Paper--China's greatest invention

Today, when we talk about China, it is usually about its power over global economy. However, what must never be forgotten is China’s immense influence on the history of civilization. Our world would not be what it is today without The Four Great Inventions of China—the Compass, Gunpowder, the Printing press, and the most important: Paper. Paper, which lead to the invention of printing, is responsible for one of the greatest paradigm shifts in human history. 

Although, before paper was invented, the Chinese had bamboo scrolls and Europe had parchment, but these were heavy and scarcely available. However, while different types of pulp paper existed in China since 2^nd century BCE, they were mostly used for packaging, shoes and hats. It was during the 3rd Century Han dynasty, that Cai Lun, an official of the imperial court, made paper a popular medium for recording. He added critical new ingredients, and designed a paper making process that made denser durable sheets—Ideal for writing and drawing. Although his motivation was so that he wouldn’t have to carry armfuls of heavy bamboo scrolls whenever he needed to find or record information. What it led to was a major paradigm shift. Bamboo scrolls were not only heavy, but had to be handcraft piece by piece. With Cai Lun’s paper mill (in image above), written records became cheep and available. A known fact in the study of the history of technology states that ‘the invention of technology inevitably leads to new inventions in response’—Paper inevitably lead to the Printing Press. This technology makes it possible to send accurate messages across long distances, record complex processes, propaganda, convey secret admiration, and most importantly industrialized the spread of information.

Hello everyone, I am Nikki Meng Qi Zhang, in 3^rd year Architecture. I was originally going to blog about origami, but as I researched, I realized that one cannot talk about origami (or anything really) without first talking about paper. This film of pulp gave birth to our era of mass information exchange. Imagine how Newton could have found the gravitational constant of the universe if he did not have notepaper! Are you not fascinated by this material as well?