Inventions
Did you know, many of the simple things you use or eat were invented by the Chinese. Although the Chinese invented many things, there were four great inventions. They include gunpowder, paper, printing press and the compass.
Paper
China was the first country in the world to make proper paper. The first form of paper was invented in the Sha Xi province around 202 BC - 16 AD. However, this paper was very expensive, since it was made from silk, and only the royal could afford it. Then Cai Lun, a high ranking official used the knowledge of the previous type of paper and invented another, cheaper paper made of plant fibres. This important invention led to the invention of the printing press a few year later.
Printing Press
Before the printing press was invented, the author would have to hand write every word into the book. It was a very painstaking task. The first form of the printing press though was not much easier. It involved the need of the author to cut the characters latearlly revirsed onto a wooden board. They then painted the board and lastly printed it onto paper. However, the boards could only be used once for different authors printed their books with different content. In 1040, Bi Sheng invented another, more efficient form of the printing press. He used lime cement as material and cut them into square blocks. He then carved the characters onto the cubes latterly revised The difference is that in Bi's invention, the blocks could be arranged to the author's needs. This created the rudiment for printing today.
Gunpowder
Gun powder was invented in the 9th century as a weapon of warfare. The invention of gun powder was quite an accident. The Chinese alchemists were trying to find a portion for immortality and ended up with the deadly gun powder. At first, when the Chinese learnt that this new invention exploded, they used it for fireworks. It wasn't until after the Tang Dynasty (618-907), gunpowder was used as a weapon for fighting, as it was already used in simple hand-grenades which were thrown by a catapult. However, the main purpose of this was to scare the attackers before the war. This early form of gunpowder consisted of potassium nitrate, common charcoal, and sulphur . The first weapon of warfare that involved gunpowder was the cannon.
Compass
The first form of the compass looked nothing like the ones today. It consisted of a piece of load stone carved into the shape of a spoon, a round flat surface and a magnetic pull. The spoon shaped stone was balanced on the surface and rotated according to the magnetic pull. However, these compasses were not very accurate due to the fact that a load stone that met the right requirements were very hard to find. were very hard to find and the fact that the intense heat used to carve the stone will affect the magnetic force of the load stone.