The Wealth and Poverty of Nations • Chapter 4: The Invention of Invention http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/710FVTYJE0L._SL500_.gif
Jan 22, 2016
The Wealth and Poverty of
Nations• Chapter 4: The
Invention of Invention
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/710FVTYJE0L._SL500_.gif
Adam Smith: 1776
• Technological Innovation encouraged by:– Division of Labor– Widening Market
• Both were already happening during Middle Ages
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Important Middle Ages Technologies
• Water Wheel
• Eyeglasses
• Mechanical Clock
• Printing
• Gunpowder
http://www.mtb-routes.co.uk/northyorkmoors/image.aspx?dir=2007_01_02&image=P1020042.JPG&xsize=520
Water Wheel
• Revived in 10th century• By 1086 England had 5,600 water
mills• Improved by dams and ponds• Cranks and toothed gears made
possible– Change direction– Power at a distance– Rotary and reciprocal motion
Water Wheel
• Applications:– Grinding grain
– Hammering metal
– Rolling and drawing sheet metal and wire
– Mashing hops for beer
– Pulping rags for paper
– Fulling (pounding) cloth • Transformed the
woolen industry
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Water Wheel
• “ Paper, which was manufactured by hand and foot for a thousand years or so – following its invention by the Chinese and
adoption by the Arabs,
• was manufactured mechanically – as soon as it reached medieval Europe in
the thirteenth century…
• Paper had traveled nearly halfway around the world, – but no culture or civilization on its route
had tried to mechanize its manufacture”
Europe was a power-based civilization
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Eyeglasses
• By age 40, get farsightedness occurs
• Eyeglasses added 20 years to the working life of skilled craftsmen:– Scribes and readers– Instrument and
toolmakers– Close weavers– Metal workers
http://home.hu.inter.net/~jekely/mfile0734.jpghttp://home.hu.inter.net/~jekely/mfile0734.jpg
Eyeglasses
• Invented in Pisa 13th century
• By 15th century Italy making thousands spectacles
• Eyeglasses encouraged invention of fine instruments– Gauges– Micrometers– Fine wheel cutters– Precision tools
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Eyeglasses
• Knowledge of lenses produced other inventions– Telescope
– Microscope
• Europe had monopoly
on corrective lenses
for 300-400 years
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Mechanical Clock
• Before its invention: sundials and water clocks– both unreliable
• Reliable time important– Church seven daily prayer offices– Organize time in cities
• Time to wake, sleep
• Time to work, go home
• Time to put out fires (covre-feu became curfew)
http://solar.physics.montana.edu/tslater/plunger/sundial.jpg
Mechanical Clock
• Invented in Italy and/or England 13th century
• Early clocks inaccurate
• Relentless pressure to improve technique and design
• Clockmakers lead the way in accuracy and precision– Miniaturization
– Correcting errors
– Searching for new and better
14th century clock
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/onlinestuff/stories/~/media/Images/header/column_1/turret_clock_mechanism.ashx
Mechanical Clock
• Undermined Church authority– equal hours for day and night a new
concept– Resisted by the church for a century
• Every town wanted one – Public clocks installed in towers
• Conquerors seized as spoils of war• Symbol of secular authority• Allowed individual autonomy• Work now measured by time
– increased productivityBern, Switzerland
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Mechanical Clock
• European monopoly on clocks for 300 years
• No one else could make them to European standards
Swiss watch mechanism
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Mechanical Clock
• Chinese treated time as confidential aspect of sovereignty, not to be shared with the people
• Chinese reluctant to acknowledge European technological superiority
• Moslems did not establish public clocks because it would undermine religious authority
Chinese water clockhttp://z.about.com/d/inventors/1/0/G/G/time6.gif
Printing
• Invented in China in 9th century
• Chinese language not well suited for movable type– not widely used
• Chinese discouraged dissent and new ideas
Chinese movable type
http://www.bcps.org/offices/lis/models/chinahist/images/print4.jpg
Printing
• Europe already interested in written word– Government paper work written in
common language: not Latin
– Scribes could not keep up with demand
• Gutenberg Bible printed in 1452
• By 1501, millions of
books published in Europe
Gutenberg Biblehttp://prodigi.bl.uk/TreasuresImages/Gutenberg/max/kl1/001.jpg
Printing
• Moslems did not accept printing– Printed Koran unacceptable
• India also did not accept printing – first printing press in 19th
century
• Europe: Church tried to stop common language printing of Bible
• But political authority too fragmented to stop it
http://www.visuallee.com/weblog/images/gutenberg_detail.jpg
Gunpowder
• Invented by Chinese in 11th century
• Used as incendiary in fireworks, war– Tubed flame lances
– Bombards
– Arrow launchers
– Fire thunder
• Chinese fought nomads
• Not siege warfare
http://www.starfleetyachts.com/images/fireworks.jpg
Gunpowder
• Europeans improved gunpowder
• Europeans focused on range and weight of projectiles: siege warfare
• With improved metal casting, made world’s best cannon
• Thus military supremacyhttp://farm2.static.flickr.com/1357/535148829_0dcd536649.jpg?v=0
Why did Europe get Ahead?
Islam• Islam from 750 to 1100 A.D. far surpassed
Europe in – Science, Technology– Astronomy, Mathematics
• Invented algebra
• Islam was Europe’s teacher• Then Islamic science was denounced as heresy
– by religious zealots
• Islam does not separate religious from secular – as does Christianity
• New ideas dried up under theological pressure
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China
• Chinese inventions: – Wheel barrow
– Stirrup and rigid horse collar
– Compass
– Paper
– Printing
– Gunpowder
– Porcelain
Chinese paperhttp://faculty.luther.edu/~martinka/art43/daily/2nd/jap1.jpg
China
• Water driven machine for spinning hemp in 12th century – 500 years before Industrial
Revolution in England
• Blast furnaces for smelting iron: 125,000 tons pig iron in 11th century – Amount reached by Britain
700 years later
• But both technologies fell into disuse
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Reasons for Chinese Stagnation
• Absence of a free market and property rights
• Chinese state always interfering with private enterprise– Taking over or prohibiting lucrative
activities– Manipulating prices– Exacting bribes– Curtailing private enrichment
• Government strangled initiative – increased costs of transactions, – diverted talent from commerce and
industryMing Dynasty Emperor
http://www.longtochinatravel.com/images/upload/userfiles/15Zhu%20Yuanzhang-Emperor%20Taizu%20of%20Ming%20Dynasty.jpg
Ming Dynasty 1368-1644
• Ming dynasty in 15th century first promoted maritime trade, then prohibited it
• China became isolated
• Before Europeans arrived Chinese fleet huge, advanced– Huge ships compared to European
• By the time Europeans arrived, Chinese fleet not a threatMing Dynasty ship compared
to Columbus ship
http://www.kaichang.net/images/2007/05/30/chinazhengheship1405vssantamaria500.jpg
http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/imagevoy/Chinavoy1.gif
Reasons for Chinese Stagnation
• Confinement of women to the home– made it impossible to exploit
them in textile factories
• Chinese society totalitarian• State monopolies on
– Salt– Iron– Tea– Alcohol– Foreign Trade– Education– Written material
http://www1.chinaculture.org/library/att/att/20060308/xin_330303080933384298495.jpg
Ming Dynasty women
Reasons for Chinese Stagnation
• Regulations on • Clothing
– Construction of houses– Colors worn– Music– Festivals
• Rules from birth to death• Endless paperwork and
harassment of people• Result: no one tried. Why
try?
Ming Dynastyhttp://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/932/45014109.JPG
Europe
• Much less interference• Innovation, emulation
challenged forces of conservatism
• Sense of progress replaced reverence for authority
• Freedom in all domains
Copernicus
Why Europe?
• Judeo-Christian Beliefs– respect for manual labor
– subordination of nature to man
– sense of linear time (not cyclical): progress
• Market, free enterprise– Innovation worked and paid
– Rulers limited in ability to prevent innovation
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Trade network: not controlled by one empire