Misplaced Pages

#237762

65-406: The design consisted of three towers, or gnomons , which leaned together to create an illusion of a pyramid . According to the project's website the pyramid was to comprise "three highly polished stainless steel leaning blade-like towers, which cast a shadow onto an enormous elliptical sundial base, telling the date and time". The towers would not meet at the apex, but create "a shifting illusion of

130-564: A shadow . The term is used for a variety of purposes in mathematics and other fields. A painted stick dating from 2300 BC that was excavated at the archeological site of Taosi is the oldest gnomon known in China. The gnomon was widely used in ancient China from the second millennium BC onward in order to determine the changes in seasons, orientation, and geographical latitude. The ancient Chinese used shadow measurements for creating calendars that are mentioned in several ancient texts. According to

195-528: A certificate of ownership of "a chosen one-minute slot at a date and time that carries special significance for them". A numbered plaque marking the minute would also be affixed to the floor of the planned sundial. Negotiations with Poole Borough Council began in November 2007. The project had the support of Poole Tourism Partnership. The scheme for the sculpture was opened to public consultation in December 2007, but

260-473: A final editorial round of decisions for elimination or inclusion in the received version of the Poetry . As with all great literary works of ancient China, the Poetry has been annotated and commented on continuously throughout history, as well as in this case providing a model to inspire future poetic works. Various traditions concern the gathering of the compiled songs and the editorial selection from these make up

325-405: A larger parallelogram. Indeed, the gnomon is the increment between two successive figurate numbers , including square and triangular numbers. The ancient Greek mathematician and engineer Hero of Alexandria defined a gnomon as that which, when added or subtracted to an entity (number or shape), makes a new entity similar to the starting entity. In this sense Theon of Smyrna used it to describe

390-546: A number which added to a polygonal number produces the next one of the same type. The most common use in this sense is an odd integer especially when seen as a figurate number between square numbers . Vitruvius mentions the gnomon as " gnonomice " in the first sentence of chapter 3 in volume 1 of his book De Architectura . That Latin term " gnonomice " leaves room for interpretation. Despite its similarity to " γνωμονικός " (or its feminine form " γνωμονική "), it appears unlikely that Vitruvius refers to judgement on

455-541: A poem would by the time of Tang poetry be one of the rules to distinguish the old style poetry from the new, regulated style . The works in the Classic of Poetry vary in their lyrical qualities, which relates to the musical accompaniment with which they were in their early days performed. The songs from the "Hymns" and "Eulogies", which are the oldest material in the Poetry , were performed to slow, heavy accompaniment from bells, drums, and stone chimes. However, these and

520-401: A pyramidal structure". The towers were to be clad in "reflective, mirror polished and green-coloured, stainless steel" to reflect light and capture movement. One tower was to have "a locational latitude of 53.25 degrees and is orientated due south to function in a similar, but more scientifically sophisticated manner, to that of the gnomon of an immense sundial". The tower would cast a shadow on

585-545: A refined technique on the part of the poets". These traditional allegories of politics and morality are no longer seriously followed by any modern readers in China or elsewhere. The Odes became an important and controversial force, influencing political, social and educational phenomena. During the struggle between Confucian, Legalist , and other schools of thought, the Confucians used the Shijing to bolster their viewpoint. On

650-482: A sixty-metre elliptical base. The remaining towers were to be aligned to the extremes of sunrise and sunset. In 2002, it was announced that construction of the 40-metre-high (130 ft) sculpture, designed by Richard Swain and Adam Walkden would be commenced at Poolsbrook , near Chesterfield , Derbyshire . A scale model of the sculpture was exhibited at the Royal Observatory Greenwich . The site, near

715-556: A voluntary striking off the register was made in June 2009. The final notice indicating that the company had been voluntarily dissolved appeared in the London Gazette in September 2009. Gnomon A gnomon ( / ˈ n oʊ ˌ m ɒ n , - m ə n / ; from Ancient Greek γνώμων ( gnṓmōn )  'one that knows or examines') is the part of a sundial that casts

SECTION 10

#1732876888238

780-454: Is also a rich source of chengyu (four-character classical idioms) that are still a part of learned discourse and even everyday language in modern Chinese. Since the Qing dynasty , its rhyme patterns have also been analysed in the study of Old Chinese phonology . Early references refer to the anthology as the 300 Poems ( shi ). The Odes first became known as a jīng , or a "classic book", in

845-584: Is associated with the 1475 placement of a bronze plate with a round hole in the dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence to project an image of the Sun on the cathedral's floor. With markings on the floor it tells the exact time of each midday (reportedly to within half a second) as well as the date of the summer solstice. Italian mathematician, engineer, astronomer and geographer Leonardo Ximenes reconstructed

910-626: Is commonly used in CAD and computer graphics as an aid to positioning objects in the virtual world . By convention, the x -axis direction is colored red, the y -axis green and the z -axis blue. The Gnomon of Saint-Sulpice inside the Parisian church, Église Saint-Sulpice , built to assist in determining the date of Easter , was fictionalized as a " Rose Line " in the novel The Da Vinci Code . Classic of Poetry The Classic of Poetry , also Shijing or Shih-ching , translated variously as

975-461: Is within 1° of the north celestial pole . On some sundials, the gnomon is vertical. These were usually used in former times for observing the altitude of the Sun , especially when on the meridian . The style is the part of the gnomon that casts the shadow. This can change as the Sun moves. For example, the upper west edge of the gnomon might be the style in the morning and the upper east edge might be

1040-506: The Book of Songs , Book of Odes , or simply known as the Odes or Poetry ( 詩 ; Shī ), is the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry , comprising 305 works dating from the 11th to 7th centuries BC. It is one of the " Five Classics " traditionally said to have been compiled by Confucius , and has been studied and memorized by scholars in China and neighboring countries over two millennia. It

1105-574: The Analects recounts that Confucius' son Kong Li told the story: "The Master once stood by himself, and I hurried to seek teaching from him. He asked me, 'You've studied the Odes?' I answered, 'Not yet.' He replied, 'If you have not studied the Odes, then I have nothing to say.'" According to Han tradition, the Poetry and other classics were targets of the burning of books in 213 BCE under Qin Shi Huang , and

1170-671: The Classic of Poetry often focuses on doing linguistic reconstruction and research in Old Chinese by analyzing the rhyme schemes in the Odes , which show vast differences when read in modern Mandarin Chinese . Although preserving more Old Chinese syllable endings than Mandarin, Modern Cantonese and Min Nan are also quite different from the Old Chinese language represented in the Odes. C.H. Wang refers to

1235-459: The Classic of Poetry . In 2015, the Anhui University purchased a group of looted manuscripts, among which is one of the oldest extant scribal copies of the Classic of Poetry (at least part of it). The manuscript has been published in the first volume of this collection of manuscripts, Anhui daxue cang Zhanguo zhujian ( 安徽大學藏戰國竹簡 ). The Confucian school eventually came to consider

1300-640: The M1 Motorway , was to be visible to 45,000 motorists an hour. Completion was expected by June 2003. Eventually, work on the foundations commenced in January 2004, and it was announced that it was expected to have the sculpture in place by the time of the Autumn Equinox on 22 September of that year. By December 2005, there was little progress, with a completion date of Summer 2006 given. By September 2007, work had still not started, mainly due to financial problems. It

1365-531: The Odes were a valuable focus for knowledge and self-cultivation, as recorded in an anecdote in the Analects : 詩可以興，可以觀，可以群，可以怨。邇之事父，遠之事君。多識於鳥獸草木之名。 The Odes can be a source of inspiration and a basis for evaluation; they can help you to come together with others, as well as to properly express complaints. In the home, they teach you about how to serve your father, and in public life they teach you about how to serve your lord. They also broadly acquaint you with

SECTION 20

#1732876888238

1430-448: The Odes , though frequently on simple, rustic subjects, have traditionally been saddled with extensive, elaborate allegorical meanings that assigned moral or political meaning to the smallest details of each line. The popular songs were seen as good keys to understanding the troubles of the common people, and were often read as allegories, and complaints against lovers were seen as complaints against faithless rulers. Confucius taught that

1495-563: The Poetry ( 毛詩傳 Máo shī zhuàn ), attributed to an obscure scholar named Máo Hēng ( 毛亨 ) who lived during the 2nd or 3rd centuries BCE, was not officially recognized until the reign of Emperor Ping (1 BCE to 6 CE). However, during the Eastern Han period, the Mao Poetry gradually became the primary version. Proponents of the Mao Poetry said that its text was descended from the first generation of Confucius' students, and as such should be

1560-451: The Shijing does not specify the names of authors in association with the contained works, both traditional commentaries and modern scholarship have put forth hypotheses on authorship. The "Golden Coffer" chapter of the Book of Documents says that the poem "Owl" ( 鴟鴞 ) in the "Odes of Bin" was written by the Duke of Zhou . Many of the songs appear to be folk songs and other compositions used in

1625-471: The canonical sense, as part of the Han dynasty 's official adoption of Confucianism as the guiding principle of Chinese society. The same word shi later became a generic term for poetry. In English, lacking an exact equivalent for the Chinese, the translation of the word shi in this regard is generally as "poem", "song", or "ode". Before its elevation as a canonical classic, the Classic of Poetry ( Shi jing )

1690-534: The state of Song , but is generally considered quite late in date. According to the Eastern Han scholar Zheng Xuan , the latest material in the Shijing was the song "Tree-Stump Grove" ( 株林 ) in the "Odes of Chen", dated to the middle of the Spring and Autumn period ( c. 700 BCE). The content of the Poetry can be divided into two main sections: the "Airs of the States", and the "Eulogies" and "Hymns". The "Airs of

1755-407: The " shi " style for much of Chinese history. One of the characteristics of the poems in the Classic of Poetry is that they tend to possess "elements of repetition and variation". This results in an "alteration of similarities and differences in the formal structure: in successive stanzas, some lines and phrases are repeated verbatim, while others vary from stanza to stanza". Characteristically,

1820-485: The "Eulogies" consist of a single stanza, and the "Court Hymns" exhibit wide variation in the number of stanzas and their lengths. Almost all of the "Airs", however, consist of three stanzas, with four-line stanzas being most common. Although a few rhyming couplets occur, the standard pattern in such four-line stanzas required a rhyme between the second and fourth lines. Often the first or third lines would rhyme with these, or with each other. This style later became known as

1885-554: The Confucian side, the Shijing became a foundational text which informed and validated literature, education, and political affairs. The Legalists, on their side, attempted to suppress the Shijing by violence, after the Legalist philosophy was endorsed by the Qin dynasty , prior to their final triumph over the neighboring states: the suppression of Confucian and other thought and literature after

1950-513: The Council to proceed with the assessment work with sufficient confidence. I will therefore be instructing the Council's Chief Executive to make arrangements to withdraw from discussions with Solar Pyramid Ltd." All references to Poole were quickly removed from the project website. According to documents lodged with the Registrar of Companies , the directors of the company resigned and an application for

2015-536: The Grand Historian was the first work to directly attribute the work to Confucius. Subsequent Confucian tradition held that the Shijing collection was edited by Confucius from a larger 3,000-piece collection to its traditional 305-piece form. This claim is believed to reflect an early Chinese tendency to relate all of the Five Classics in some way or another to Confucius, who by the 1st century BCE had become

Solar Pyramid - Misplaced Pages Continue

2080-724: The Qi Poetry ( 齊詩 Qí shī ) and the Han Poetry ( 韓詩 Hán shī ) were officially recognized with chairs at the Imperial Academy during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (156–87 BCE). Until the later years of the Eastern Han period, the dominant version of the Poetry was the Lu Poetry , named after the state of Lu , and founded by Shen Pei, a student of a disciple of the Warring States period philosopher Xunzi . The Mao Tradition of

2145-548: The Qin victories and the start of Burning of Books and Burying of Scholars era, starting in 213 BCE, extended to attempt to prohibit the Shijing . As the idea of allegorical expression grew, when kingdoms or feudal leaders wished to express or validate their own positions, they would sometimes couch the message within a poem, or by allusion. This practice became common among educated Chinese in their personal correspondences and spread to Japan and Korea as well. Modern scholarship on

2210-436: The States" are shorter lyrics in simple language that are generally ancient folk songs which record the voice of the common people. They often speak of love and courtship, longing for an absent lover, soldiers on campaign, farming and housework, and political satire and protest. The first song of the "Airs of the States", " Fishhawk " ( Guān jū 關雎 ), is a well-known example of the category. Confucius commented on it, and it

2275-689: The Sun whose location can be measured to tell the time of day and year were described in the Chinese Zhoubi Suanjing , possibly dating as early as the early Zhou (11th century BC) but surviving only in forms dating to the Eastern Han (3rd century). In the Middle East and Europe, it was separately credited to the Egyptian astronomer and mathematician Ibn Yunus around AD 1000. The Italian astronomer, mathematician and cosmographer Paolo Toscanelli

2340-500: The authoritative version. Xu Shen 's influential dictionary Shuowen Jiezi , written in the 2nd-century CE, quotes almost exclusively from the Mao Poetry . Finally, the renowned Eastern Han scholar Zheng Xuan used the Mao Poetry as the basis for his annotated 2nd-century edition of the Poetry . Zheng Xuan's edition of the Mao text was itself the basis of the "Right Meaning of the Mao Poetry " ( 毛詩正義 Máo shī zhèngyì ) which became

2405-501: The classic text of the Odes : "Royal Officials' Collecting Songs" ( 王官采詩 ) is recorded in the Book of Han , and "Master Confucius Deletes Songs" ( 孔子刪詩 ) refers to Confucius and his mention in the Records of the Grand Historian , where it says from originally some 3,000 songs and poems in a previously extant " Odes " that Confucius personally selected the "300" which he felt best conformed to traditional ritual propriety, thus producing

2470-542: The collection of Zhou Chinese poetic anthologies Classic of Poetry , one of the distant ancestors of King Wen of the Zhou dynasty used to measure gnomon shadow lengths to determine the orientation around the 14th century BC. The ancient Greek philosopher Anaximander (610–546 BC) is credited with introducing this Babylonian instrument to the Ancient Greeks. The ancient Greek mathematician and astronomer Oenopides used

2535-461: The court ceremonies of the aristocracy. Furthermore, many of the songs, based on internal evidence, appear to be written either by women, or from the perspective of a female persona . The repeated emphasis on female authorship of poetry in the Shijing was made much of in the process of attempting to give the poems of the women poets of the Ming - Qing period canonical status. Despite the impersonality of

2600-450: The failure of the ruling dynasty to ensure the prosperity of their subjects. The people's folksongs were deemed to be the best gauge of their feelings and conditions, and thus indicative of whether the nobility was ruling according to the mandate of Heaven or not. Accordingly, the songs were collected from the various regions, converted from their diverse regional dialects into standard literary language, and presented accompanied with music at

2665-500: The gnomon according to his new measurements in 1756. In the Northern Hemisphere , the shadow-casting edge of a sundial gnomon is normally oriented so that it points due northward and is parallel to the rotational axis of Earth . That is, it is inclined to the northern horizon at an angle that equals the latitude of the sundial's location. At present, such a gnomon should thus point almost precisely at Polaris , as this

Solar Pyramid - Misplaced Pages Continue

2730-652: The imperially authorized text and commentary on the Poetry in 653 CE. By the 5th-century, the Lu, Qi, and Han traditions had died out, leaving only the Mao Poetry , which has become the received text in use today. Only isolated fragments of the Lu text survive, among the remains of the Xiping Stone Classics . The Book of Odes has been a revered Confucian classic since the Han dynasty, and has been studied and memorized by centuries of scholars in China. The individual songs of

2795-503: The later actual musical scores or choreography which accompanied the Shijing poems have been lost. Nearly all of the songs in the Poetry are rhyming, with end rhyme, as well as frequent internal rhyming. While some of these verses still rhyme in modern varieties of Chinese, others had ceased to rhyme by the Middle Chinese period. For example, the eighth song ( 芣苢 Fú Yǐ ) has a tightly constrained structure implying rhymes between

2860-473: The many officers, Holding fast to the virtue of King Wen . Responding in praise to the one in Heaven, They hurry swiftly within the temple. Greatly illustrious, greatly honored, May [King Wen] never be weary of [us] men. 於穆清廟 肅雝顯相 濟濟多士 秉文之德 對越在天 駿奔走在廟 不顯不承 無射於人斯 Whether the various Shijing poems were folk songs or not, they "all seem to have passed through the hands of men of letters at

2925-475: The model of sages and was believed to have maintained a cultural connection to the early Zhou dynasty. This view is now generally discredited, as the Zuo zhuan records that the Classic of Poetry already existed in a definitive form when Confucius was just a young child. In works attributed to him, Confucius comments upon the Classic of Poetry in such a way as to indicate that he holds it in great esteem. A story in

2990-610: The names of birds, beasts, plants, and trees. The extensive allegorical traditions associated with the Odes were theorized by Herbert Giles to have begun in the Warring States period as a justification for Confucius ' focus upon such a seemingly simple and ordinary collection of verses. These elaborate, far-fetched interpretations seem to have gone completely unquestioned until the 12th century, when scholar Zheng Qiao ( 鄭樵 , 1104–1162) first wrote his scepticism of them. European sinologists like Giles and Marcel Granet ignored these traditional interpretations in their analysis of

3055-441: The officials returned from their missions, the king was said to have observed them himself in an effort to understand the current condition of the common people. The well-being of the people was of special concern to the Zhou because of their ideological position that the right to rule was based on the benignity of the rulers to the people in accordance with the will of Heaven , and that this Heavenly Mandate would be withdrawn upon

3120-404: The one hand or to the design of sundials on the other. It appears to be more appropriate to assume that he refers to geometry, a science upon which gnomons rely heavily. In those days, calculations were carried out geometrically, in contrast to the algebraic methods in use today. Thus, it seems that he indirectly refers to mathematics and geodesy . Perforated gnomons projecting a pinhole image of

3185-407: The original meanings of the Odes . Granet, in his list of rules for properly reading the Odes , wrote that readers should "take no account of the standard interpretation", "reject in no uncertain terms the distinction drawn between songs evicting a good state of morals and songs attesting to perverted morality", and "[discard] all symbolic interpretations, and likewise any interpretation that supposes

3250-448: The other hand, songs in the two "Hymns" sections and the "Eulogies" section tend to be longer ritual or sacrificial songs, usually in the forms of courtly panegyrics and dynastic hymns which praise the founders of the Zhou dynasty. They also include hymns used in sacrificial rites and songs used by the aristocracy in their sacrificial ceremonies or at banquets. "Court Hymns" contains "Lesser Court Hymns" and "Major Court Hymns". Most of

3315-404: The parallel or syntactically matched lines within a specific poem share the same, identical words (or characters) to a large degree, as opposed to confining the parallelism between lines to using grammatical category matching of the words in one line with the other word in the same position in the corresponding line; but, not by using the same, identical word(s). Disallowing verbal repetition within

SECTION 50

#1732876888238

3380-524: The penultimate words (here shown in bold) of each pair of lines: The second and third stanzas still rhyme in modern Standard Chinese , with the rhyme words even having the same tone, but the first stanza does not rhyme in Middle Chinese or any modern variety. Such cases were attributed to lax rhyming practice until the late- Ming dynasty scholar Chen Di argued that the original rhymes had been obscured by sound change . Since Chen, scholars have analyzed

3445-401: The phrase drawn gnomon-wise to describe a line drawn perpendicular to another. Later, the term was used for an L -shaped instrument like a steel square used to draw right angles. This shape may explain its use to describe a shape formed by cutting a smaller square from a larger one. Euclid extended the term to the plane figure formed by removing a similar parallelogram from a corner of

3510-453: The poems were used by the aristocrats to pray for good harvests each year, worship gods, and venerate their ancestors. The authors of "Major Court Hymns" are nobles who were dissatisfied with the political reality. Therefore, they wrote poems not only related to the feast, worship, and epic but also to reflect the public feelings. Ah! Solemn is the clear temple, Reverent and concordant the illustrious assistants. Dignified, dignified are

3575-484: The poetic voice characteristic of the Songs , many of the poems are written from the perspective of various generic personalities. According to tradition, the method of collection of the various Shijing poems involved the appointment of officials, whose duties included documenting verses current from the various states which constituted the empire. Out of these many collected pieces, also according to tradition, Confucius made

3640-438: The response was overwhelmingly negative. In January 2008, Poole Borough Council announced they would not be going ahead, partly due to "unanswered questions about adequate funding". The council's leader issued a statement explaining the decision: "...no taxpayers' money will be invested in the delivery of this proposal and at this stage, Solar Pyramid Ltd has not been able to provide the necessary evidence of costs and funding for

3705-497: The rhyming patterns of the Poetry as crucial evidence for the reconstruction of Old Chinese phonology . Traditional scholarship of the Poetry identified three major literary devices employed in the songs: straightforward narrative ( fù 賦 ), explicit comparisons ( bǐ 比 ) and implied comparisons ( xìng 興 ). The poems of the Classic of Poetry tend to have certain typical patterns in both rhyme and rhythm, to make much use of imagery, often derived from nature. Although

3770-450: The royal Zhou court". In other words, they show an overall literary polish together with some general stylistic consistency. About 95% of lines in the Poetry are written in a four-syllable meter , with a slight caesura between the second and third syllables. Lines tend to occur in syntactically related couplets , with occasional parallelism, and longer poems are generally divided into similarly structured stanzas . All but six of

3835-482: The royal courts. The Classic of Poetry historically has a major place in the Four Books and Five Classics , the canonical works associated with Confucianism . Some pre-Qin dynasty texts, such as the Analects and a recently excavated manuscript from 300 BCE entitled "Confucius' Discussion of the Odes ", mention Confucius' involvement with the Classic of Poetry but Han dynasty historian Sima Qian 's Records of

3900-437: The songs had to be reconstructed largely from memory in the subsequent Han period. However the discovery of pre-Qin copies showing the same variation as Han texts, as well as evidence of Qin patronage of the Poetry , have led modern scholars to doubt this account. During the Han period there were three different versions of the Poetry which each belonged to different hermeneutic traditions. The Lu Poetry ( 魯詩 Lǔ shī ),

3965-564: The style in the afternoon. Gnomons have been used in space missions to the Moon and Mars. The gnomon used by the Apollo astronauts was a gimballed stadia rod mounted on a tripod. While the rod's shadow indicated the direction of the Sun, the grayscale paints of varying reflectivity and the red, green and blue patches facilitated proper photography on the surface on the Moon. MarsDials have been used on Mars Exploration Rovers . A three-dimensional gnomon

SECTION 60

#1732876888238

4030-564: The verses of the "Airs of the States" to have been collected in the course of activities of officers dispatched by the Zhou dynasty court, whose duties included the field collection of the songs local to the territorial states of Zhou. This territory was roughly the Yellow River Plain , Shandong , southwestern Hebei , eastern Gansu , and the Han River region. Perhaps during the harvest . After

4095-666: Was hoped that construction would finally begin in Spring of the following year, with completion about nine months later. However, in November 2007, the Derbyshire site was abandoned. Instead, it was decided to build a 58-metre-high (190 ft) sculpture near Poole in Dorset. In February 2006, the Solar Pyramid website began the sale of "Moments in Time" to the public. For £49.75 the purchaser received

4160-641: Was known as the Three Hundred Songs or the Songs . The Classic of Poetry contains the oldest chronologically authenticated Chinese poems. The majority of the Odes date to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), and were drawn from around provinces and cities in the Zhongyuan area. A final section of 5 "Eulogies of Shang" purports to be ritual songs of the Shang dynasty as handed down by their descendants in

4225-887: Was traditionally given special interpretive weight. The fishhawks sing gwan-gwan On sandbars of the stream. Gentle maiden, pure and fair, Fit pair for a prince. Watercress grows here and there, Right and left we gather it. Gentle maiden, pure and fair, Wanted waking and sleep. Wanting, sought her, had her not, Waking, sleeping, thought of her, On and on he thought of her, He tossed from one side to another. Watercress grows here and there, Right and left we pull it. Gentle maiden, pure and fair, With harps we bring her company. Watercress grows here and there, Right and left we pick it out. Gentle maiden, pure and fair, With bells and drums do her delight. 關關雎鳩 在河之洲 窈窕淑女 君子好逑 參差荇菜 左右流之 窈窕淑女 寤寐求之 求之不得 寤寐思服 悠哉悠哉 輾轉反側 參差荇菜 左右采之 窈窕淑女 琴瑟友之 參差荇菜 左右芼之 窈窕淑女 鐘鼓樂之 On

#237762