~Why was paper invented? ~
Since people started to write, they also started to come up with something to write on, for the longest time they used something call papyrus or parchment. But papyrus is rock like, so they made something easier to write on and its call paper. Paper was not just easier to write on, it’s also a lot cheaper to make but it took 3000 years to come up with paper. Paper was developed around 100 BC in china. The first paper making company was named Ts’ai lun.
Ts’ai lun made his paper by mixing finely chopped mulberry bark and hemp rag with water, later more people started to use paper, first the Europeans started to use it, then in 1338 the French start to make their own paper and by 1411 nearly a thousand and a half years after it was invented about two countries had been using paper. Then A few years later, Germany began to produce their own paper, when Germany started to learn how to make paper, they got more interested in Chinese hobbies like painting.
~What was invented next? ~
Between 1oo1 and 1100 or the 11th Century, huo Yao or gunpowder was discovered. Unlike paper the making of gunpowder was accidental. It was first discovered by an alchemist, while making some elixir of immorality. It was a mixture of Sulphur, saltpeter, and charcoal. For a long time gunpowder was only use for entertainment, with fireworks, but the military potential was soon exploited. The formula for gunpowder reached the Arab world in the 12th Century and Europe in the 14th century.
The earliest people have known of a cannon is dating back to 1127. Found in China, the time of the changeover from the Northern Song to the Southern Song Dynasty. But this was about 150 years earlier than the cannon were actually developed in the west. The people also used gunpowder to make fire lances, or flamethrowers. By the end of the Song Dynasty the Chinese had invented multi-stage rockets.
The invention of gunpowder is usually attributed to Chinese alchemy, but is popularly listed as one of the "Four Great Inventions" of China. It was invented during the Tang Dynasty (9th century), and the earliest record of a written formula appeared in the Song Dynasty (11th century).
So how did gunpowder move from East to West? Although the Song Dynasty was not particularly strong, its invention of gunpowder enabled the Chinese to repel the Mongols for decades. But eventually the Mongols were able to capture Chinese gunpowder makers and turn gunpowder back on the Chinese. The Chinese experts were employed in the Mongol army, and as the Mongols expanded their empire gunpowder went with them.
It At the end of the Tang Dynasty, gunpowder was being used in military affairs. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, frequent wars spurred the development of cannons, and fire-arrows shot from bamboo tubes.
In the 12th and 13th centuries, gunpowder spread to the Arab countries, then Greece, other European countries, and finally all over the world.
~The compass ~
Compasses we use them today, but why were they made? They were made when the warring states period was going on, so a device called a Si Nan became the forerunner of the compass. A si Nan was a ladle-like magnet on a plate with the handle of the ladle pointing to the south. But there is something missing. The red pointer or the tiny needles made of magnetized steel.
The compass greatly improved a ship's ability to navigate over long distances. It was not until the beginning of the 14th century that compass was introduced to Europe from China. . Compasses were originally developed for aligning buildings with directions (north, south, east or west), and as a tool used in fortune telling. The Ancient Chinese compass was made from iron oxide, a mineral ore. Iron oxide is also known as lodestone and magenta.
Some of the most popular style of the first Chinese compass used a lodestone, Which automatically points to the south. The lodestone was carved into the shape of a spoon. The spoon was placed on a flat plate of bronze. As the bronze plate was moved, the lodestone spun around and came to a stop in a north-to-south orientation with the handle pointing to the south. Another style of compass was made by placing an iron needle that had been rubbed with a lodestone on a piece of wood and floating the wood in a bowl of water. The water allowed the wood to move or spin around until the iron oxide needle was pointing south. Earliest records show a spoon shaped compass made of lodestone or magnetite ore, referred to as a "South-pointer" dating back to sometime during the Han Dynasty.
~My argument~