mirror was cast convex. Concave mirror reflects a larger face image, while convex mirror reflects a smaller face image. You can't see the whole face with a small mirror, so make it a little convex and make it smaller. Although such a mirror is small, it can still capture the whole face.

Its sound should be as heavy and deep as a bell mill, but now it is crisp and slender. Since the sound is pressed, the rigid copper should be broken, and the soft copper cannot be as bright and clear as this. I visited all the craftsmen who made mirrors, but they were all at a loss.

Literary appreciation

Meng Qian Bi Tan is China's first scientific and technological work, which was called "a milestone in the history of science in China" by the British scientist Joseph Needham. Its content not only reflects the great achievements of natural science and humanities in the Song Dynasty, but also reflects the social reality and contradictory struggle in the Song Dynasty to a certain extent. It is a real documentary.

Shen Kuo is a well-read scholar, and Meng Qian Bi Tan was written when he lived in Meng Xi Park in Runzhou in his later years. This rambling note, which is extremely rich in content, contains the crystallization of his life-long scientific research activities, and records in detail the scientific and technological achievements, laws and regulations, poems and anecdotes at that time, and even gossip and anecdotes.