Life story of ibn Al-nafis , ( the father of pulmonary circulation) and the story of zhnag zheng ( the first seismometer inventor)

The life history of ibn-al- nafis .



ibn- nafis was an Arab physician , surgeon and polymath ..


He was born in the 12th century in Damascus, Syria .



ibn- Al nafis started studying medicine at the age of 16 , after studying for 10 years , he was appointed as the chief physician at the best hospital in Egypt at his time..


ibn- nafis was famous on his discovery of the pulmonary circulation , in which he was considered as the father of circulatory physiology .


though ibn-al- nafis was influenced by the earlier physicians like Galen and ibn- sinna, He disagreed with some of their theories and made a correction to Gelen and ibn- sinna theory on pulsation and coronary circulation ..


ibn- Al- nafis wrote a lot of books on medicine including
Al-shamil fee -al- hatibb . The comprehensive book on medicine ..

kitab al- mukutar fee- al- aghdiyah. The choice of foodstuffs on the effect of food and health ..


al-muhaddab fee- al- kuhl. A book on opthalmology

one of his greatest work on surgery is his book called " Al mugiza"
In this book , he described the difference between bladder stones and kidney stones, he explained the difference between kidney and bladder infections and concept of metabolism.



ibn-al-nafis died in Cairo ,he was remembered for his work and the discovery of the pulmonary circulation.

life History of zhang ( The seismoscope inventor )

zhang heng or chang heng was a Chinese polymath ,mathematician, meteorologist ,philosopher ,engineer and astronomer .

zhang heng was born in 78 CE in the town of Xi'e ,nanyang ,China. zhang heng lived during the Eastern han dynasty which made him developed interest in poetry and engineering

He left home to pursue his studies in the ancient capitals of luoyang , while travelling to luoyang, he passed by a hot spring near Mount Li and dedicated one of his earliest poems to it , after studying for few years in luoyang imperial University, zhang became solid in his craft and has learned almost every branch of science.

he was offered several appointments but he declined and went back home to serve as the master of documents under the Government of Bao De (103 to 111)

in 132 , zhang heng presented the Han Court the most impressive invention of his time, the first seismometer.

This seismometer is named Houfeng didong yi!. its an instrument for measuring the seasonal winds , the movement of the earth and to determine the exact direction of tremors and earthquakes.

The main body of the device was surrounded by eight symmetrically spaced bronze dragons facing downwards. each dragon held a bronze ball in its mouth , the head of every dragon was positioned above eight bronze toads ,sitting with open mouth aiming upwards inside the jug -shaped body , eight transmitting rods were attached to a central pendulum.

when an earthquake occurs on the ground , one of these rods would swing in the quakes direction, with a lot of inner mechanisms inside the jug , the swingling rod will transmit a force to open the jaws of one of the eight dragons, causing the ball to drop into the open mouth of the toad below .

this would trigger an alarm, demonstrating that earthquake had occurred and the direction from which the earthquake happened will be shown by which of the dragons had dropped its ball .

on 13 December 134 , zhang heng seismoscope located in the Han capital luoyang proved its accuracy when a magnitude 7 earthquake struck in longxi, now Gansu province . its epicentre was over 500 miles to the west , however this earthquake was not felt by the residents of the capital , a lot of his enemies were mocking him and he's device , until a messenger arrived shortly afterwards to report that an earthquake had occurred about 400km northwest of luoyang in Gansu province , few deaths were recorded and a lot of property damage.

this achievement led zhang to be credited with the invention of the first seismometer.

zhang heng original device has not survived, but its reconstructions were made and available in science centre Oakland, california .

After this invention, he designed and built many scientific instruments and wrote a lot of books on astronomy.

He was honored centuries after his death , the lunar crater chang heng was named after him and the asteroid 1802 zhang heng was used to honor him .

He was remembered for his contributions and was regarded as one of the greatest scientist ever lived