compass 指南
gunpowder 火药
papermaking 造纸术
printing (movable type) 印刷术
Four Great Inventions of Ancient China -- printing
Block Printing
With the inventions of paper and ink, stamper gradually became popular during the Jin Dynasty (265-420), which was the early form of Carved Type Printing. Block Printing first appeared in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The text was first written on a piece of thin paper, then glued face down onto a wooden plate. The characters were carved out to make a wood-block printing plate, which was used to print the text. Wood-block printing took a long time as a new block had to be carved for every page in a book.
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It took a lot of time and energy as well as materials to prepare for printing a book, but it worked more effectively afterwards. This technology was gradually introduced to Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
Yet, Block Printing had its drawbacks -- all the boards became useless after the printing was done and a single mistake in carving could ruin the whole block. The frontispiece of the world's oldest surviving book, the Diamond Sutra printed in the year 868, was discovered at Dunhuang Cave, along the Silk Road. The book, in the form of a roll, is the earliest woodcut illustration in a printed book.
Movable Type Printing
Block Printing was a costly and time-consuming process, for each carved block could only be used for a specific page of a particular book, besides, a single mistake in carving could ruin the whole block. However movable type changed all of that.
In the Song Dynasty (960-1279), a man named Bi Sheng carved individual characters on identical pieces of fine clay. Each piece of movable type had on it one Chinese character which was carved in relief on a small block of moistened clay. After the block had been hardened by fire, the type became hard and durable and could be used wherever required. The pieces of movable type could be glued to an iron plate and easily detached from the plate. Each piece of character could be assembled to print a page and then broken up and redistributed as needed. When the printing was finished, the pieces were put away for future use.
By the year1000, paged books in the modern style had replaced scrolls. Two color printing (black and red) was seen as early as 1340.
This technology then spread to Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Europe. Later, German Johann Gutenberg invented movable type made of metal in the 1440s. Movable Type Printing developed very fast. Based on clay type, type made of wood, lead, tin and copper gradually appeared.
The invention of gunpowder had a close relationship with the advanced ancient workmanship of smelting industry. People began to know a lot of chemistry knowledge about the nature of different mineral materials during the process of smelting operation. With the knowledge, ancient necromancers tried to seek the elixir of immortality from certain kinds of ores and fuel. Although they failed to get what they were looking for, they discovered that an explosive mixture could be produced by combining sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter (potassium nitrate). This mixture finally led to the invention of gunpowder although its exact date of invention still remains unknown. (来源：英语麦当劳www.EnglishCN.com)
Many historical materials indicate that gunpowder first appeared before the Tang Dynasty (618-907). From 300 to 650AD several recipes were written about inflammable mixtures. Some historians date the invention of gunpowder at 850AD when a Taoist book warned of three specific elixir formulas as too dangerous to experiment.
The military applications of gunpowder began in the Tang Dynasty. Explosive bombs filled with gunpowder and fired from catapults were used in wars. During the Song and Yuan dynasties (960-1368), the military applications of gunpowder became common and some other weapons like "fire cannon", "rocket", "missile" and "fireball" were introduced.
In the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), the method of powder-making was introduced to the Arab world and Europe, bringing a series of revolutions to weapon manufacturing, as well as to stratagem and tactics on the battlefield. From Italy the making of gunpowder soon spread to other European countries, and by the 1350s it had become an effective weapon on the battlefield.
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Four Great Inventions of Ancient China -- Paper
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China was the first nation who invented paper. The earliest form of paper first appeared in the Western Han Dynasty (206BC-23AD), but the paper was generally very thick, coarse and uneven in their texture, made from pounded and disintegrated hemp fibers. The paper unearthed in a Han tomb in Gansu Province is by far the earliest existing ancient paper, tracing back to the early Western Han Dynasty.
In the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220), a court official named Cai Lun made a new kind of paper from bark, hemp, rags, fishnet, wheat stalks and other materials. It was relatively cheap, light, thin, durable and more suitable for brush writing.
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The art of paper-making spread east to Korea and Japan at the beginning of the seventh century (the end of the Sui Dynasty and the beginning of the Tang Dynasty). In the eighth century, along with the Silk Road, the Arab countries began to learn how to make paper. It took about 400 years for paper to traverse the Arab world to Europe. In the 14th century many paper mills were established in Italy, from where the workmanship of paper-making spread to the European countries such as Germany. The Italians vigorously produced the material and exported large amounts of it, dominating the European market for many years. In the 16th century, the art of paper-making appeared in Russia and Holland, and it spread to Britain in the 17th century.
Before paper was invented, Qin Shihuang, the first emperor in Chinese history, had to go over 120 kilos of official documents written on bamboo or wooden strips. With the invention of paper, the popularization of knowledge has turned into reality. The invention of paper is an epoch-making event in human history.
Early in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476BC), while mining ores and melting copper and iron, Chinese people chanced upon a natural magnetite that attracted iron and pointed fixedly north. In the Warring States Period (206BC-23AD), after constant improvement the round compass came into being. Referred to as a "South-pointer", the spoon- or ladle- shaped compass is of magnetic lodestone, and the plate is of Bronze. The circular center represents Heaven, and the square plate represents Earth. The handle of the spoon points south. The spoon is a symbolic representation of the Great Bear. The plate bears Chinese characters which denote the eight main directions of north, north-east, east, etc. This type of compass has been scientifically tested and found to work tolerably well.
By the time of the Tang dynasty (618-907) and the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), Chinese scholars had devised a way to magnetize iron needles, by rubbing them with magnetite, and then suspending them in water. They also observed that needles cooled from red heat and held in the north-south orientation (the earth's axis) would become magnetic. These more refined needle compasses could then be floated in water (wet compass), placed upon a pointed shaft (dry compass) or suspended from a silk thread, etc. Consequently, they were much more useful for navigation purposes since they were much more portable.
During the Song Dynasty (960-1279) many trading ships were then able to sail as far as Saudi Arabia without getting lost. The compass was introduced to the Arab world and Europe during the Northern Song Dynasty. The spread of the compass to Europe opened the oceans of the world to travel and led to the discovery of the New World.the four great inventions of china:
the compass指南针
gunpowder火药
paper纸
printing印刷术
these four discoveries had an enormous impact on the development of chinese civilization and a far-ranging global impact.你可以选择一段来用。
The Four Great Inventions
China's long history has seen some extremely important inventions emerge, most noticeably gunpowder, paper making, printing and the compass, which, in the words of Roger Bacon, changed the whole appearance and status of things in the world.
China was the first country in the world to make proper paper. Paper made during the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC-16 AD) has been found in Gansu Province, Xi'an and other places in Shaanxi Province as well as Xinjiang. A further development of paper is credited to Cai Lun of the Eastern Han (25-220). He used plant fiber such as tree bark, bits of rope, rags and worn-out fishing nets as raw materials. In 105, Cai presented the first batch of paper made under his supervision to the Han emperor, who was so delighted that he named the material "Marquis Cai's paper". Eastern Han Dynasty paper found in Wuwei, Gansu, in 1974 carried words which were still clearly decipherable. Thin, soft, and with a smooth finish and tight texture, this paper is the most refined and oldest paper discovered to date.
Before paper was invented, the ancient Chinese carved characters on pottery, animal bones and stones, cast them on bronzes, or wrote them on bamboo or wooden strips and silk fabric. These materials, however, were either too heavy or two expensive for widespread use. The invention and use of paper brought about a revolution in writing materials, paving the way for the invention of printing technology in the years to come.
The invention of gunpowder was no doubt one of the most significant achievements of the Middle Ages in China. The correct prescription for making gunpowder with nitre, sulphur and carbon was probably discovered in the ninth century. In fact, in his book, Ge Hong in the third century records the procedures for making a kind of mixture that could be ignited. After the Tang Dynasty (618-907), things took a much faster course as gunpowder was already used in simple hand-grenades which were thrown by a catapult. In 1126, Li Gang, a local official, recorded how he ordered the defenders of the city of Kaifeng to "fire cannons" at the invading Nuzhen tribal people, inflicting heavy casualties on the invaders.
The first prescription for gunpowder appeared in 1044, much earlier than the earliest (1265) gunpowder-making instructions recorded in Europe. By the Song Dynasty (960-1126), gunpowder was in extensive use. Weapons made with it included rifles and rockets. The Song army also used a kind of flame thrower which involved packing gunpowder into bamboo tubes. The earliest picture of a European cannon shows that it bears a striking similarity to Chinese cannon of 1128.
About 1230, the Song army had cannon powerful enough to breach city walls.
A bronze Chinese cannon cast in 1332 is the oldest one in the world extant today. Many bronze and iron cannons have been unearthed in China, most of them bearing inscriptions dating them to between 1280 and 1380.
On the basis of printing using carved blocks in the Tang Dynasty, Bi Sheng of the Northern Song Dynasty invented movable type printing in the 1040s, which ushered in a major revolution in the history of printing.
Bi's printing consisted of four processes: making the types, composing the text, printing and retrieving the movable types. According to Dream Stream Essays, Bi Sheng carved individual characters on squares of sticky clay, then baked them make clay type pieces. When composing a text, he put a large iron frame on a piece of iron board and arranged the words within the frame. While one plate was being printed, another plate could be composed. After printing, the movable types were taken away and stored for future use. Movable type printing has a very important position in the history of printing, for all later printing methods such as wooden type, copper type and lead type printing invariably developed on the basis of movable clay types. Bi Sheng created movable type printing more than four hundred years earlier than it was invented in Europe.
According to ancient records, natural magnets were employed in China as direction-finding devices. This led to the first compass, called a sinan (south-pointing ladle) during the Warring States Period. In the Han Dynasty compasses consisted of a bronze on which 24 directions were carved and a rod made from a natural magnet. Such devices were in use until the eighth century.
In the Song Dynasty, Shen Kuo described the floating compass, suspended in water, a technique which minimized the effect of motion on the instrument. This enabled the compass to be used for sea navigation for the first time. The invention of the compass promoted maritime undertakings, and its use soon spread to the Arab world, and thence to Europe.
China's four great ancient inventions made tremendous contributions to the world's economy and the culture of mankind. They were also important symbols of China's role as a great world civilization.The Four Great Inventions of Ancient China (traditional Chinese: 四大发明; simplified Chinese: 四大发明; pinyin: Sì dà fā míng, meaning "four great inventions") are, according to Chinese tradition and the British scholar and biochemist Joseph Needham:
The Compass[1]
Gunpowder[2]
Papermaking[3]
Printing[4]
These inventions are celebrated in Chinese culture for their historical significance and as signs of ancient China's advanced science and technology.[5] These four discoveries had an enormous impact on the development of Chinese civilization and a far-ranging global impact.
In 1620, the English philosopher Francis Bacon wrote
Printing, gunpowder and the compass: These three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, the second in warfare, the third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, in so much that no empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human affairs than these mechanical discoveries. (Novum Organum, Liber I, CXXIX—Adapted from the 1863 translation)
The Compass
Diagram of a Ming dynasty mariner's compassThe earliest Chinese literature reference to magnetism lies in a 4th century BC book called Book of the Devil Valley Master (鬼谷子): "The lodestone makes iron come or it attracts it."[6]
The earliest reference to a magnetic device as a "direction finder" is recorded in a Song Dynasty book dated to 1040-44. Here we find a description of an iron "south-pointing fish" floating in a bowl of water, aligning itself to the south. The device is recommended as a means of orientation "in the obscurity of the night."[7]
However, it should be pointed out that the compass remained in use by the Chinese in the form of a magnetic needle floating in a bowl of water.[8] According to Needham, the Chinese in the Song Dynasty and continuing Yuan Dynasty did make use of a dry compass, although this type never became as widely used in China as the wet compass.[9]
The dry compass in China was a dry suspension compass, a wooden frame crafted in the shape of a turtle hung upside down by a board, with the loadstone sealed in by wax, and if rotated, the needle at the tail would always point in the northern cardinal direction.[9] Although the 14th century European compass-card in box frame and dry pivot needle was adopted in China after its use was taken by Japanese pirates in the 16th century (who had in turn learned of it from Europeans), the Chinese design of the suspended dry compass persisted in use well into the 18th century.[10]
Gunpowder
Handgun from the Yuan dynasty, circa 1300s.Main article: History of gunpowder
By the time the Song Dynasty treatise of the Wujing Zongyao (武经总要) was written by Zeng Gongliang and Yang Weide in 1044 AD, the various Chinese formulas for gunpowder held levels of nitrate in the range of 27% to 50%.[11] By the end of the 12th century, Chinese formulas of gunpowder had a level of nitrate capable of bursting through cast iron metal containers, in the form of the earliest hollow, gunpowder-filled grenade bombs.[12]
In 1280 AD the bomb store of the large gunpowder arsenal at Weiyang had accidentally caught fire, which produced such a massive explosion that a team of Chinese inspectors at the site a week later deduced that some 100 guards had been killed instantly, with wooden beams and pillars blown sky high and landing at a distance of over 10 li (~2 mi. or ~3.2 km) away from the explosion.[13]
By the time of Jiao Yu and his Huo Long Jing in the mid 14th century, the explosive potential of gunpowder was perfected, as the level of nitrate in gunpowder formulas had risen to a range of 12% to 91%,[11] with at least 6 different formulas in use that are considered to have maximum explosive potential for gunpowder.[11] By that time, the Chinese had discovered how to create explosive cannonballs by packing their hollow shells with this nitrate-enhanced gunpowder.[14]
Papermaking
Hemp wrapping paper, China, circa 100 BCMain article: Papermaking
Papermaking has traditionally been traced to China about 105 AD, when Cai Lun, an official attached to the Imperial court during the Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD), created a sheet of paper using mulberry and other bast fibres along with fishnets, old rags, and hemp waste.[15] However a recent archaeological discovery has been reported from near Dunhuang of paper with writing on it dating to 8 BC.[16]
While paper used for wrapping and padding was used in China since the 2nd century BC,[17] Paper used as a writing medium became widespread by the 3rd century,[18] and by the 6th century sheets of paper in China were beginning to be used for toilet paper as well.[19] During the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD) paper was folded and sewn into square bags to preserve the flavor of tea,[17] while the later Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD) was the first government on earth to issue paper-printed money (see banknote).
Printing (Movable Type活版）
The intricate frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra from Tang Dynasty China, 868 AD (British Museum)Main article: History of typography in East Asia
The Chinese invention of Woodblock printing, at some point before the first dated book in 868 (the Diamond Sutra) produced the first print culture in the world: "it was the Chinese who really discovered the means of communication that was to dominate until our age."[20] It was better suited to Chinese characters than movable type, which the Chinese also invented, but which did not replace woodblock printing. Western printing presses, although introduced in the 16th century, took until the 19th to spread in China which, along with Korea,[21] was one of the last countries to adopt them.
Woodblock printing for textiles, on the other hand, preceded text printing by centuries in all cultures, and is first found in China at around 220,[22] then Egypt in the 4th century,[23] and reached Europe by the 14th century or before, via the Islamic world, and by around 1400 was being used on paper for old master prints and playing cards."[24][25] In another analysis Hyatt Mayor states that "a little before 1400 Europeans had enough paper to begin making holy images and playing cards in woodcut. They need not have learned woodcut from the Chinese, because they had been using woodblocks for about 1,000 years to stamp designs on linen."[26]
Printing in China was further advanced by the 11th century, as it was written by the Song Dynasty scientist and statesman Shen Kuo (1031-1095) that the common artisan Bi Sheng (990-1051) invented ceramic movable type printing.[27] Then there were those such as Wang Zhen (fl. 1290-1333) and Hua Sui (1439-1513), the former of whom invented wooden movable type printing in China,[28] the latter of whom invented metal movable type printing in China.[29] Movable type printing was a tedious process if one were to assemble thousands of individual characters for the printing of simply one or a few books, but if used for printing thousands of books, the process was efficient and rapid enough to be successful and highly employed. Indeed, there were many cities in China where movable type printing, in wooden and metal form, was adopted by the enterprises of wealthy local families or large invested industries. Even the Qing Dynasty court sponsored enormous printing projects using movable type printing during the 18th century.
Historical debate
It should be pointed out that Joseph Needham's attribution of the compass, printing and gunpowder to the Chinese may represent an oversimplification: excluding the case of paper, the technologies that left China were comparatively simple and only elsewhere, particularly in Europe, improved to their historical preeminence. For example, dry, liquid-filled and gyrocompass eventually replaced the simple Chinese bowl-and-needle device. Similarly, it was the constant evolution of gunpowder weapons in Europe that led to the rise of the first gunpowder empires.[30]
Also, the printing revolution in the West is generally understood to have started with the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the 1430s.[31][32] Despite it being claimed by some scholars that movable type spread from East Asia to Europe, there is only peripheral evidence for this position. Gutenberg's invention of the printing press can be traced back to European sources and techniques, such as agricultural presses from the Roman age, and textile woodblock printing. However, textile woodblock printing originally came from the East, whether from Egyptian or Asian sources.
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