Jing Fang facts for kids

Jing Fang (born Li Fang) was a very smart Chinese scholar who lived a long time ago, from 78 BC to 37 BC. He was born in a place called Puyang, in China, during the Han dynasty. Jing Fang was like a super-scientist of his time! He was great at understanding music, math, and even the stars. While he's most famous for his work with music, he also figured out how lunar and solar eclipses happen.

Jing Fang and the Yijing

Jing Fang was an expert at using the ancient Chinese book called the Yijing. This book uses special symbols called hexagrams to help people understand things and even make predictions.

A historian named Ban Gu wrote that Jing Fang was very skilled with these hexagrams. Jing Fang also helped create a way to understand hexagrams called the najia method. This method connects parts of the hexagrams to different elements and parts of the Chinese calendar. His work helped us learn more about China's history, especially during the Qin and Han dynasties.

Jing Fang's Music Discoveries

Jing Fang was a very important person in music. He worked as an official in the Music Bureau for Emperor Yuan of Han.

He made an amazing discovery about musical notes. He was the first to notice that if you stack 53 musical "fifths" (a type of musical jump), it sounds almost exactly like 31 "octaves" (another type of musical jump). This was a huge deal for understanding how music works!

He figured this out by using math. He started with a big number that was easy to divide. Then, he would:

• Divide the number by three.
• Add that result back to the original number.
• This new number represented a different musical note.

He kept doing this to find the values for many different notes. Even though he rounded his numbers a little, his calculations were incredibly close to being perfect. His work helped set the stage for how we understand musical scales today.

Jing Fang's Astronomy Ideas

Jing Fang also had smart ideas about space. He believed that the light we see from the Moon is actually just sunlight reflecting off its surface. He also thought that the Moon and other planets were round, like balls.

He explained it like this:

The moon and the planets are Yin; they have shape but no light. This they receive only when the sun illuminates them. The former masters regarded the sun as round like a crossbow bullet, and they thought the moon had the nature of a mirror. Some of them recognized the moon as a ball too. Those parts of the moon which the sun illuminates look bright, those parts which it does not, remain dark.

This idea was very accurate! Even though some people at the time didn't agree with him, other smart people like the scientist Zhang Heng supported his theory.

Jing Fang's Final Years

Sadly, Jing Fang's life ended in 37 BC. Records say that he faced serious accusations against a high official. Because of these accusations, he was ordered to be put to death by the Emperor.

See also

• Wen Wang Gua
• 53 equal temperament
• Science and technology of the Han dynasty