This week’s Text, in the ongoing observation of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2021, is a reading on Chinese astronomer, poet, and mathematician Zhang Heng and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.
This is a one-page reading that in spite of its brevity does a serviceable job of introducing Zhang Heng, a fascinating polymath who worked in the service of Emperor An of the Han Dynasty. Among Zhang Heng’s many accomplishments is his his invention of the world’s first seismoscope. A seismoscope records the motion of the earth’s shaking, but does not retain a time record of those shakings, like a seismometer does. I could go on at some length about Zhang Heng, but would rather, this morning get out for a hike before it gets too warm.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
Mark's Text Terminal 