Curated category
Chinese inventions
- PaperPaper is a thin sheet of matted cellulose fibers, and almost everything about it is borrowed. Its name comes from papyrus, the reed-based writing surface of…
- GunpowderGunpowder began not as a weapon but as a quest for immortality. Chinese alchemists, mixing sulfur, realgar, and saltpeter with honey, watched smoke and…
- Natural gasNatural gas is colorless and odorless, which is exactly what makes it dangerous. Because a leak gives no warning, suppliers spike it with a commercial…
- Blast furnaceThe blast furnace is responsible for more than 4% of all greenhouse gas emissions recorded between 1900 and 2015. That single figure places one industrial…
- SilkThe word silk comes from the Chinese term sī, which traces back through Mongolian and other Asian sources to ancient linguistic roots.
- KeroseneKerosene powers the jet engines that carry people across oceans, and as of July 2023 the world burns roughly 5,500,000 barrels of it every day.
- Oil refineryOil refineries sit at the center of the modern world, yet most people have never given one a second thought. In 2020, global refineries processed about 101.2…
- Puddling (metallurgy)The Eiffel Tower stands as a monument to puddled iron, its lattice structure relying on the malleable metal produced by this process.
- ExplosiveAn explosive is a reactive substance holding a great amount of potential energy that, released suddenly, produces an explosion.
- Land mineA land mine waits. It does nothing until a foot presses down or a vehicle rolls over it, and then it destroys or disables whatever passed near.
- PorcelainPorcelain takes its English name from an old Italian word, porcellana, meaning cowrie shell. Early Europeans thought its smooth surface resembled the shell…
- PrintingPrinting is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. Before paper carried any of it, the impressions came from…
- AcupunctureAcupuncture has been called a theatrical placebo. Thin metal needles slide into the skin, and for centuries practitioners have insisted those needles…
- ArtilleryArtillery is one of the oldest instruments of organized violence, and Joseph Stalin put it plainly in a 1944 speech: he called it "the god of war." That…
- CannonThe cannon has shaped the world's walls, its wars, and its borders for the better part of a millennium. In 1453, sixty-eight super-sized bombards thundered…
- Cast ironCast iron snapped in May 1847, and five people died. A bridge carrying the Chester and Holyhead Railway across the River Dee in Chester collapsed under a…
- HandgunThe handgun is a firearm built around a single constraint: one hand. That defining limitation separates it from every rifle, shotgun, and carbine ever made…
- Lock (water navigation)A lock is a device for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water that sit at different levels.
- FirearmA firearm is any type of gun that shoots projectiles using high explosive pressure, generated from the burning of a chemical propellant.
- Armillary sphereThe armillary sphere sits at the center of the Portuguese national flag, a skeleton of metal rings that once helped sailors navigate the Age of Exploration.
- RocketA rocket takes its name from the Italian rocchetta, meaning bobbin or little spindle, because its shape resembled the spool that holds thread on a spinning…