Science and Technology in China - Four Great Inventions

Four Great Inventions

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. Printing was recorded in China in the Tang Dynasty, although the earliest surviving examples of printed cloth patterns date to before 220. Pin-pointing the development of the compass can be difficult: the magnetic attraction of a needle is attested by the Louen-heng, composed between AD 20 and 100, although the first undisputed magnetized needles in Chinese literature appear in 1086.

By AD 300, Ge Hong, an alchemist of the Jin Dynasty, conclusively recorded the chemical reactions caused when saltpetre, pine resin and charcoal were heated together, in Book of the Master of the Preservations of Solidarity. Another early record of gunpowder, a Chinese book from c. 850 AD, indicates:

"Some have heated together sulfur, realgar and saltpeter with honey; smoke and flames result, so that their hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house where they were working burned down."

These four discoveries had an enormous impact on the development of Chinese civilization and a far-ranging global impact. Gunpowder, for example, spread to the Arabs in the 13th century and thence to Europe. According to English philosopher Francis Bacon, writing in Novum Organum:

Printing, gunpowder and the compass: These three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, the second in warfare, the third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, in so much that no empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human affairs than these mechanical discoveries. —

One of the most important military treatises of all Chinese history was the Huo Long Jing written by Jiao Yu in the 14th century. For gunpowder weapons, it outlined the use of fire arrows and rockets, fire lances and firearms, land mines and naval mines, bombards and cannons, along with different compositions of gunpowder, including 'magic gunpowder', 'poisonous gunpowder', and 'blinding and burning gunpowder' (refer to his article).

For the 11th century invention of ceramic movable type printing by Bi Sheng (990-1051), it was enhanced by the wooden movable type of Wang Zhen in 1298 and the bronze metal movable type of Hua Sui in 1490.