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Li Chunfeng
Early Tang astronomer and mathematician who built a three-ring armillary sphere, led the annotation of the Ten Mathematical Classics, and drew up the Linde calendar
In a calculation room, a wide table holds a board of black and yellow counting rods laid in neat bundles, beside an abacus, a ruler and a sheet with a circle divided into equal parts; one person sits at a far desk with their back turned, and terraced fields lie outside.
Also known as Qizhou Yongren · Taishi Ling
Li Chunfeng came from Yong in Qizhou; his father Li Bo had been a minor Sui official before becoming a Daoist. Early in the Zhenguan era he submitted a critique of Fu Renjun's Wuyin calendar and was given a post in the Astronomical Bureau, and in 633 he completed an armillary sphere of three nested sets of rings, writing a treatise on the merits and faults of earlier instruments. He worked on the official histories of the Jin and of the five preceding dynasties, writing much of their treatises on astronomy, calendar and portents. In 656 he and the mathematics erudite Liang Shu finished annotating ten mathematical books, among them the Zhoubi and the Nine Chapters, which Emperor Gaozong ordered used as textbooks in the state school. His Linde calendar, which put all its constants over a single common denominator, came into use in 665. He rose to director of the Astronomical Bureau, died early in the Xianheng era at sixty-nine, and also wrote the astrological work Yisi zhan.
Life and times
Dates 602 CE–670 CE