Paper secret

Paper is an important tool for human progress, and paper makes it easier for people to convey knowledge. Here are some of my investigations into paper.

First of all, what is the origin of paper?

Today, the invention of the paper we use is still only in 2000, and the history of human civilization is much longer. The reason why we can know the distant history is that we are grateful for the various "papers" that humans invented before the real paper invention, and thanked our ancestors for their efforts.

In the Metropolitan Museum of New York, a collection of ancient artifacts "Kip" unearthed from Peru. If you are fortunate enough to see this rare treasure, you may be disappointed because it is just a rotten rope with some knots. It turned out that Kip was used by ancient Indians to make notes.

In the development of various nationalities in the world, there have been almost such methods of knotting. In the ancient Chinese book "Easy Words", it is written: "The ancients were tied to the rule of the ropes, and the later generations of the saints were bound by books." It means that the ancient people used knots on the ropes to deal with the problems. Later, the holy talents used them. Write on paper instead of it.

According to research, about 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians used papyrus to make "paper." They broke the stems of papyrus into filaments, stacked them on two layers, and then glued them together. The quality of the papyrus made in this way is quite good and has become Egypt's main export product. Most of the classical Greek literature is written on papyrus.

Around the Spring and Autumn Period, the Chinese have begun to write with the silk woven "帛". Writing in ink on the raft is much more convenient than simple, and it is light and soft, and it can be rolled up. Nowadays, a book is sometimes called a book, which is derived from this.

It is a pity that such "paper" is very useful, but it is expensive. In the Han Dynasty, the price of a horse is equivalent to 720 kilometers. The average person can't afford it. Therefore, until the Han Dynasty, "帛 paper" and Jane were also used by people at the same time.

In the first year of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Cai Lun used his papermaking method to play the emperor. The Han and Emperor who were sick in bed were very appreciative and ordered to promote it throughout the country. Later, Han'an Emperor Cai Lun invented the paper, and also sealed him as Long Tinghou.

China's papermaking came to North Korea, Japan, India and Arabia after surgery, and passed to Europe via northern Africa. The invention of papermaking is one of the most outstanding contributions of the Chinese nation to world civilization. Cai Lun’s name has also been left in the history of world science and technology.

From the paper invented by Cai Lun, the papermaking materials used by people, whether it is rags, broken fish nets, bark, wheat straw, straw, reed, hair, wood, are all fibrous materials, and stone paper is the first non-fiber raw material. Paper. What kind of new paper will come out in the future? We can't predict, but what is certain is that human pursuit is endless, and the invention of paper is endless.

How was paper made?

Cai Lun carefully summed up the experience of his predecessors. He believes that by expanding the source of papermaking materials, improving papermaking technology, and improving paper quality, paper can be accepted. Cai Lun first used bark paper, which is a much richer raw material than hemp, which can greatly increase the production of paper. The lignin, pectin and protein contained in the bark are much higher than the hemp, so the degumming and pulping of the bark is more difficult than the hemp. This prompted Cai Lun to improve the technology of papermaking. In the Western Han Dynasty, lime water was used for pulping. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was changed to grass and ash water to make pulp. The grass gray water has a large alkalinity, which is conducive to improving the quality of the pulp. In the first year of Yuanxing, Cai Lun dedicated a batch of high-quality paper he had made in Shangfang to Han and Emperor Liu Wei. Han and Emperor praised his talents and immediately ordered it to be adopted. In this way, Cai Lun's papermaking method quickly spread throughout the country.

Cai Lun made paper. With the development and evolution of history, it is worth more and more use, types and characteristics. Let me introduce a few.

It has been estimated that there are currently more than 12,000 papers of different uses in the world that meet the needs of all aspects of humanity. Some of these papers were consciously invented, some were unintentionally born; some inventions applied for patents, leaving the name of the invention, while others did not know who the inventor was, leaving only his invention.

The invention of carbon paper In the early 19th century, the inventor was Wedgewood in the United Kingdom. At that time, he was running a business store in London. Wedgwood often writes to his regular clients with pencils and introduces him to several new stationery in the store. The contents of these letters are almost the same, he is mechanically written, and somewhat bored. “Can you write two or three letters at the same time?” Looking at the slogan of the last piece of paper left on the next piece of paper, Wedgwood suddenly popped up the idea.

It didn't seem difficult to achieve this idea, and Wedgwood quickly figured out how to dry a sheet of paper in blue ink and then dry it between the two blotters. When writing, it can be lining under normal paper to obtain a copy. In 1806, Wedgewood obtained his patent for the "copy letter file device."

When Wedgwood's invention came out, British business activities were well developed, and carbon paper was a useful place. Seeing that his invention was so popular, Wedgwood Dry 8 had a factory that specializes in producing this special paper. Later, the French used glycerin and loose smoke to penetrate into the paper to make carbon paper. Around 1815, the Germans re-innovated the dyes extracted from hot glycerin plus coal tar and finely ground and applied to the tough thin paper to make new carbon paper. Later, people added wax to the coating of this carbon paper to reduce the viscosity. This is the carbon paper that we use today.

Today, more and more raw materials for papermaking, papermaking methods are becoming more and more novel, and the variety of paper is even more varied.

There is a type of paper called electrothermal fax paper. One side is coated with metallic aluminum and the other side is coated with a white low-voltage insulation. The paper is mounted in a certain instrument, and the recording needle on the instrument will automatically break down the white low-voltage insulating surface layer according to various signal voltages such as light, heat, static electricity and biological current to expose the black base paper to form the transmitted paper. Text and graphics.

Some papers will "talk". This type of paper is called magnetic paper and is made by applying a layer of magnetic material to thick paper. It can record on the recorder like an audio tape, and it can also deliver sound. If you use this kind of paper to write letters to relatives and friends in the distance, you don't need to use a pen. Just use it to record your speech, then send it to the envelope and send it out. After the relatives and friends receive it, put the paper in the recorder and you can hear it. Your voice is gone.

Paper is very fragile, it is afraid of tearing, afraid of pulling, and afraid of stamping. However, as long as synthetic fibers are incorporated into ordinary pulp, synthetic paper can be obtained by an ordinary paper making method. After the paper is roughened on both sides of the paper, the pattern and text can be printed as with plain paper. It is particularly tough, that is, a tank of several tens of tons is pressed and will not break! It is natural to use such paper to print military maps.

We know that when the paper flips, it will make a "beep" sound. When the radio broadcaster 9 members flip through the manuscript, they will also send the nasty paper sound live. Now people have invented a kind of silent paper, which is as soft as silk, with numerous holes on it, and it does not make a sound when it is flipped.

There is a kind of scented paper, which is especially popular with children. A publishing company in the United States has published a special fruit album. Children who read books will smell their bananas, apples and other fruits by hand. This is because the fruit on the book is cut and cut with paper with different fragrances. When the fruit on the screen is rubbed by hand, the paper will scent due to friction and heat generation.

One of the former Soviet Union scientists, Ventunas, invented one of the most bizarre papers in the 1980s. The raw materials for papermaking are basalt, tuff and other stones that you can't imagine at all.

Wenchunas first melted the basalt and other stones into a liquid, and then used a fast drawing device to pull the magma into a very fine tow. Dipping this "stone fiber" into the phenolic resin, it becomes a brown thin paper, and after a process, adding some chalk powder, the paper coming out is white paper. This kind of paper is very strong, so it can be made very thin, and 5 sheets of paper are combined to be as thick as our usual piece of paper.

This kind of stone paper has excellent toughness and can be quickly pulled without breaking. If it is used to print newspapers, the speed of the printing machine can be increased several times. Due to the good coloring performance of stone paper, the color of the pictorial printed with it is very bright. In addition, stone paper is not afraid of water, fire and bacteria, and it is much more worry-free to use it to print books. Stone paper also has a prominent advantage. With the mass production of stone paper, replacing trees as materials can save countless forests from deforestation and help maintain ecological balance.

From the paper invented by Cai Lun, the papermaking materials used by people, whether it is rags, broken fish nets, bark, wheat straw, straw, reed, hair, wood, are all fibrous materials, and stone paper is the first non-fiber raw material. Paper. What kind of new paper will come out in the future? We can't predict, but what is certain is that human pursuit is endless, and the invention of paper is endless.

There are still a lot of paper secrets, let's explore together!