• 17. 11. 2024, 13:00

EP. 11. The invention of paper seems straightforward. Although writing has been around for a long time, paper hasn't. In fact, putting thoughts down in written form wasn't always easy or practical. Early people discovered that they could make simple drawings on the walls of caves, which was a great place for recording thoughts, but not very portable. Earlier forms were bamboo, made by the Chinese and we have all heard of Papyrus, which actually was not the first type of paper. True paper - made from various fibers much like today, is credited to Han Dynasty official Cai Lun in 105 AD, though there's evidence of use 100-200 years' earlier. Paper used to be extremely expensive - it was all hand made and used only by kings' advisers. In the 14th century man started making paper from cloth, as the Black Death left so many clothes behind. That made paper cheap. But another question arose, how do we put things on paper? The pen has made some revolutionary changes. Often – because those having the luxury of being able to write - ended up annoyed with the ink stains it left behind. The feather pen wasn’t ‘all that’! The humble ballpoint pen was invented when someone thought of placing a ball inside a tube filled with ink. Nowadays, paper brings us another issue: it is one of the largest contributor to greenhouse gasses and other pollutants - about 10% of all greenhouse gasses – which is three times more than the aviation industry! So now we have E-paper. The one and only non-paper... paper.