Makers › Scientist
Zou Boqi
Cantonese scholar of optics, mathematics and mapping who wrote on lenses and pinhole images and described a camera-like device of his own making
On an observatory terrace at night, a large bronze armillary sphere stands on a stone base while two people stand with their backs turned facing the view; stars are joined into constellation lines overhead, and a sundial and tiered dripping water vessels stand at the right.
Also known as Zi Tefu · Nan Hai Da Li Ren
Zou Boqi, courtesy name Tefu, came from Bichong in Nanhai county near Guangzhou and never held office, devoting himself to astronomy, mathematics, optics and cartography. His Supplement to the Art of Optics (Geshu bu) treats pinhole images, lenses and telescopes mathematically, and his Notes on a Photographic Apparatus describe a device he built and the taking of images on glass plates, though scholars still debate whether it served as a true camera or as a drawing aid. He also made an orrery, a logarithmic slide rule and various surveying instruments, and took part in mapping Guangdong. In the Tongzhi years he was a director of the Xuehaitang academy in Guangzhou, and when Guo Songtao, then governor of Guangdong, recommended him for a teaching post at the Tongwen Guan in Beijing, he declined on grounds of illness. He died in 1869, and his writings were published in 1874 as the Posthumous Works of Zou Boqi.
Life and times
Dates 1819 CE–1869 CE