TechnologyEast Asia
Metal type in Korea
Printed with movable metal type seventy-eight years before Gutenberg
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With thousands of Chinese characters, movable type is less economical than cutting a whole page in wood; with an alphabet of twenty-four letters the arithmetic reverses. It is not the invention that differs but the writing system it met. A good example that a technology's effect depends on its context, not only on the technology.
For children
The Korean book Jikji was printed with movable metal type in 1377, nearly eighty years before Gutenberg. It is today in Paris. Yet the technique did not have the same effect in East Asia — and there is a reason.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org