Bi Sheng was a Chinese artisan of the Song dynasty who invented movable type printing using fired clay characters between 1039 and 1048, roughly four centuries before Johannes Gutenberg's independent movable-metal-type press in Europe. Because Bi Sheng was a commoner, almost nothing else is known of his life; his invention survives only because the scholar-official Shen Kuo recorded it in his Dream Pool Essays. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Disputed
Birth YearWikipedia's infobox gives a 972-1051 span, but the precise birth year is not independently attested beyond that inference; only his death year (1051) and the 1039-1048 window for his invention are directly recorded. NationalityChinese (Northern Song dynasty) 1 Bi Sheng
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FAQs
Why is so little known about Bi Sheng if he invented movable type?
He was a commoner whose invention survives mainly because Shen Kuo wrote it down.
Bi Sheng was an obscure commoner and artisan, and his invention was recorded by someone else. The scholar-official Shen Kuo wrote that during the Qingli reign period, between 1041 and 1048, Bi Sheng made movable type from hardened, baked clay. Apart from Shen Kuo's writing, nothing is known of Bi Sheng's life or of the influence of his movable type in his own lifetime.
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Associated With
Developed movable type using fired clay characters, an early ceramic materials innovation.
Invented
Source Bi Sheng (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
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Sources
1. Bi Sheng (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Bi's system used fired clay tiles, one for each Chinese character, and was invented between 1039 and 1048.
- Infobox
In Group: Printing and Typewriter Inventors, Lead paragraph
who invented the world's first movable type
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