science

Hidden character stone

Hidden character stone is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hidden character stone rather than just read about it. In short: Hidden Character Stone (Chinese: 藏字石 / 救星石; pinyin: cángzì shí / jiùxīng shí) is a stone located in a scenic area in the town of Zhangbu (掌布镇), Pingtang County, Qiannan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou. The stone features several glyph-like patterns on its surface that have been tentatively identified as Simplified Chinese characters or Traditional Chinese characters, the meaning of which has been vario…

Key takeaways

Hidden character stone belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hidden character stone to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hidden character stone from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hidden Character Stone (Chinese: 藏字石 / 救星石; pinyin: cángzì shí / jiùxīng shí) is a stone located in a scenic area in the town of Zhangbu (掌布镇), Pingtang County, Qiannan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou. The stone features several glyph-like patterns on its surface that have been tentatively identified as Simplified Chinese characters or Traditional Chinese characters, the meaning of which has been variously interpreted as "Communist Party of China" (中國共產党), or alternatively "Communist Party of China perish" (中國共產党亡).

Area The Hidden Character Stone is one of the main attractions - along with a jade water basin (玉水金盆) - located at the Qiannan Pingtang National Geological Park (黔南平塘地质公园). The park has an area of about 201.6 square kilometers. The stone is situated within a narrow gap between two cliffs, just wide enough for two people to stand adjacent.

History In June 2002, the Duyun international photography exposition (都匀国际摄影博览会) recommended an area in Zhangbu as a photo spot. The stone was discovered during the cleanup process following the exposition's conclusion. The site has been isolated and effectively untouched by humans for centuries. According to the Chinese official Xinhua News Agency the person who initially discovered the site was local party secretary Wang Guo-fu (王国富), who noticed the characters written on the stone as he was stacking poles in the cleft in the rock. Between December 5–8 2003 a Chinese scientific inspection group of about 15 scientists is reported to have investigated the stone. Some of the more notable members include Li Ting-dong (李廷栋) from Chinese Academy of Sciences, Liu Bao-jun (刘宝君) from Chinese academy of Sciences and Li Feng-lin (李凤麟) from China University of Geosciences. The stone was analyzed and determined to be about 270 million years old, with a likely provenance in the Permian period. Liu Bao-jun expressed support for additional research into the stone and its history, and was interested in the natural formation of the "characters" thereon. Each character on the stone measures about one square shaku in size, which is equivalent to about 1 square foot (0.09 square meters).

Description

Five-character version The five-character interpretation posits that the characters on the stone can be translated as "Communist Party of China" (中国共产党). This is the rendition publicly accepted in the People's Republic of China. This reading has also been referred to as 救星石, literally "savior stone". When recounting the narrative of the stone's discovery, Chinese sources usually adhere to the five-character interpretation.

Six-character version The six-character version suggests the characters on the stone said "Communist Party of China perish" (中国共产党亡). Often when pictures are shown with the stone having six characters, the description still refers to it by the five-character version.

Traditional and Simplified Chinese The characters on the stone are a mix of Traditional Chinese characters and Simplified Chinese characters. The first and third character (中, 共) are identical in both versions. The second character "country" (國) and fourth character "produce" (產) is in the traditional form. The fifth character, "party" (党) is in the simplified form. The sixth character "perish" (亡) has no difference. Some have analyzed all the odd characters as Simplified, while the even characters are Traditional.

On the stone: 中國共產党亡 Traditional Chinese: 中國共產黨亡 Simplified Chinese: 中国共产党亡

Analysis The origin of the characters remain a subject of dispute. There were some early speculations that the characters were put there by the People's Liberation Army, but according to the path of the Long March, they never went to Pingtang. The characters also read left to right, which was not practiced at the time. The inclusion of a Simplified character before the CPC did any simplifications also ruled them out. There were also some skeptics who suspected the village was creating a fraud to build their tourism industry at the time. Others think the Hidden Character Stone was made in the Cultural Revolution. Also, others, especially Christians, consider the message to be of divine origin, this idea being ridiculed by pro-Marxist groups.

Cultural reference The Hidden Character Stone has been featured as a topic on a number of science-oriented television programmes such as CCTV's "Approaching Science" (走近科学) and the Hong Kong ATV series "China's Mystery Files" (中國神祕檔案). In both instances the programs referred to the five-character reading of the stone.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hidden character stone

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hidden character stone claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hidden character stone before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hidden character stone ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hidden character stone

In research: Hidden character stone appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hidden character stone in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hidden character stone is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2002 archaeological discoveries, 2002 in China, 2003 in China, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hidden character stone outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hidden character stone in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hidden character stone means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hidden character stone out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hidden character stone in simple terms?

Why does Hidden character stone matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hidden character stone?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hidden character stone.