Papermaking is the process of manufacturing paper by draining a dilute suspension of cellulose fibers through a screen so the fibers interweave into a mat, which is then pressed and dried into sheets used for writing, printing, packaging and many other purposes. The formal invention of paper is traditionally credited to Cai Lun, an official of China's Han dynasty, who is said to have devised a method around AD 105 using mulberry bark and other bast fibers along with old fishnets, rags and hemp waste, though the credit is not entirely uncontested: hemp paper had already been in use in China since at least the 8th century BC, and paper bearing legible writing has been found dating to 8 BC, before Cai Lun's traditional date. By the third century AD paper had become the standard writing material across China, and papermaking later spread outward to the rest of the world.
Facts
YearSourced to the subject's own accountTraditional attribution to Cai Lun, Han dynasty China, per the cited source's own wording (the article itself calls this the traditional inventor attribution rather than a firmly dated event). SignificanceSourced to the subject's own accountPapermaking spread from China to become the dominant writing medium of the pre-modern world, later transformed by the nineteenth-century shift to wood pulp that ended nearly two millennia of reliance on pulped rag paper. 1 FAQs
Did Cai Lun invent paper?
Paper existed in China before him; he is credited with the first major improvement and standardization of papermaking.
Not from nothing. Paper already existed in China before Cai Lun, since the second century BCE, but he is credited with the first significant improvement and standardization of papermaking, which is why tradition names him as its inventor.
Connections
In Field
Source Papermaking (Wikipedia)
Invented By
Source Cai Lun (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Papermaking (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHistory section
This innovation ended the nearly 2,000-year use of pulped rags and start a new era for the production of newsprint and eventually almost all paper was made out of pulped wood.
In Group: Paper and Pulp Manufacturing Processes, Intro
Papermaking is the process of manufacturing paper and cardboard
In Field: Chemical Engineering, Introduction
In papermaking, a dilute suspension consisting mostly of separate cellulose fibres in water is drained through a sieve-like screen, so that a mat of randomly interwoven fibres is laid down.
View the Source Cai Lun (Wikipedia)
Invented By: Cai Lun, Lead paragraphQuote, Invented By: Cai Lun, Lead paragraph
He occupies a pivotal place in the history of paper due to his addition of pulp via tree bark and hemp ends which resulted in the large-scale manufacture and worldwide spread of paper.
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