Number of Days
In the late Spring and Autumn Period (722–481 BC), the former Sifen calendar (古四分历) was established, and set the tropical year at 365.25 days, the same length as the Julian calendar which was introduced in 46 BC. The Taichu calendar (太初历) of 104 BC under Emperor Wu of Han rendered the tropical year at roughly the same (365 ).
Many other calendars were established between then and the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), including those established by Li Chunfeng (602–670) and Yi Xing (683–727). In 1281, the Yuan astronomer Guo Shoujing (1233–1316) fixed the calendar at 365.2425 days, the same as the Gregorian calendar established in 1582; this calendar, the Shoushi calendar (授時曆), would be used in China for the next 363 years. Guo Shoujing established the new calendar with the aid of his own achievements in spherical trigonometry, which he derived largely from the work of Shen Kuo (1031–1095) who established trigonometry in China.
Read more about this topic: Chinese Calendar
Famous quotes containing the words number of, number and/or days:
“The world is so full of a number of things,
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“Cultivated labor drives out brute labor. An infinite number of shrewd men, in infinite years, have arrived at certain best and shortest ways of doing, and this accumulated skill in arts, cultures, harvestings, curings, manufactures, navigations, exchanges, constitutes the worth of our world to-day.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I have heard it said that it took Messrs. Shipman and Hymer [the playwrights] just three- and-a-half days to write their drama. I should like to know what they were doing during the three days.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)