Based on the limitations of the Times, it is hard to tell one invention is great or not when you are a part of Times.
We always hear there are 4 great inventions 1.Papermaking 2.gunpowder 3.printing 4.compass
Each of these inventions change world a lot. However, ancient Chinese, very interesting, were never realized how great these inventions are. Papermaking, it changed the way of knowledge spreading. I thought about this and told about with my professor. I got an very good idea: it was so prevalent as to be unnoticed.
Here is an example by my professors:”Think for instance about WiFi: I remember the days before internet even existed, and then you needed a cable to the modem on dial-up… I wonder how many people like you stop and think about how wonderful an invention WiFi is… “
And people wouldn’t think about these things because they are so common that we don’t think they are great. From a modern perspective, with twenty-twenty hindsight, the development of paper and printing seems great and totally changed the world. But for them, ancient Chinese, the way they treated printing may just like what we treated Wifi—- well, it is just a new thing which is convenient to use.
It push me to think about the meaning of history. Finding our future from our past will always be a good idea. Taking a step back and thinking about what we did in the past, we will find something similar in our history.