During the Song and Qing Dynasties (104 1- 1048), Bi Sheng invented engraving on clay, one word at a time, which became movable type after being hardened by fire. Before typesetting, coat a layer of turpentine wax mixed with paper ash on the iron plate with iron frame, arrange movable type on it in turn, heat it to make the wax slightly melt, flatten it with a flat plate, and cool it to fix the clay type on the iron plate, so that it can be printed like a block;
In addition, he also tried wood movable type typesetting, but it was not adopted because of unevenness; Movable type can be used many times, which is more economical and convenient than block printing. Bi Sheng's movable type was later collected by the public in Shen Kuo.
Bi Sheng's movable-type raw material "mud" refers to clay used for firing pottery. After the movable type is made, it is fired in a pottery kiln, and the fired movable type is hard and smooth.
Second, Cai Lun has improved its papermaking technology.
Cai Lun served as an official order to supervise the production of palace supplies. It is believed that it was from this time that Cai Lun began to get in touch with the best handicrafts in the Eastern Han Dynasty and improved the papermaking technology at that time. According to "Biography of Officials in the Later Han Dynasty", books and documents have been written with bamboo slips since ancient times, and then soft silk appeared, but the cost of making paper with silk is very high.
Bamboo slips are huge, so Cai Lun wants to make technological innovation and use cheap things such as bark, rags, hemp heads and fishing nets to make paper, which greatly reduces the cost of paper making and prepares the conditions for the popularization of paper.
In the first year of Yuan Xing in Han Dynasty (105), Cai Lun reported to the emperor the achievements of improving papermaking. The emperor appreciated Cai Lun's talent very much, and promoted the improved papermaking technology to various places. In the first year of Emperor Xing of the Han and Yuan Dynasties (1 14), the court named Cai Lun Longtinghou, so people later called the paper "Cai Hou Paper".
Later I became a servant of Changle. In the fourth year of Yuan Dynasty (1 17), Emperor Han 'an selected scholars to sort out documents and let Cai Lun supervise.
At the same time, Cai Lun also designed crossbows and swords. At that time, they were known as Cai Taifu's crossbows and Long Ting's swords, which were famous all over the world.
Third, Mozi
He made great contributions in mechanics, geometry, algebra, optics and so on, which were beyond the reach of philosophers at that time. Mo Jing elaborated the concept of force and the principle of moment in classical mechanics, and put forward the definitions of "force", "motion" and "stop". Regarding the lever principle, the concepts of "weight", "weight" (force), "weighing head" (heavy arm) and "weighing tail" (force arm) are also put forward.
Mo Jing put forward the concepts of "end", "ruler", "area" and "hole", which are roughly equivalent to points, lines, surfaces and bodies in modern geometry. Mozi and his students did the earliest pinhole imaging experiment in the world and knew the straight-line propagation of light at that time. He also put forward the rudiment of "particle theory" and discussed "end", pointing out that "end" does not occupy space and is the smallest unit of an object that can not be divided.
Mozi's scientific achievements have been praised by many scholars at home and abroad. Cai Yuanpei thinks: "Mozi is the only scholar in the pre-Qin period." To pay tribute to Mozi's outstanding achievements in optics, China named the world's first quantum science experimental satellite "Mozi".
Fourth, the stone god.
After the Western Han Dynasty, Astronomy was honored as the Astrology of History, but the original work has been lost. Some fragments about the five-star movement, solar eclipse and stars are quoted in Historical Records, Tianguanshu and Hanshu Tianwenzhi, and there are also a lot of excerpts in Zhan Jing in the Tang Dynasty compiled by Qu Tansida, an astronomer in the Tang Dynasty.
The greatest contribution of Stone God to astronomy is that he and Gander measured and accurately recorded the positions of stars near the ecliptic and their distances from the North Pole. Stone god also found that solar eclipse and lunar eclipse are phenomena that celestial bodies cover up each other.
Among the works of stone gods preserved by Zhan Jing in Kaiyuan, the most important one is the coordinate position of 12 1 catalog marked "Stone October", which is the second earliest catalog in the world, second only to the Babylonian catalog, and about a hundred years earlier than the first catalog compiled by the Greek astronomer Ibagu.
Modern astronomers have verified according to the astronomical calculations of different times, and calculated according to these coordinates considering the influence of precession, which proves that most coordinate values were indeed measured during the Warring States period.
Today, we can get a glimpse of Shi Shen's research on astronomical phenomena through the fragments of his works quoted in Tian Han Wen Zhi: "Old Katsu Hoshi was in the southeast," Shi Shi saw comets "... better than the northeast, and" Shishi saw stars "; ..... shrink the western market, "history" "see, like cattle"; ..... Shrinking to the northwest, "Stone" "sees a gun cloud as a gun, a comet with a pointed head like a horse".
"Shi Shi" "Guns, sandalwood, temples and coma are different, and one of them is also a curse." There will be a country that breaks the monarch's chaos, and the rest will be endless, that is, drought, fierceness, hunger and disease. "
Shi Shen and Gander made astronomical observations in their own countries and published their own works in the world. Stone God's works are called astronomy, and Gander's works are called astronomy, both of which are eight volumes. The achievements of Shi Shen and Gan De had a great influence in the Warring States, Qin and Han Dynasties, and gradually formed two parallel schools of thought: Shi School and Gan School.
5. Zhang Heng invented the seismograph.
/kloc-in 0/32, Zhang Heng invented and manufactured the world's first seismograph "Houfeng seismograph", which was shaped like a round wine jar with a cross-sectional diameter of eight feet. There is a heavy column in the center of it, called "single column", which can tilt or swing in eight directions.
There are faucets in eight directions outside the wine jar, and there is a toad under the faucet. The mouths of the eight dragons are facing the faucet, and each mouth contains a copper pill. When the pillar leans in one direction, the longkou in that direction opens and the copper pill falls into the toad's mouth. When an earthquake occurs, we can only know the direction of the earthquake by opening the faucet in the direction of the source.
Ye Fan's Book of the Later Han Dynasty records that the seismograph was placed in Luoyang, and an earthquake occurred in Longxi on 134 12 13. There was no vibration in Luoyang at that time, but a copper pill fell out of a longkou, and then the news of the Longxi earthquake came, confirming its effectiveness in detecting the direction of the earthquake.
The so-called "waiting wind" of seismograph refers to measuring the change of wind. It is believed that the formation of earthquakes is due to the fighting between Yin and Yang, and the change of qi will produce wind. Where there is an earthquake, there is a change of gas in which direction, and there is a measurable wind. The seismograph after the wind spread to the Sui Dynasty, and was studied in Xindufang in the Northern Dynasty and Lin in the Sui Dynasty, but it was lost in the Tang Dynasty.