Wang Zhenyi
She was a strong female astronomer of the Qing dynasty
“Zhenyi’s contributions to astronomy and mathematics were incredibly influential… she was able to explain astronomical phenomena”
Wang Zhenyi is not considered a household name, but her knowledge was ahead of her time in China. She lived a short life, sadly dying at the age of just 29, a shame considering her vast knowledge of astronomy and mathematics and the potential she had to further this.
Zhenyi was born in China in
1768, which is the same year that China’s Emperor Qianlong had to wage a campaign against rumoured sorcerers roaming around the country stealing souls. Born into the Qing Dynasty, Zhenyi moved to Jiangning – now named Nanjing – with her grandfather Wang Zhefu; grandmother, neé Dong, and her father Wang Xichen. Zhenyi’s father failed the imperial examination and went into medical science, while her grandparents were her first teachers in astronomy, mathematics and poetry.
Her grandfather passed on his passion for reading and had an extensive library consisting of over 75 books. After his death in 1782 the family moved to Jiling, which was close to the Great Wall, and in the following five years Zhenyi gained her extensive knowledge from his library, as well as learning about equestrian skills, archery and martial arts from the wife of a Mongolian general named Aa.
Zhenyi’s contributions to astronomy and mathematics were incredibly influential, and she was one of few that was able to explain and prove astronomical phenomena. She was able to explain equinoxes, writing Dispute of the Procession of the Equinoxes, and wrote about other aspects, such as Dispute of Longitude and Stars and The Explanation of a Lunar Eclipse.
One of the experiments she constructed was able to explain and study eclipses by using different things ‘around the house’ in place of celestial objects. She placed a round table in a garden pavilion which acted as Earth, a crystal lamp was hung from the ceiling beams from a cord, acting as the Sun, and a mirror was used as the Moon. By moving the figurative Moon, Earth and Sun, an accurate understanding of astronomical events was recorded in her extraordinary work, The Explanation of a Solar Eclipse.
Venturing over to the closest related field of mathematics, Zhenyi was a scholar and promoter of the Pythagorean Theorem, having also written another article entitled The Explanation of the Pythagorean Theorem and Trigonometry. Her ability to simplify maths opened up the world for many Chinese people, having written the book The Simple Principles of Calculation at 24.
At the age of 25 Zhenyi married Zhan Mei, but they did not have any children together. Only four years later she passed away. She blazed a trail for not only female scientists hundreds of years ago, but for Chinese astronomy in general. Her self-taught ability to explain astronomical events and simplify the complexities of mathematics is a skill that should be remembered and appreciated.