最伟大的发明 英文
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发布时间：2022-05-04 10:03
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热心网友
时间：2022-06-21 00:21
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Ten Great Inventions of China
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In the last two centuries, new cultural discoveries have nearly rewritten history. It’s been an exciting time, full of adventure and surprises. Around every corner there are new responses to questions we had already imagined answered. And of these breakthroughs, none shines as brightly as the impact of ancient Chinese inventions on modern life. As we explore ten of the greatest inventions and innovations of Ancient China, you may be surprised at their influence on recent technology.
1. Paper. Paper, as we know it, was invented in China around the year 105. After seeing earlier attempts made from silk, bamboo sticks and animal skins, Cai Lun came up with his own idea. After mixing mulberry bark, rags, wheat stalks and other stuff, a pulp formed. This pulp was pressed into sheets and dried, becoming a crude form of paper. Paper was such an important invention that the process of making it was a jealously guarded secret. The secret was safe until the seventh century when the art spread to India.
2. The Printing Press. Before Johann Gutenberg “invented” the printing press in the 1440’s, China created a type of printing press between 206 B.C. and A.D. 45. It was made using stone tablets to create a “rubbing” of famous Buddhist and Confucian texts. Next came block printing in the Sui Dynasty. In block printing, images and words were engraved on wooden boards, smeared with ink and pressed onto sheets of paper. Later, moveable type printing presses were introced. According to the authors of Ancient Inventions, “By A.D. 1000, paged books in the modern style had replaced scrolls – a good 450 years ahead of Gutenberg.”
3. The First Book. Due to the early advent of the printing press, China also claims the first book. In 868, almost six hundred years before the Gutenberg Bible, the earliest known book was printed. By the end of the Tang dynasty, China had bookstores in almost every city.
4. Paper Money. While today you’d rather carry a lot of cash instead of coin, that hasn’t always been the case. The idea of paper currency was first attempted under Emperor Han Wu-Ti (140-87 B.C.) after war had drained the treasury. He issued treasury notes, worth and in exchange for 400,000 copper coins. Instead of paper, the Emperor used the skin of the white stag. But the creature was so rare that the idea soon lost appeal. In the early 800’s, the idea revived to deter highway robbers. In 812, the government was again printing money. By the year 1023, money had an expiration date and was already plagued by inflation and counterfeiting. Nearly six hundred years later paper money headed west, first printed in Sweden in 1601.
5. The Abacus. Well before Texas Instruments, the first calculator was in the works. The abacus dates from around the year 200 B.C. It is a very advanced tool with a simple design. Wood is crafted into a rectangular frame with rods running from base to top. About 2/3’s from the base, a divider crosses the frame, known as the counting bar. On each of the rods are beads. All of the beads above the counting bar equal five. Those below equal one. The rows of rods are read from right to left. The furthest bar to the right holds the one’s place, the next holds the ten’s place, then the hundred’s, and so on. While its design may sound complex, there are some Chinese today so skilled that they can solve difficult math problems faster than someone using a calculator!
6. The Decimal System. In the West, the decimal system appeared quite recently. Its first believed instance was in a Spanish manuscript dated around 976. But, the first true example goes back much further. In China, an inscription dated from the 13th century B.C., “547 days” was written as “five hundred plus four decades plus seven of days.” The Chinese likely created the decimal system because their language depended on characters (like pictures) instead of an alphabet. Each number had its own unique character. Without the decimal system, the Chinese would have had a terrible time memorizing all of these new characters. By using units of ones, tens, hundreds, etc., the Chinese saved time and trouble.
7. The Mechanical Clock. In the year 732, a Buddhist monk and mathematician invented the first mechanical clock. He named it “Water-Driven Spherical Bird’s-Eye-View Map of the Heavens.” Like earlier clocks, water gave it power, but machinery cased the movement. But, after a few years, corrosion and freezing temperatures took their toll. It wasn’t until 1090, when astronomer Su Sung designed his mechanical marvel “Cosmic Engine”, that a more dependable timepiece was made. Created for Emperor Ying Zong, this clock had a tower over 30 feet tall. It housed machinery that, among other things, caused wooden puppets to pop from one of five doors at regular intervals throughout the day. (Much like the modern idea of a Cuckoo clock.) The entire machine was powered by a giant waterwheel. This clock ran until 1126, when it was dismantled by the conquering Tartars and moved to Peking for another several years. The first clock reference in Western history was in 1335, in the church of St. Gothard in Milan.
8. The Planetarium. A planetarium is a big enclosed space that shows the stars and constellations on the inside. Orbitoscope was the name of the first projection planetarium. It was built in Basil in 1912 by Professor E. Hinderman. But, once again, China is the mother of this invention. The first planetarium is attributed to the design of an early emperor. As one source states, an astronomer named Jamaluddin created a planetarium ring the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), along with a perpetual calendar and other important astronomical devices.
9. The Earthquake Sensor. The earliest earthquake sensor was also an interesting piece of art. It was a bronze cylinder about 8 feet around, with 8 dragons perched above 8 open-mouthed frogs. In the mouth of each dragon rested a bronze ball. When an earthquake struck, a penlum inside the cylinder would swing. It knocked the ball from the mouth of the dragon and down into the frog’s mouth. That frog’s back was then facing the direction of the center of the quake. Chang Heng invented it in A.D. 132 (ring the Han Dynasty), almost 600 years before the first western sensor was made in France. Later, in 1939, Imamura Akitsune recreated the invention and actually proved it effective.
10. The Helicopter Rotor & Propeller. While the Ancient Chinese didn’t actually invent the helicopter, they were involved in its creation. In the 4th century A.D., they invented a toy called the “Bamboo Dragonfly”. You’ve probably seen them as prizes at local fairs or carnivals. It was a toy top, with a base like a pencil and a small helicopter-like blade at the end. The top was wrapped with a cord. When you pulled the cord, the blade would spin around and soar into the air. This toy was studied by Sir George Cayley in 1809 and played a role in the birth of modern aviation. It wasn’t until the early 1900’s that the first helicopter took flight.
热心网友
时间：2022-06-21 00:21
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 ring 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 proceres 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 indivial 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) ring 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.
热心网友
时间：2022-06-21 00:21
Human history is a history of inventions. Inventions serve as a ladder for civilization as well as for the evolution of man. The most interesting among the numerous inventions is the wheel, for no other invention as seemingly inconspicuous as this has turned out to be so significant to our lives.
The fundamental contribution of the wheel is that it makes us travel much faster than ever. When people found that a wheel helped overcome friction, they first fixed it onto a cart and then onto a car or train and early this century onto a plane. Since the invention of wheel, our means of transportation has changed entirely. Thus, the wheel hastened the development of human society.
The significance of this invention is not limited to transportation; it has become an indispensable part of our lives. We use it as a necessary part in our watch, clock, electric fan, sewing machine and indeed machines of all kinds. It is safe to say that life would become difficult without the wheel.
Small and insignificant as it is, the wheel weights heavily in human history and in the progress of society and mankind.
