Shen Kuo (1031~1095) was a Chinese scientist, polymath, general, diplomat¹, and financial officer who was the inventor of compasses for navigation.

沈括(1031~1095 )，科学家、博学者、将军、外交家、财务官员，发明了指南针。

双语阅读之中国历史名人:沈括

In the book Meng Xi Bi Tan (Dream Pool Essays)(1088) he wrote about mineralogy, erosion, sedimentation² and uplift, mathematics, astronomy, and meteorology.

在《梦溪笔谈》(1088)中，沈括谈到了矿物学、腐蚀、沉淀与提取、数学、天文学、气象学。

The literal translation of Meng Xi Bi Tan (or Meng ch'i pi t'an) is“Brush talks from Dream Brook³".The name derives⁴ from his property on the outskirts⁵ of Jiangsu, a place of great beauty which he named "Dream Brook" and where he lived in isolation⁶ for the last seven years of his life.

书名取自沈括在江苏的住处，一个非常美丽的地方，沈括将它命名为“梦溪”。沈括生命的最后七年就一个人生活在这里。

In his biography in The Dictionary of Scientific Biography his word is quoted: Because I had only my writing brush and ink slab⁷ to converse⁸ with, I call it Brush Talks.

在他的传记《科学传记辞典》里，引用了这句话:所与谈者，唯笔砚而已，谓之《笔谈》。

Kuo discovered that compasses do not point true north but to the magnetic north pole. This was a decisive step to make them useful for navigation.

沈括发现，指南针并不是真正的指向北方，而是指向地磁的北极，这对指南针用于导航走出了决定性的一步。

He formulated⁹ a hypothesis for the process of land formation;based on his observation of fossil shells in a geological stratum¹⁰ in a mountain hundreds of miles from the ocean, he inferred that the land was formed by erosion of the mountains and by deposition¹¹ of silt¹².

沈括明确表达了关于陆地形成过程的假设。沈括对一座山里的地质层的贝壳化石作了观察，而这座山离大海有几百英里远。基于他的观察，沈括推出：陆地是通过侵蚀山脉、泥沙沉积形成的。

Shen Kuo was not only a geologist¹³; his memoirs¹⁴ list "regularities¹⁵ underlying¹⁶ phenomena¹⁷" in magnetism¹⁸, astronomy, and engineering.

沈括不只是地质学家;他的文集揭示了磁学、天文学和工程学学科“现象背后的规律”。