Earthquakes have haunted humanity for millennia – their sudden violence leaving civilisations scrambling for early warning. Even today, when a Japanese manga implausibly predicted “The Big One” hitting the country on July 5, it sparked widespread panic.
Scientists today rely on satellites, supercomputers and artificial intelligence to monitor seismic activity. But nearly 2,000 years ago, a Chinese polymath named Zhang Heng is said to have invented a device that not only detected faraway…
