Jie People - South Pointing Chariot

South Pointing Chariot

Fang Xuanling recorded in the Book of Jin chronicle that at around 340 CE a Jie state Later Zhao's scholar Xie Fei serving as a Head of Healing (Medicinal) Department in the Later Zhao State Chancellery, was a mechanical engineer who built a South Pointing Chariot (also called south-pointing carriage), a directional compass vehicle which apparently did not use magnetic principle, but was operated by use of differential gears (which apply an equal amount of torque to driving wheels rotating at different speeds), or a similar angular differential principle.

For the great ingenuity shown in the construction of the device, the Later Zhao Emperor Shi Jilong granted Jie Fei the noble title of hou without land possessions and generous rewarded him generously.

Read more about this topic:  Jie People

Famous quotes containing the words south, pointing and/or chariot:

    A friend and I flew south with our children. During the week we spent together I took off my shoes, let down my hair, took apart my psyche, cleaned the pieces, and put them together again in much improved condition. I feel like a car that’s just had a tune-up. Only another woman could have acted as the mechanic.
    Anna Quindlen (20th century)

    “Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing,” answered Holmes thoughtfully. “It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different.”
    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)

    Ha, ha, my ship! thou mightiest well be taken now for the sea- chariot of the sun. Ho, ho! all ye nations before my prow, I bring the sun to ye! Yoke on the further billows ... I drive the sea!
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)