Chapter energy and technology the enhancement of skin

5.3.Transmission of knowledge: writing and replication

The story of language, writing, paper and – finally – printing needs to be introduced at this point. Some would argue that the invention and development of spoken language was the crucial difference between our species and the other great apes. Transmission between generations did occur, partly by means of explicit training father-to-son, mother–to-daughter in techniques pertaining to everyday life. Fathers taught their sons how to use weapons and tools, and how to tame and train animals. Mothers taught their daughters domestic skills and medicine. Community history was passed on in songs, legends and ceremonies. But this mode of knowledge transmission was limited.

Modern historians are inclined to think that written language was the most important of all inventions because it greatly enhanced the transmission and accumulation of knowledge. But writing itself took a long time to evolve. The earliest hieroglyphs on stone may have been records of the storage of crops, or other day-to-day housekeeping, but ceremonial purposes, especially the burials of kings, came soon after (if not before). More recently, inscriptions on stone, such as the Rosetta stone, now in the British Museum, were used to transmit royal decrees.¹ Most such inscriptions were in the form of hieroglyphics or pictograms.

There is no need for me to recapitulate the history of written language (fascinating though it is) except perhaps to note that the Greek alphabet was an enormous leap forward. Countries, notably China, Korea and Japan, relying on pictographic characters have run into difficulties in adapting it to express abstract scientific ideas and to educate large numbers of people capable of communicating such ideas. The idea of an alphabet (a word constructed from the first two Greek letters) was revolutionary, because all words are constructed from a few characters (26 letters in the current version).

Similarly, the Hindu-Arabic notation for numerals (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9)– and especially the zero and expression of large numbers ten in powers of ten – have turned out to be a revolutionary improvement over so-called “Roman” numerals for arithmetic and mathematics. Can you imagine how to subtract DXXXIII (533) from MCDXLII (1492)? It is no wonder that keeping track of money, not to mention other things, was a very rare skill in Europe until the Arabic notation arrived. Pope Sylvester II, whose previous name was Gerbert of Aurillac, had studied in Barcelona (then under Arab domination) and had learned about the Arabic numbering system. As Pope in the 980’s he promoted its use, primarily by the clergy. Later, Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa, who studied in Algeria as a boy, did even more to promote the use of Arabic numbers, with his book Liber Abaci (1202). By the 15^th century the Arabic numerals were widely used. After 1450, the printing press did the rest.

Accumulation and communication of facts and ideas also requires a storage medium. The earliest examples were inscriptions on stones (such as the famous Rosetta stone). But, apart from the labor intensiveness of writing on stone, storage and transmission limits soon dictated another solution. Papyrus (made from the pith of a wetland sedge plant) and parchment (from sheepskin) were the first – very costly – solutions, going back about 5000 years (Egypt).

Paper made from wood-pulp was the next. It was the first industrial material to be made in large quantities according to a recipe.² The “inventor” according to Chinese history was Cai Dun, an official of the Han dynasty who offered his recipe, based on crushed mulberry wood, to the emperor in 105 CE. (However recent discoveries in China suggest that paper of some sort existed at least 100 years earlier.) Paper came to Europe via the “Silk Road”, possibly thanks to Marco Polo, and was adapted first by the Muslims in Spain. The first paper mill in Europe was built in Leiria, Portugal (1411). The first in England was built in 1490.

Printing by spreading ink over carved wood-blocks was first done in China, also during the Han dynasty (100 CE), about the same time that paper was “invented” there. This set the stage for printing of books. But the first known printed book, a Buddhist Sutra, was dated 868 CE, 750 years after the prerequisites became available. Printing by means of movable (carved wooden) types was first done by Bi Sheng, in China (about 1000 CE). The first printer to use movable type made from metal (lead) castings was a nameless Korean (c. 1375 CE).

But the Oriental printers were still dependent on pictographic characters. Around 1450 Johannes Gutenberg used the Greco-Roman alphabet to form words and added some other inventions of his own. Together, his innovations made printing (replication) of books into a large-scale business. Gutenberg’s own press could print 3000 pages per working day, and popular authors like Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus sold hundreds of thousands of copies of their books. The Bible, in various languages, was the major best-seller, of course. Printing on paper cut the cost of books enormously. It is not unreasonable to suggest that it kicked off the Protestant Reformation. Obviously Martin Luther’s “Ninety-five theses” (in Latin) was not only nailed to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg; it was printed on paper and widely distributed to the other universities, and cities, especially in Paris. The new technology of the printing press enabled many people other than ecclesiastics, to debate the issues. The Bible was rapidly translated into the vernacular languages. Martin Luther himself was the first to translate it into German.

The lack of standardization of materials was certainly true for wood, ceramics and “pigs” of lead, tin, copper or iron. The latter had to be further treated by rolling, stamping, hammering (forging) or some other way. The first to (partially) solve the problem for a mechanical product, it seems, was an Italian gunsmith named Bartolomeo Beretta. He filled an order for 500 arquebus (musket) barrels for the Venetian armory in 1526 CE. (The Beretta firm is still family owned, but is now producing pistols, rifles, shotguns and other things in the millions.) Evidently, the technology of “widget” manufacturing, even three hundred years later, was still very primitive, due to what has been called the “complexity-variety barrier”. The more complex the product the more design variants there can be.