Su Song

1020-1101

Scientist

Sources

Official. The son of a high-ranking official, Su Song successfully passed his Jinshi degree examination and was offered a post in the Imperial Library in 1053. In 1057 the Song court appointed him to revise the medical classics. By 1062 he revised and enlarged a massive work on pharmacology and natural history in China.

Minister of Justice. After having served for nine years in the Imperial Library, Su Song accepted a position in local government in order to improve his family’s economic situation. He was, however, unable to work his way up in the central administration because he and other conservative officials did not like Wang Anshi’s reforms. He served as envoy to the Khitan state Liao and governor of the capital of Kaifeng in 1078. He was demoted for a short time because a member of his staff had failed in certain assignments. However, he eventually became Vice-minister of Personnel Affairs and Minister of Justice in 1086.

Astronomy. In the same year the Song government issued orders for the inspection of existing astronomical equipment and the creation of an astronomical clock. Two years later a wooden model was presented to the emperor and in 1090 the metal parts for an armillary sphere and a celestial globe were cast in bronze. The emperor appointed Su Song deputy prime minister in 1090 and prime minister in 1092. He then submitted to the emperor Xin I Xiang Fayao, a thesis describing the construction of a mechanical clock. He retired in the same year when the reform party controlled the Song court. One of his descendants compiled Su Song’s collected works under the title Su Weigong Wenji.

Sources

Etienne Balazs and Yves Hervouet, eds., A Sung Bibliography (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1978).

Robert Wilson, Astronomy through the Ages (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997).