Johannes Gutenberg created the first movable type printing press during the Renaissance based on a failed business. His invention become a huge hit and greatly assisted with scientific practices by mass printing books.
Johannes Gutenberg created the printing press after a failed business venture. “Nearly 600 years before Gutenberg, Chinese monks were setting ink to paper using a method known as block printing, in which wooden blocks are coated with ink and pressed to sheets of paper” (Palermo). However, back in Europe this method of printing did not catch on due to tedious work of carving the blocks out for each letter. “Most European texts were printed using xylography, a form of woodblock printing similar to the Chinese method used to print …show more content…
Gutenberg’s printing press was made from combining a bunch of previous inventions. The press was built in the style of a screw press which he added individual metal letters and symbols that could be rearranged on a matrix to form the wanted text. Next, Gutenberg had to create a unique oil-biased ink that would transfer print from the metal letters to paper more easily than the water-based inks of the era. To print a page the metal letters would have to be arranged and then coated in ink. Lastly the letters are lowered with the screw press until sticking to the paper underneath and copying the page (Scholderer). The work of creating a book was labor intensive but was still much easier and cheaper than having to write out every page by hand. Without the printing press, books “would have cost the equivalent of thousands of dollars apiece” (Cunningham, Reich, and Fichner-Rathus 386). This has not only influenced future scientific practices but all kinds of practices. Scientific research is shared through books and printed documentation from one lab to another. Without the printing press all of the research would have to be copied by hand to be shared. The invention of the press allows new discoveries and findings to be printed much quicker and easier. The press allows for books to mass produced with a lower cost. Resulting in books being found in many homes today such as the Bible, the first book Gutenberg ever
Johannes Gutenberg created the printing press after a failed business venture. “Nearly 600 years before Gutenberg, Chinese monks were setting ink to paper using a method known as block printing, in which wooden blocks are coated with ink and pressed to sheets of paper” (Palermo). However, back in Europe this method of printing did not catch on due to tedious work of carving the blocks out for each letter. “Most European texts were printed using xylography, a form of woodblock printing similar to the Chinese method used to print …show more content…
Gutenberg’s printing press was made from combining a bunch of previous inventions. The press was built in the style of a screw press which he added individual metal letters and symbols that could be rearranged on a matrix to form the wanted text. Next, Gutenberg had to create a unique oil-biased ink that would transfer print from the metal letters to paper more easily than the water-based inks of the era. To print a page the metal letters would have to be arranged and then coated in ink. Lastly the letters are lowered with the screw press until sticking to the paper underneath and copying the page (Scholderer). The work of creating a book was labor intensive but was still much easier and cheaper than having to write out every page by hand. Without the printing press, books “would have cost the equivalent of thousands of dollars apiece” (Cunningham, Reich, and Fichner-Rathus 386). This has not only influenced future scientific practices but all kinds of practices. Scientific research is shared through books and printed documentation from one lab to another. Without the printing press all of the research would have to be copied by hand to be shared. The invention of the press allows new discoveries and findings to be printed much quicker and easier. The press allows for books to mass produced with a lower cost. Resulting in books being found in many homes today such as the Bible, the first book Gutenberg ever