Shen Kuo (1031~1095) was a Chinese scientist, polymath, general, diplomat, and financial officer who was the inventor of compasses for navigation.
沈括(1031~1095 )，科学家、博学者、将军、外交家、财务官员，发明了指南针。
In the book Meng Xi Bi Tan (Dream Pool Essays)(1088) he wrote about mineralogy, erosion, sedimentation and uplift, mathematics, astronomy, and meteorology.
在《梦溪笔谈》(1088)中，沈括谈到了矿物学、腐蚀、沉淀与提取、数学、天文学、气象学。
The literal translation of Meng Xi Bi Tan (or Meng ch'i pi t'an) is“Brush talks from Dream Brook".The name derives from his property on the outskirts of Jiangsu, a place of great beauty which he named “Dream Brook" and where he lived in isolation for the last seven years of his life.
书名取自沈括在江苏的住处，一个非常美丽的地方，沈括将它命名为“梦溪”。沈括生命的最后七年就一个人生活在这里。
In his biography in The Dictionary of Scientific Biography his word is quoted: Because I had only my writing brush and ink slab to converse with, I call it Brush Talks.
在他的传记《科学传记辞典》里，引用了这句话:所与谈者，唯笔砚而已，谓之《笔谈》。
Kuo discovered that compasses do not point true north but to the magnetic north pole. This was a decisive step to make them useful for navigation.
沈括发现，指南针并不是真正的指向北方，而是指向地磁的北极，这对指南针用于导航走出了决定性的一步。
He formulated a hypothesis for the process of land formation;based on his observation of fossil shells in a geological stratum in a mountain hundreds of miles from the ocean, he inferred that the land was formed by erosion of the mountains and by deposition of silt.
沈括明确表达了关于陆地形成过程的假设。沈括对一座山里的地质层的贝壳化石作了观察，而这座山离大海有几百英里远。基于他的观察，沈括推出:陆地是通过侵蚀山脉、泥沙沉积形成的。
Shen Kuo was not only a geologist; his memoirs list “regularities underlying phenomena" in magnetism, astronomy, and engineering.
沈括不只是地质学家;他的文集揭示了磁学、天文学和工程学学科“现象背后的规律”。
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