Wang Zhenyi (simplified Chinese: 王贞仪; traditional Chinese: 王貞儀; pinyin: Wáng Zhēnyí; 1768–1797; styled Deqing (德卿)), also known as the Jinling and Jiangning Lady Historian (金陵女史), was a Chinese scientist from the Qing Dynasty. Described as "an extraordinary woman of 18th Century China," she pursued education in several subjects and is known for her contributions to astronomy, mathematics, and poetry.
Biography Wang's ancestral home was located in the Anhui province. Her grandfather's family later moved to Jiangning (now known as Nanjing). She was raised by her grandparents and father. Her grandfather Wang Zhefu (王者辅) was a governor of the Fengcheng County and the Xuanhua District. He was an avid reader who maintained a large book collection. Her father, Wang Xichen, failed the imperial examination and turned to studying medical science. He recorded his findings in a four-volume collection titled Yifang Yanchao (Collection of Medical Prescriptions). Wang's grandfather taught her astronomy, her grandmother taught her poetry; whilst her father taught her medicine, geography and mathematics. From the age of nine, she was taught to write poetry and essays, focusing on the human condition. Her grandfather, Wang Zhefu, died in 1782 and the family traveled to Jilin (close to the Great Wall) for his funeral. Wang, along with grandmother and father, went to mourn outside the Great Wall and lived there for four years, where she studied under the Lady of Bu Qianyao. Here, Zhenyi gained knowledge from reading her grandfather's collection of books, as well as learning equestrian skills, archery, and martial arts from the wife of a Mongolian general named Aa. She lived in Xuanhua Prefecture for five years. Later, she traveled with her grandmother and father to various places, including Beijing, Shaanxi, Hubei, Guangdong, and Anhui. During these journeys, she visited numerous historical sites, gaining extensive experiences and exposure to various aspects of society. At the age of 16, Wang traveled to the south of the Yangtze river with her father before moving back to the capital. When she was 18, she made friends with female scholars in Jiangning through her poetry and began focusing on her studies in astronomy and mathematics, most of which were self-taught. At age 25, she married Zhan Mei from Xuancheng in Anhui province. After her marriage, she became more well known for her poetry and knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, including teaching some male students. Wang Zhenyi died at 29 years of age and had no children.
Academic achievements Although she only lived to be 29, Wang Zhenyi contributed to the academic study of astronomy and mathematics. One of her notable works involved outlining her observations on celestial phenomena in her paper Dispute of the Procession of the Equinoxes. She explained how equinoxes move and how to calculate their movements. She commented on the number of stars; the revolving direction of the sun, the moon, and the planets Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, and Saturn; as well as describing the relationship between lunar and solar eclipses. Wang Zhenyi studied both earlier astronomical texts and carried out her own research. At that time, there were few successors in the field of new astronomical calendrical knowledge. Women also faced strict restrictions on studying calendrical astronomy as it was considered inappropriate for them to pursue such studies in seclusion. Within this restrictive context, she studied both Chinese and Western astronomy and authored several works on the subject. Of her works, only about ten papers, amongst them Explanation of Lunar Eclipses and Explanation of the Starry Sky, have survived. Her paper The Explanation of the Pythagorean Theorem and Trigonometry focuses on foundational geometric principles, including the Pythagorean theorem. She admired the mathematician Mei Wending (1633–1721), famous in the early Qing dynasty. Wang Zhenyi became a master of his book, Principles of Calculation, rewriting it with simpler language and making it available to others under the title The Musts of Calculation. She simplified multiplication and division to make learning mathematics easier for beginners. At the age of 24, she wrote a book called The Simple Principles of Calculation. Wang Zhenyi's Explanation of Lunar Eclipses analyzes the causes of lunar eclipses with theories consistent with modern astronomical principles. In her work, she summarized various astronomical theories from Yu Xi to Guo Shoujing and aligned them with Islamic, Western, and modern calendars. One of her experiments during this study included placing a round table in a garden pavilion, acting as a globe, and a crystal lamp hung on a cord from the ceiling beams, representing the sun. Then, on one side of the table, she placed a round mirror acting as the moon. She moved these three objects as if they were the sun, earth, and moon according to astronomical principles. She addressed misunderstandings about celestial mechanics and discussed the gradual shift in stellar positions. Wang Zhenyi also clarified concepts of calendrical epochs and methods, differentiating between the starting point of calendar creation and the methods of calculation, including arithmetic, diagrams, and instruments. She argued that changes in calendars across dynasties were about epochs, not methods. In Theory of the Earth's Roundness, Wang Zhenyi refuted the thousand-year-old concept of a flat earth with a round sky, applying astronomical and geographical terms to advocate for the concept of a spherical Earth and revealing the idea of relative spatial positions. Wang Zhenyi's contributions to medicine, although not encapsulated in a specific book, are evident in her prefaces to her father's medical works and her practical medical knowledge. She emphasized diagnostic precision, preventive medicine, and bespoke treatment strategies.
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