Why is married Xu Shou called the first skilled craftsman in the late Qing Dynasty? What contribution did he make?

More than 50 years ago, Xu Shou, who was born at the grassroots level, created many firsts in the field of science and technology in China with his intelligence and exquisite skills: the first steam engine maker, the first motorboat maker, the nomenclature of chemical elements in China, the first China person who published articles in the natural year, the first warship maker, and the first founder of Gezhi College, a school that taught scientific and technological knowledge.

This year coincides with the 200th anniversary of Xu Shou's birth. He is from Wuxi, Jiangsu province, but Shanghai is where he has worked all his life, and his main achievements and scientific and technological achievements also took place in Shanghai. This paper tells several innovative stories of Xu Shou to commemorate the "first craftsman" in the late Qing Dynasty and learn his craft.

A popular science book gave birth to the reincarnation of Lu Ban.

Xu Shou was born in a peasant family and studied in a rural school 1 1 year. However, he hated the imperial examination and liked to study wisdom. I am interested in the production of various farm tools, tools, household appliances, artworks and decorations, and engage in research in this field.

In the countryside, he made a living by handicrafts and set the motto of "four noes": "No nonsense, no promotion, no astrology, no divination". /kloc-in 0/855, he and his fellow countryman Hua, who likes mathematics and physics, went to Shanghai, visited a library on the Bund and found the book A New Collection of Natural History. This is a popular science book, which not only explains the structural principle of daily necessities, but also introduces the fresh knowledge of acousto-optic electrification at that time. Xu Shou was overjoyed and bought it immediately. After returning home, I not only studied hard, but also "studied with China day and night, studied with my eyes, occasionally had difficulties, discussed with each other, and tried to be completely refreshed."

In order to obtain seven-color light, he polished it into a triangle with a crystal seal for inspection; In order to understand the parabola of the bullet, we also set up multiple targets near and far to measure. The so-called "amateurs watch the excitement, and experts watch the doorway." For skilled craftsmen, there are popular science books to help them apply what they have learned and make great progress in their skills. According to records, Xu Shou once made compasses, quadrants, chimes and even imitated Mexican silver dollars. For a time, the reputation of "near-re-embodiment Luban" spread throughout urban and rural areas.

1862, Zeng Guofan, the leader of the Westernization School, made Xu Shou a general and incorporated him into the armory of Huai Army in Anqing. Xu Shou made an unusual move. A few months later, he and his second son Xu made a model steam engine. The appearance of the steam engine promoted the industrial revolution in the west, but most people in China didn't know what it was at that time. Zeng Guofan was overjoyed when the steam engine model was successfully tested in the Governor's Office. In his diary that day, he wrote: "I, a China native, can secretly rejoice in the wisdom of foreigners, but I can't be proud of what I don't know."

Three years later, Xu Shou and Huaqi cooperated to build the first motorized wooden boat in China, which was "more than 50 feet long and could travel more than 40 miles at a time". The ship has broken the waves in the Yangtze River and has good performance. It sailed against the current 14 hours, and sailed downstream for only 8 hours. The name of the ship is "oriole", which means "oriole swims in rivers and seas and drowns in swamps". The ancients regarded oriole as a big bird flying thousands of miles across the river, so it got its name because of its meaning of breaking the waves and taking off. This opened the precedent of modern shipbuilding industry in China.

Zilin West Newspaper, the first English-language newspaper in Shanghai, specially sent a reporter to board the "oriole" to find out. When they came back, they reported that the materials used in Huangli were personally supervised by Xu and his son, without the help of foreign models and outsiders. In other words, this steam-powered ship is all made in China, and even the screws are filed by Xu Shouyong. When the news reached the capital, the Qing court was particularly excited, and Xu Shou was given the plaque of "the best craftsman in the world".

Since then, under the design supervision of Xu Shou and Hua, many warships have been put into service. Among them, the fourth warship "Wake".

1868 Spring, Shanghai Jiangnan Manufacturing Translation Hall officially opened. Xu Shou, a translator, settled in Shanghai and began his creative career in the cultural field in the second half of his life.

Xu Shou is not familiar with foreign languages, but he is good at Chinese. At that time, it was popular to translate it into Chinese by people who were familiar with foreign languages, and then to modify it into words by people who were good at Chinese. Lin Shu became a famous writer and translator in modern times through this method. In the field of scientific translation, Xu Shou is one of the best, with many innovative achievements, which embodies the ingenuity of "the best craftsman in the world".

Xu Shou was praised by later generations as "the pioneer of modern chemistry in China". His main achievement is that he presided over the translation of a large number of chemical works and successfully created a set of Chinese names of chemical elements.

The biggest obstacle to the translation of chemical works is how to translate the letters of element symbols into Chinese characters. At that time, some people transliterated the letters of element symbols into Chinese characters, such as Li for "pear" and F for "fat"; Some people transliterate directly, such as translating Mn into "mengenis"; Others write "hydrogen" as "light" and "nitrogen" as "light". Such diverse translations are confusing.

So, how did Xu Shou solve this problem? According to legend, there is another story here: one day, Xu Shou found a genealogy of the Ming Dynasty in the bookstore. Many of these names are related to metal minerals, and his intuition tells him that it is helpful to translate chemical elements.

After careful reading, I found that this is a genealogy of Ming Taizu. After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang wrote more than 20 five-character poems, asking later men to arrange their names according to the words in the poems. The first word is selected by generation, and the second word is selected in the order of "wood, fire, earth and golden water" after the five elements. But with more and more emperors like Sun Yue, the words in the poem are not enough. As a result, uncommon words in ancient books were found out one by one, and some remote words such as mercury, polonium, titanium and alkanes were also created.

After reading it, Xu Shou was greatly inspired: first, new things without names can be made by himself, and second, words can be made with the help of "wood, fire, earth and gold". So, after consulting with others, he wrote in the translation of Chemical Review: "Western countries are famous for their quality, and their texts are complicated, so it is impossible to translate them into Chinese. Today, I translated a Chinese character in the name of an original word and took the first sound of the Roman word. If the first sound does not match, use the second sound to add radicals to distinguish it from others and read the original sound at the same time. " A few strokes show his outstanding wisdom and craftsmanship.

In this way, Xu Shou created many new characters according to the combination law of Chinese characters and the nature of element symbols. With pictophonetic characters as the main method, he transliterated all metals except gold characters and combined them with simple Chinese characters, so new words such as calcium, magnesium, thorium and bismuth appeared. Non-metal is beside the stone word, so a bunch of new words such as phosphorus, boron and silicon are added; For gas elements, it is translated into hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, chlorine, etc. According to statistics, from 0755 to 79000, * * * introduced 63 Chinese names of chemical elements. Among them, 5 1 species was pioneered by Xu Shou, and 36 species are still in use today.

Xu Shou's method of translating words into images and sounds has been widely recognized by Chinese people. 1869, Russian scientist Mendeleev discovered the periodic table of chemical elements. Soon after it was introduced into China, people used this method to solve translation problems. When the Japanese learned about it, they immediately sent people to study it and brought it back to China for use.

In the past century, the number of chemical elements has increased from more than 60 to more than 100. However, the Chinese naming of newly discovered elements generally follows the principles formulated by Xu Shou.

Detailed drawings

Lay the cornerstone of saving the country through education.

It is the long-cherished wish of modern people with lofty ideals to save the country and revitalize education. The value of Xu Shou lies in his belief that the scientific and technological talents trained by Gezhi Academy should not only be talented and skilled, but also know how to explore.

If you want to run a school, you have to have a school building, which requires raising enough funds. So Xu Shou wrote to Li Hongzhang, Minister of Beiyang, and Li Boxi, Minister of Nanyang, and received a financial allocation of 2,000 taels of silver. He also found Feng Huguang, an old friend of Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau and Shanghai Daotai, and received a generous donation of 2,000 taels of silver. Together with donations from other Chinese and foreign people, * * * raised 5000 taels of silver. So you can buy an open space and start courtyard construction.

Xu Shou can raise money and draw pictures. Considering that the college is to train technical talents in China, the school building should conform to the architectural form of China. So, after his careful conception, repeated deliberation, careful design and meticulous drawing, a design drawing embodying Chinese style sprang out. At the same time, in order to accurately calculate the cost, he also went to the market to understand the market situation and investigated and calculated the cost of materials, manpower, working hours and labor. What the project needs. On this basis, the expenditure budget of the whole project was worked out and the design drawings were submitted to the board of directors.

However, due to the majority of foreigners in the board of directors, it was finally decided to adopt the bidding method, and several architects were invited to make design plans and budgets respectively, and then the board of directors selected them.

A few months later, the board of directors reviewed the design and budget. After analysis and comparison, it is finally considered that Xu Shou's account is the clearest and most appropriate. The board agreed to ask him to deal with the matter. Xu Shou lived up to expectations and shouldered heavy responsibilities. He not only worked all night without eating, but also supervised the construction site and devoted himself to the project. More than three months later, a beautiful hospital was built.

After the completion of Ge Academy, Xu Shou dedicated the last 10 year of his life to the Academy. Here, he created several firsts in the history of science and technology in China. For example, the first scientific journal Chemical Identification was founded, and the experimental teaching method was adopted for the first time. Some people once commented that the effective teaching method of performance experiment in chemistry class initiated by Xu Shou and others in Gezhi College has been used by the chemistry community for more than 100 years and is still shining.

Today, while building a socialist modernization power and striving to realize the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, Xu Shou's craftsman spirit and innovative spirit are worth learning from.