[HN Gopher] The History of Paper ___________________________________________________________________ The History of Paper Author : ogogmad Score : 43 points Date : 2020-07-25 04:53 UTC (18 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.papersizes.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.papersizes.org) | bigpumpkin wrote: | Here's a chart of the historical real price of books in England | which showed that paper decreased the cost of books by a factor | of 2. | | https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/RealPrice-1... | | Then later the printing press decreased the price by another | order of magnitude. | [deleted] | 29athrowaway wrote: | Wax tablets were also a writing surface, and are worth | mentioning. | | > It was from Morocco that paper spread into Europe, via the | Iberian penisula, in the 11th century. | | Also known as Al-Andalus, or Islamic Spain. Perhaps the most | influential force in the history of Europe. The ones that brought | paper, philosophical and scientific literature, the scientific | method, higher education, secularism, free trade, their | architecture, etc. | | At the time they were the torchbearers of knowledge. | felipemnoa wrote: | >>Wax tablets were also a writing surface, and are worth | mentioning. | | Not paper | [deleted] | keiferski wrote: | I was reading _In Praise of Shadows_ (1933) by Japanese author | Jun 'ichiro Tanizaki recently, and his comments on paper made me | want to go out and buy some vellum or other expensive paper to | use for mundane, everyday notes and to-do lists. | | _Paper, I understand, was invented by the Chinese; but Western | paper is to us no more than something to be used, while the | texture of Chinese paper and Japanese paper gives us a certain | feeling of warmth, of calm and repose. Even the same white could | as well be one color for Western paper and another for our own. | Western paper turns away the light, while our paper seems to take | it in, to envelop it gently, like the soft surface of a first | snowfall. It gives off no sound when it is crumpled or folded, it | is quiet and pliant to the touch as the leaf of a tree._ | | It's a really good essay, I highly recommend reading it if you | have any interest in architecture, art, or the differences | between traditional Japanese culture and the (circa 1933) West. | | https://misfitsarchitecture.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/I... | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Praise_of_Shadows | justincormack wrote: | A good art shop will have a nice selection of hand made papers, | including Japanese ones. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2020-07-25 23:00 UTC)