Inventions

Whenever a student wants to know how much longer until the next holiday from school, what is used? Whenever people go exploring, what must they bring? Why a clock and a compass of course! Although few realize it, much of today's things were invented more than 2000 years ago by the ancient Chinese! The Chinese created things like the seismograph, mechanical clock, compass, and bicycle chain hundreds or maybe even thousands of years before the Europeans. Gunpowder was another substance invented by the Chinese, although back then they only used it for fireworks. Even things like silk, paper, and printing were first discovered by the Chinese. Amazing, isn't it! Below are pictures of some of their inventions, try to recognize some of them with out looking at the subscript! Good luck!

Seismograph (earthquake detector)-

The first seismograph was created in the second century AD, almost 1,600 years before the Europeans. A tremor caused one of eight bronze balls to drop into the mouth of one of eight bronze frogs. The path of the ball indicated the area the tremor came from.

Compass-

It is believed that the Chinese invented the compass in the 1100's, but the world's first compass may have actually been devised even earlier during the Han period. It was used for sea navigation back then, and still is today!