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The magnetic compass was first invented as a device for divination as early as the Chinese Han dynasty and Tang dynasty (since about 206 BC). [ 1 ] [ 3 ] [ 34 ] The compass was used in Song dynasty China by the military for navigational orienteering by 1040–44, [ 22 ] [ 35 ] [ 36 ] and was used for maritime navigation by 1111 to 1117.
The compass's origins may be traced back to the Warring States period (476–221 BC), when Chinese people utilized a device known as a si nan to point in the right direction. During the early Song dynasty, a spherical compass with a small needle made of magnetic steel was created after steady development.
Among the Four Great Inventions, the magnetic compass was first invented as a device for divination as early as the Chinese Han dynasty (since c. 206 BC), [1] [2] and later adopted for navigation by the Song dynasty Chinese during the 11th century.
It was purely mechanical with no magnetic compass - the Chinese only began using those in the 11th century. To create such a device, Ma Jun had to invent a differential gear and a reduction mechanism.
The Chinese polymath Shen Kuo (1031–1095) of the Song dynasty (960–1279) was the first to accurately describe both magnetic declination (in discerning true north) and the magnetic needle compass in his Dream Pool Essays of 1088, and the Song dynasty writer Zhu Yu (fl. 12th century) was the first to mention use of the compass specifically ...
Shen Kuo's written work of 1088 also contains the first written description of the magnetic needle compass, the first description in China of experiments with camera obscura, the invention of movable type printing by the artisan Bi Sheng (990–1051), a method of repeated forging of cast iron under a cold blast similar to the modern Bessemer ...
Shen Kuo (1031–1095), author of the Dream Pool Essays, is a prime example, an inventor and pioneering figure who introduced many new advances in Chinese astronomy and mathematics, establishing the concept of true north in the first known experiments with the magnetic compass.
A reconstruction of an early Chinese compass. A spoon made of lodestone, its handle pointing south, was mounted on a brass plate with astrological symbols. [1]The history of geomagnetism is concerned with the history of the study of Earth's magnetic field.