which of these practical inventions did han scientists devise

When a commoner named Liu Bang became the first-year Saturnia pavonia of the Han Dynasty in 206 B.C., it was the start of a period of more than 400 long time that was marked aside advances in everything from record-keeping to agriculture to health care.

"There were major inventions and developments in science and engineering science," Robin D.S. Yates, the James McGill Professor in the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University in Montreal, explains. "As with all inventions, some of these lonesome came into their own in later, sometimes much later times."

Here are a few of the biggest breakthroughs of the Han Dynasty.

The Invention of Paper

The production of report.

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The earliest scrap of paper still in existence, a crude material made mostly from hemp fiber found in a grave in Red China in 1957, dates back to sometime between 140 and 87 B.C. But Cai Lun, a eunuch in the Han court in 105 A.D., is credited arsenic the discoverer of the first really high-quality writing paper, which atomic number 2 intentional by crushing and combine tree bark, hangman's halter, linen rags, and scraps from fishing nets and then treating the mixture with lye to break it down into finer fibers, according to Li Shi's Bible The History of Science and Technology in the Qin and Han dynasty Dynasty.

"Body documents continued to be written happening boards of wood and slips of bamboo for different centuries—they preserved better, mayhap," Yates explains. But aft the break down of the dynasty, Cai Lun's improved paper came into its ain.

The Suspension Bridge

An undated photograph of a Chinese built suspension bridge, with boats docked at a pier in foreground, in the Sichuan Province, Mainland China.

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According to Robert Temple's extremely-regarded history of Chinese inventions, The Genius of Republic of China , the Han Dynasty saw the development of the suspension bridge, a flat roadway suspended from cables, which credibly evolved from simple rope bridges formulated to span small gorges. Simply by 90 A.D., Han engineers were building more sophisticated structures with wooden planks.

Deep Drilling

Han Dynasty salt miners in the First C B.C. were the first to build derricks and use cast iron drill bits to dig holes as thick as 4,800 feet into the Earth in research of brine, which they would extract from below with tubes, according to Temple's record book. The technique they developed was the herald of modern oil colour and brag exploration.

The Wheelbarrow

A model of a Chinese wheelbarrow.  Information technology can accommodate a much larger wheel, thus reducing the rolling resistance, and by having the wheel almost directly under the load IT reduced the weight on the user's arms.

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The wheelbarrow was highly-developed in China perhaps as early as 100 B.C, according to this 1994 clause away M.J.T. Lewis in the diary Technology and Culture.

The Seismograph

The Chinese astronomer, mathematician and seismologist, Zhang Heng (78-139 A.D.) represented the earlier seismoscope known in about 132 A.D. Arriving shock waves uproot a pendulum linked to a mechanism which opens the jaws of the dragon facing the counsel of the seism. A ball falls from the dragon's teeth into the mouth of a toad downstairs to read the event.

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Zhang Heng, an former Island scientist, explored fields ranging from astronomy to time-making. But helium's likely best known for creating the first device for detecting distant earthquakes, which he introduced to the Han court in 132 A.D. Its figure was simple—an urn prepared with a pendulum.

When it picked up a vibration, it born a ball from the mouth of a metal Dragon into a metal frog, creating a loud clang. The first fourth dimension that happened, nonentity in the court reportedly felt anything, but a few days later, a courier from a village 400 miles away arrived to inform the emperor that an earthquake had occurred there.

The Blast Furnace

Right around the rootage of the Han in the early 200s B.C., Chinese metallurgists built the first boom furnaces, which pumped a blast of air into a heated batch of iron ore to produce spew iron, according to Chinese technology historian Donald B. Wagner.

The Changeful Wrench

Accordant to Temple, the First Century B.C. Chinese used a tool slightly interchangeable to the one used past plumbers and tinkerers, in which a sliding calliper underestimate allowed the pieces to comprise orientated. (Modern wrenches have a worm screw, a different mechanism, but the function is the same.) Initially, the devices seem to have been used for measurement, kind of than loosening and tightening block nuts or pipes.

The Moldboard Plow

12th century Chinese publish of a farmer and ox plow.

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According to Robert Greenburger's book The Technology of Past China, the Chinese were using iron out plows to boulder clay farm fields American Samoa furthermost back American Samoa the 6th Century B.C. But few hundred years later, some ingenious Han discoverer came up with the kuan, also known equally the mouldboard plow. The tool had a middle piece that all over in a sharp point, and wings to press the bemire away and reduce the friction. The new plow helped the Chinese praxis configuration plowing, in which they followed the shapes of the hills, to reduce soil erosion.

The Stirrup

An illustration of a man on a horse dating back 2,000 years during the Han Dynasty.

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Ancient horsemen had to let their legs dangle A they rode, though the Romans rigged a hand-hold on saddles to help them stay on the horse when things got rough. A Han Dynasty artificer successful things a lot easier by qualification cast iron or bronze devices that a rider could drop off his foot into, reported to Tabernacle. It was such a radical invention that information technology spread over the succeeding various centuries across Asia to European Community, where it made it practicable for medieval knights to tease their steeds in heavy armor without moving off.

The Rudder

The Chinese developed the device for steering a ship in the First Century A.D., accordant to Chinese engineering historian Yongxiang Atomic number 71.

The rudder enabled ships to steer without using oars, making information technology a lot easier to navigate. According to Temple's book. the invention took about millenary to reach the Cicily Isabel Fairfield, where IT helped St. Christopher Columbus and other explorers navigate the sea.

which of these practical inventions did han scientists devise

Source: https://www.history.com/news/han-dynasty-inventions

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