ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Abacus, Qin, and Pipes: Epistemic Disobedience and the Making of Acoustical Knowledge in Zhu Zaiyu’s China

• In Event: Listen: Sound Science Across Time 1

English Abstract

In his Yüelu Quanshu (Complete Treatise on Musical Tuning), Chinese music theorist Zhu Zaiyu (1536–1611) employed a strikingly empirical approach, using instruments and experiments to test acoustical theory. To calculate the formula for equal temperament, Zhu constructed an oversized abacus capable of extending calculations to the twenty-fifth decimal place. He then tested the results on a twelve-string qin, an ancient Chinese zither that also functioned much like a monochord. Attentive to the distinction between tuning stringed instruments (xian zhun 弦準) and wind instruments (lü guan 律管), Zhu further verified his findings with bamboo pitch pipes. When cutting pipes in half, he observed that the original and half-length pipes did not produce consonant octaves. To resolve this discrepancy, he proposed adjusting the inner radius of the pipes—a principle later recognized as the end-correction formula.

Zhu’s methodology reflects late-Ming shixue 實學 (“practical learning”) ideology, yet it also resonates with contemporaneous European cultures of experientia/experimentum. By foregrounding scientific instruments as active sites of reasoning rather than relying solely on textual authority, Zhu enacted a form of epistemic disobedience that challenges assumptions about where empirical science was generated in the early modern period. His acoustical project offers a parallel, rigorous pathway into experimental knowledge—one grounded in embodied manipulation, sensory verification, and careful engagement with physical materials.

This paper argues that Zhu’s work invites us to reconsider dominant narratives of the Scientific Revolution by foregrounding the plurality of scientific worlds that coexisted across the seventeenth century. Situating Zhu’s acoustical experiments within a global history of knowledge-making highlights how instrument-based reasoning shaped multiple, sometimes contested, scientific traditions—and opens space for writing histories of science that are materially grounded, cross-cultural, and epistemically plural.

Author

• Joyce Wei-Jo Chen, University of Oregon/Princeton University