Ancient Chinese Inventions

China has been the source of modern technology. For over a thousand of years, ancient Chinese people are regarded as one of the developed civilizations. We are still using the inventions ancient Chinese people created. Mathematics, warfare, transportation are the things to name a few of the fields where Chinese excelled. Many of these treasured inventions were taken back by the Europeans.

Fields of Chinese Inventions

Engineering
In this field is where the steel and iron were developed. 1200 years before the Europeans used the blast furnace, obtained cast iron from iron ore were already been developed by the Chinese folks by 4th century. In the 2nd century BC, refining iron into steel had already been developed by the Chinese; in contrast to the popular belief that Henry Bessemer discovered the process of refining iron to steel. A superior weapon with a strong edge was created by welding strong steel with weaker iron.

Chain pump was invented by the Chinese in the 1st century BC; this device allows water to be pumped from lower to higher elevations. This is also used for irrigations that are needed in farming. In Europe, the first chain pump appeared in the 16th century.

Around 1st century AD, the Chinese developed a drilling method to drill boreholes up to 48000 feet. Deep drilling was then used to find natural gas. Mechanical Clocks was then invented in China in the 8th century AD. The Chinese people invented this technology in conjunction to astrology as the Emperors were regarded as cosmic figures.

Domestic and Industrial Technology
One of the most recognized invention of the Chinese is the paper around 2nd century BC. Primarily, paper was used as clothing; it was when the materials used for were tough and thick paper fibres. But paper was not only clothing, but as an armour as well. Penetration of arrows could be stopped on pleated papers. Around a century after the invention of the paper, its writing property had been discovered. An earlier example of paper with characters written on in was found on an abandoned military post around 110AD.

Matches were another invention of the Chinese. Impoverished court ladies invented the first version of matches around 577AD during a military siege in the short lived Northern Ch’i kingdom. The early versions of matches were sulphur-made. There was no evidence that matches appeared in Europe before 1530. It could have been that Europeans who used to travel brought early matches to Europe.

Pi Sheng invented between 1041 and 1048 invented a movable type. In the West, they believed that Johann Gutenberg invented a movable type. Paper money was invented in the 9th century AD. Silk notes had been introduced by the Mongols. The deposits for these silk notes are bundle of silk yarns.

Agriculture
Winnowing is the separation of husks and stalks from the grains after they had been harvested. Rotary Winnowing fan had been invented around 2nd century BC. Iron Plough had been promoted by Chinese government officials around 4th century BC. Strong, heavy, square framed, and sturdy with adjustable strut regulates the ploughing’s depth. Growing of crops in rows was a Chinese invention, too. If plants were grown in rows, they have a tendency to mature rapidly. Chinese had been doing this 2200 advance over the Westerners.

Warfare
With every available substance such as saltpetre, sulphur, and carbon that make Gunpowder, the alchemist must have mixed the three together and they stumbled upon making gunpowder. The formula for creating gunpowder was released in 1040 by Tseng Kung-Liang. As we all assume, Flame-thrower, a device that can continuously emit flame, was not invented around 20th century. Chinese people invented it around 10th century AD. The first use of this device was around 904 AD on a naval battle at the Yangtze River. Almost 150,000 soldiers were caught by the flame it blew.

Chinese Bomb was used around 17th century to precipitate rain. The fuse is saturated in gunpowder; the gunpowder would be wrapped in paper; and sealed it with wax. Rocket Launcher – a multi-stage one, was used in naval battle around 14th century. The second-stage rocket would then be lit when the rocket head’s burnt out. In a flat trajectory, it can fly around three to four feet above the water, for a mile. This rocket launcher was the predecessor of the surface skimming naval rocket Launcher.

Mathematics
We believed that Blaise Pascal invented the "Pascal Triangle" in 1654. But no, this was an invention of the Chinese. The original was then called Precious Mirror of the Four Elements that said to be created by Chu Shih Chieh that had been published in 1303. He also called his invention "The Tabulation system for unlocking binomial coefficients."

Pi is used to compute the volume of a sphere and area of a circle. After the introduction of the value of pi in three decimal places by Archimedes, and Ptolemy computed for four decimal places, no advancement for accuracy was achieved in the Western world. Liu Hui, after inscribing a polygon with 192 sides in a circle, thus calculated a value of pi as 3.14159. But in the 5th century AD, the father and son tandem of Tsu Chung-Chih and Tsu Keng-Chih came up to obtain the most accurate value of pi which is 3.1415929203. The calculation of pi by Adriaen Anthoniszoon only gave 3.14929, approximately extending only to seven places – three digits short to that of the Tsu family.

The use of Abacus for calculation was made of beads inserted in a rod. This is an early version of calculator. Chinese folks invented abacus around 2nd century BC.