Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Four Great Inventions. The intricate frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra from Tang dynasty China, 868 AD (British Library) The "Four Great Inventions" (simplified Chinese: 四大发明; traditional Chinese: 四大發明; pinyin: sì dà fāmíng) are the compass, gunpowder, papermaking and printing. Paper and printing were developed first.
The Chinese invention of woodblock printing, at some point before the first dated book in 868 (the Diamond Sutra), produced the world's first print culture. According to A. Hyatt Mayor , curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art , "it was the Chinese who really invented the means of communication that was to dominate until our age."
This sub-section is about paper making; for the writing material first used in ancient Egypt, see papyrus.. Paper: Although it is recorded that the Han dynasty (202 BC – AD 220) court eunuch Cai Lun (50 AD – AD 121) invented the pulp papermaking process and established the use of new materials used in making paper, ancient padding and wrapping paper artifacts dating from the 2nd century BC ...
Until the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912), China was a world leader in technology and scientific discovery. Many Chinese inventions — paper and printing, gunpowder, porcelain, the magnetic compass, the sternpost rudder, and the lift lock for canals — made major contributions to economic growth in the Middle East and Europe.
Original title. Science and Civilisation in China. Science and Civilisation in China (1954–present) is an ongoing series of books about the history of science and technology in China published by Cambridge University Press. It was initiated and edited by British historian Joseph Needham (1900–1995). Needham was a well-respected scientist ...
Aside from many original inventions, the Chinese were also early original pioneers in the discovery of natural phenomena which can be found in the human body, the environment of the world, and the immediate Solar System. They also discovered many concepts in mathematics. The list below contains discoveries which found their origins in China.
The history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife. Chinese civilization first emerged in the Yellow River valley, which along with the Yangtze basin constitutes the geographic core of the Chinese ...
Overview of Chinese history. The recording of events in Chinese history dates back to the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC). Many written examples survive of ceremonial inscriptions, divinations and records of family names, which were carved or painted onto tortoise shell or bones. [1][2] The uniformly religious context of Shang written records ...