Great Chinese Inventions Essay, Research Paper

The World is forever in debt to China for its innovations.

Ancient China was extreme advance and many of its discoveries are

still in use today. This is what Robert Temple, the author of The

Genius of China 3000 years of science, discovery and invention. The

book is based on 11 main parts of Chinese innovation. Within these 11

categories, there are 3 main parts that contain the most significant

inventions. Robert Temple concentrates the bulk of his examples in

these three categories, agriculture, domestic and industrial

technology , and engineering. Temple?s examples were not limited

to these fields of innovation. The Chinese excelled in many other

areas, including mathematics, warfare and transportation, to name a

few. Although Temple wrote about eleven fields of invention, I feel

that these three sections contain the greatest examples of Chinese

innovation, and the debt that the modern world owes China.

The first main area is the field of engineering. Within this

chapter, the development of iron and steel is the greatest

achievement. The development of iron and steel led to other advances.

By at least the 4th century the Chinese have developed blast furnaces

to obtain cast iron from iron ore. This was 1200 years before the

first blast furnace showed up in Europe. The reasons that the author

gave to explain the reasons why the Chinese developed this technology

are simple. The Chinese had access to large amounts of clay, the key

ingredient in making blast furnaces. The Chinese also figured out

that by adding a substance they called ?Black Earth,? they could lower

the melting point of iron.

Another major invention of the Chinese, that led to other

achievements, is steel. The common belief today is that Henry Bessemer

discovered the process of refining iron into steel. The fact is

Chinese had developed the process to refine iron into steel in the

second century BC The Chinese learned that by injecting oxygen into

the blast furnace, they could remove the carbon from the iron. The

Chinese called this process the ?hundred refinings method? since they

repeated the process that many times. The finished product was highly

prized in China for its strength and ability to hold an edge on a

sword. The Chinese would weld the steel onto weaker iron thus creating

a strong edge and a superior weapon. The Chinese iron and steel

workers were the best at making different types of metals into modern

times. But then, no one else could have done so at the time, since

iron existed nowhere else but in China.

The Chinese invented the chain pump in the first century AD The

chain pump allows water to the pumped from lower to higher elevations.

The chain pumps were used for draining and pumping in civil

engineering, but what is more important is it was used for irrigation.

Irrigation allows for greater and more intense farming, thus resulting

in a better crop yield. With the greater crop yields larger

populations can be supported. The chain pump was exported to all parts

of the world by way of visiting ambassadors and dignitaries. The first

European chain pump appeared in the sixteenth century, and was a

direct copy of the Chinese version. The second area of great Chinese

achievement is in domestic and industrial technology. The most

recognized Chinese invention is in the field of domestic and

industrial technology, paper. Paper was invented around the second

century BC and was used as clothing. One might not believe that paper

could be used as clothing, but the paper made at that time used

thicker and tougher paper fibers. Not only was paper used for

clothing, it was also used for military body armor. The Chinese found

out that pleated sheets of paper could stop the penetration of arrows.

The paper armor was standard issue with Chinese land and sea units.

Paper?s writing property was not discovered till about one century

after its discovery. The earliest example of writing on paper was

found an abandon military post. The paper found dates back to 110 AD

and contained two dozen readable characters.

The area that let China grow and expand was the innovations in

the area of agriculture. The greatest achievement in the field of

agriculture is row cultivation and intensive hoeing. In Europe, as

with the rest of the world, they practiced scatter seed farming.

Scatter seed farming is the practice of throwing the seed onto the

fields at random. By throwing the seed randomly, half the seeds would

not grow and make it impossible to weed the field. The Chinese on the

other hand, planted individual seeds and rows, thus reducing seed

loss. The planting of crops in rows also allowed for intensive

hoeing, which in turn reduce weeds. Another major advancement in the

field of agriculture is the seed drill. The seed drill complements the

row farming of the Chinese. The seed drill is a device that plants the

seed into the ground. It replaces the farmer to plant the seeds by

hand, thus allowing the farmer to plant more acreage. The first seed

drill was introduced to Europe in sixteenth century, 3500 years after

the Chinese had invented it.

In conclusion, I believe that the author has proved his original

idea, that the modern world is in debt to China. The author has given

many examples of Chinese innovation and intelligence that are seen in

use today. Chinese innovation in agriculture has not only allowed the

Chinese to grow, it has also allowed the modern world to grow.

The growth of these other countries is directly linked to the

inventions that they copied from the Chinese. Many of the Chinese

engineering feats are still practiced today. The process of refining

iron into steel is still used today, though the process has been

refined. The suspension bridge, invented by the Chinese in the first

century AD, is still the bridge of choice when one has to span a great

distance. The greatest area of Chinese invention is in agriculture.

The Chinese excelled in farming, not only did they discover the seed

drill, they discovered row farming that is still used today.

I would recommend this book with one wants to read about the past

glory of China and the huge potentional of the future. It gave

in-depth views into each Chinese invention, while not over doing the

techical explaination. The Author is clear and concise on his point,

the modern world is in debt to the Chinese. He gave many examples of

Chinese invoation, and how the rest of the world copied the Chinese.

Not did the rest of the world copy Chinese inventions, they claimed

that they were the first to invent it. The author opened my eyes to

the greatness of anicent China. What the author, Robert Temple, did do

gave me even more reason to respect China.

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Bibliogrpahy

Temple, Robert. “The Genius of China 3000 years of Science, discovery,

and invention”