The first “real” mention of the compass was in a book entitled “Dream Pool Essays” dated 1086 by scholar Shen Kuo, in the Song Dynasty. However, Zhu Yu's book recounts events back to 1086, when Shen Kuo was writing the Dream Pool Essays; this meant that in Shen's time the compass might have already been in navigational use. The first “real” mention of the compass was in a book entitled “Dream Pool Essays” dated 1086 by scholar Shen Kuo, in the Song Dynasty. The compass was invented by the Arabs 3000 in Petra(20 BC – 20 AD). He was the first to discover that the compass does not point directly north, but to the magnetic north pole. It is a remarkable scientific document which contains his work on mathematics, music, astronomy, calendars, cartography, geology, optics and medicine. The first compasses were made of lodestone, a naturally magnetized stone of iron, in Han dynasty China (20 BC – 20 AD). Shanghai Daily says Shen Kuo studied nature extensively and drew hundreds of sketches before he made this declaration. Shen Kua claimed that fossilised plants were evidence for changes in climate. Shen Kuo was hundreds of years ahead of the Western scientists in the fields of astronomy, meteorology, geography, mineralogy, mathematics and the calendar. - Discovered by: Shen Kuo in 1088. Chinese writers describe it as an “orientation in obscurity of night.”. Later compasses were made of iron needles, magnetized by striking them with a lodestone. The Compass Also important to oceangoing travel was the perfection of the compass. Besides, how was the compass invented? Plinius the Elder, which lived from 23 to 70 year, wrote that that a shepherd called Magnes had noted that the nails of his shoes and the iron point of his staff clung to the rocks on Mount Ida. The way a magnetic needle would point north-south had been known for some time, but in Song times the needle was reduced in size and attached to a fixed stem (rather than floating in water). There is also a reference to a magnetic compass and its use in cartography. The compass was later used for navigation during the Chinese Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD), as described by Shen Kuo. Writer, philosopher and scholar Shen Kuo, first described the complicated technology of dry compass, that used a magnetic needle; in his book, published in 1088 AD. The Song dynasty statesman Shen Kuo was the first to decide that true north was different from the magnetic compass north. First compass was invented in China during the Han Dynasty between the 2nd century BC and 1st century AD but its principal history is much longer. The compass was later used for navigation during the Chinese Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD), as described by Shen Kuo. The compass was invented more than 2000 years ago. In any case, Shen Kuo's writing on magnetic compasses has proved invaluable for understanding China's earliest use of the compass for seafaring navigation. The 4 Great Inventions of ancient China are printing,papermaking, gunpowder and compass.Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a … Because the Chinese alphabet is primarily pictographic and ideographic rather than alphabetic, movable type did not advance in China at this time. 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