磨—轮之喻在中国古代天体视运动描述中的作用及演变

On the Role and Evolution of the Metaphors of Millstone and Wheel Describing the Apparent Motions of Celestial Bodies in Ancient China

东汉王充以蚂蚁在旋转石磨上的行走来类比天体的圆周运动.之后,这种形象的比喻被诸多学者接受并有所发展,渐而成为中国古人描述天体圆周运动的一种理论工具.文章分析了磨-轮之喻的提出和演变;探讨了其在古人描述天体视运动过程中的运用情况及其所反映出的古人对于转动规律的经验认识,指出以磨、轮为喻的表达方式符合中国传统力学知识表述的一般特征:注重文辞表述、善用类比形象表达、较少运用图示解释.

The metaphor of an ant moving on a spinning millstone was firstly created by Wang Chong in the Eastern Han Dynasty to interpret the circular motion of celestial objects.After that,the metaphors were adopted and developed by many scholars.Gradually,the straightforward and concise method became a theoretical tool to describe the apparent motions of celestial bodies.This paper analyzed the creation and evolution of the metaphors,the application of them to description of the apparent motions of celestial bodies and experiential knowledge on the rotation law reflected from them.We pointed out in this paper that the presentation of the metaphors of millstone and wheel met the general characteristics of Chinese traditional mechanical knowledge representation,which were emphasis on diction,good at visualized analogy ,and lack of graphical representation.