Su Song was a design engineer of Kaifeng Waterway Instrument Platform in the Middle Ages, who designed the early escapement in the world. The escapement was invented by a group of Buddhist monks and Liang Lingzan in 725 AD, but Su Song was the first person to apply it to the global musical instrument machinery.

The top of the observatory is covered by nine movable roof slabs, which is the "ancestor" of the movable dome of the modern observatory. Its "Hunxiang" automatically rotates around at a constant speed day and night, which is the "ancestor" of the modern rotating clock (the tracking mechanism of the Observatory).

Its wooden gem facilities are automatically realized under the drive of a complex gear system driven by water power. Among them, "Tianheng" (escaper) is the key part of modern clocks and watches, which has the embryonic form of astronomical clocks.

From 1094 to 1096, Su Song wrote three volumes of "Essentials of New Instruments and Images", and introduced in detail the design and use of the photographic platform for water transport instruments. There are 63 kinds of drawings in the book, among which the star map records 1434 stars.

The original watercraft designed by Su Song was abandoned and destroyed after the Jingkang Rebellion. After Song Gaozong crossed the south, he wanted to copy it. Su Song's son Xie Su presented Su Song's suicide note, but no one could understand it. Xie Su himself doesn't understand it, so he can't copy it. It was not until 1958 that the historian Wang Zhenduo successfully recovered.

Extended data:

On the basis of the management of Jixian University, Su Song, together with pharmacologists of the same age as Zhang Yuxi and Lin Bu, supplemented the book Jiayou Herbal Supplement, revised and published Bei Ji Fang and Shen Nong Herbal, and compiled twenty-one volumes of Illustration of Materia Medica on this basis.

Materia Medica Illustrated Classic is a masterpiece of pharmacology and the most perfect and scientific medical work in Song Dynasty. This book inherits the ancient medical heritage of China for more than 1000 years, supplements its own research experience and discoveries, draws a large number of drug graphs and explains them in words.

Accurately recorded the origin, shape, nature, use, collection season, refining method, identification method, compatibility, taboo and so on. All kinds of drugs, with illustrations and pictures, are accurate and convenient to use, which is the precedent of Compendium of Materia Medica by Li Shizhen, a famous medical scientist in Ming Dynasty.

Unfortunately, the feudal ruling class did not attach importance to scientific and technological inventions, which made this masterpiece disappear behind Su Song, and its content could only be scattered in the later generations' Materia Medica. Among them, Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica made many reservations and references, but failed to see the whole picture.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Su Song