Original Development
The prevailing academic consensus is that gunpowder was formulated in the 9th century by Chinese alchemists searching for an elixir of immortality. By the time the Song Dynasty treatise, Wujing Zongyao (武经总要), was written by Zeng Gongliang and Yang Weide in AD 1044, the various Chinese formulas for gunpowder held levels of nitrate in the range of 27% to 50%. By the end of the 12th century, Chinese formulas of gunpowder had a level of nitrate capable of bursting through cast iron metal containers, in the form of the earliest hollow, gunpowder-filled grenade bombs.
-
Formula for gunpowder in 1044 Wujing zongyao part I vol 12
-
Instruction for fire bomb in Wujing zongyao
-
Fire grenade
-
Fire birds
- 武经总要 火球图.jp fire bomb
Read more about this topic: History Of Gunpowder
Famous quotes containing the words original and/or development:
“The Jew is neither a newcomer nor an alien in this country or on this continent; his Americanism is as original and ancient as that of any race or people with the exception of the American Indian and other aborigines. He came in the caravels of Columbus, and he knocked at the gates of New Amsterdam only thirty-five years after the Pilgrim Fathers stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock.”
—Oscar Solomon Straus (1850–1926)
“Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity, quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace.”
—Benito Mussolini (1883–1945)