Future Inventions: The Straddling Bus!

Public transit in a metropolitan area is all about balance; if there aren't enough public transit options, too many people choose to drive, clogging roadways and adding to pollution. But trains are expensive (and, if above-ground, contributors to traffic) and adding more buses to the road can magnify traffic woes further. Enter the 3D Fast Bus, a futuristic concept vehicle that carries passengers above street level, straddling the lanes below so traffic can pass freely underneath.
Chinese company Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co. came up with the idea, which is more like a massive double-wide tram than a bus, with a fixed route and physical connection to the city's municipal power grid. Running on solar power gathered from its rooftop supplemented with grid energy, the "Fast Bus" is expected to top out just shy of 40 miles per hour, so it's not ideal for long treks. But for intra-city travel in large, dense metropolises like those common in urban China, the 1,200-passenger 3D Fast Bus could be a feasible solution, far-fetched though it may seem.

The vehicle is wide, straddling two lanes at a time, letting traffic pass underneath both when it is stopped and when it is in motion. It's clearly best suited to long, straight stretches of roadway, but the bus can turn and is equipped with signals underneath that give cars traveling there ample warning that a turn is approaching. Radar scanners will alert drivers passing underneath if they wander to close to the bus's wheels, and a similar system would warn traffic approaching from behind if a vehicle too tall to clear the bus's belly.
Sound like one of those cool-but-too-crazy-to-work kind of transit schemes? Beijing has already mapped out 116 miles of its Mentougou District as a test bed for the 3D Fast Bus. Construction to install the proper infrastructure should begin by year's end.

Text copied from: http://www.chinahush.com/2010/07/31/straddling-bus-a-cheaper-greener-and-faster-alternative-to-commute/

Not-So-Ancient Inventions

Although the Chinese are known for countless ancient inventions, including "the four" inventions of gunpowder, paper-making, printing, and the compass, their creativity has not died out. The Chinese are continuing to develop new technologies and advances in the science world. Noted in the hyperlinked article below are four modern Chinese achievements: hybrid rice, photocomposition for Chinese character typesetting, synthesis of bovine insulin, and the compound artemether.

Read the whole article! http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-02/10/content_806437.htm

Also Made in China

Silk
Silk originated in China and is told to have been discovered by the Yellow Emperor's consort, Hsi Leng Shih in 3,000 BC. While sitting under a mulberry tree, a silkworm coccoon fell into her cup of tea, causing the silk thread to unravel from around the worm. This empreess then began raising silkworms and invented the loom. Recent archeological evidence contradicts this story with findings dating back as far as 7,000 BC.
At first, only royalty were allowed to wear silk, and favorite colors were white and yellow. Eventually, silk was introduced to commoners and to other countries and became a vital part of the Chinese economy.

info gathered from: http://www.whoinventedit.net/who-invented-silk.html

Paper Money
Paper money was not used in the west until the 17th century, but was institutionalized as a government policy in China in the Song dynasty, (960-1279 AD). This would not have been possible at all without the invention of printing. Because of paper currency, people could save metals such as copper and zinc for making useful items and carry less weight in their pockets.
The Chinese learned important lessons as the first civilization to use paper currency. The government and citizens had to deal with problems such as inflation, counterfeiting, and depreciation.

info gathered from: http://www.silk-road.com/artl/papermoney.shtml

Four Great Inventions of Ancient China

Gunpowder

The invention of gunpowder occurred in the Tang Dynasty, sometime between 600 and 800 AD. As knowledge of chemistry increased, Chinese scientists attempted to produce an elixir of immortality. In the process, they stumbled upon an explosive mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter, which was then developed into gunpowder.

Gunpowder was first used in fireworks, but during the Song and Yuan dynasties (960-1368) it became common in military use.

Printing

Block Printing first appeared in the Tang dynasty. In this form of printing, entire pages of text were carved at once into blocks of wood that were used as stamps to reproduce books. However, this process was time-consuming and took a lot of materials, as a new block had to be carved for every page in a book.

Bi Sheng invented moveable type during the Song dynasty, using individual clay blocks each with one character per block. By the year 1000 paged books had replaced scrolls, and by the 1440’s Gutenberg had invented moveable type made of metal.

Paper

Paper first appeared in the Western Han dynasty (206 BC-23 AD), but it was very thick and coarse in texture. The earliest existing piece of paper was found in a Han tomb in Gansu Province and dates back to this time period.

Papermaking became an art, which spread to Korea and Japan first, followed by the Arab countries via the Silk Road. Finally, the art was brought to Europe, where, in the fourteenth century it was milled in Italy as an export.

Compass

The Chinese invented the compass during the Warring States Period (206 BC-23AD). The first compass was made using naturally magnetic substance called lodestone. The spoon in the middle of the compass is made of lodestone, and functions as a compass because the spoon’s handle always points to the south.

Later, during the Tang and Song dynasties, the Chinese began to magnetize iron needles, which could then be floated on water, the way modern compasses work.

information gathered from: ChinaCulture.org

The Opium Wars

Opium Wars

Unil the 18th century, opium use in China had consisted mostly of medicinal purposes. By the early 1800s, however, millions of Chinese had become addicted, and the illegal drug thrived through black market trade

The main purveyors of opium were the British, though merchants from the United States and other European countries also participated in the trade. One chest of opium contained around 135 pounds of the substance, and the importation of chests grew from 5,000 in 1821 to 35,000 in 1837.

Captain Charles Elliot, the British chief superintendent of trade in Canton, put pressure on the Chinese government to legalize the opium trade. Meanwhile, the fatality rate caused the Emperor of China to appoint an official to oversee deaths.

Commissioner Lin Zexu had battled the problem of drug use in the provinces of Hubei and Hunan, and he now attempted to eliminate opium. He blockaded the foreign community, stopped trade, ordered Chinese servants to leave, arrested a leading foreign dealer, and demanded that the merchants surrender their inventory of opium.

After 47 days, Captain Elliot handed over 20,283 chests to Lin, who destroyed them. In a 1839 letter to Queen Victoria, Lin made the assumption that the British government was not involved in the opium trade, and pointed out that it would be in the best interests of both nations to stop. The letter never reached England, and the messenger was murdered by sailors.

In the war that followed, the Chinese could not match the technological and tactical

superiority of the British forces. In 1842 China agreed to the provisions of the Treaty of Nanking. Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain, and other ports, including Canton, were opened to British residence and trade. It would be a mistake to view the conflict between the two countries simply as a matter of drug control; it was instead the acting out of deep cultural conflicts between east and west.

The French and Americans approached the Chinese after the Nanking Treaty's, and in 1844 gained the same trading rights as the British. The advantages granted the three nations by the Chinese set a precedent that would dominate China's relations with the world for the next century. The "most favored nation" treatment came to be extended so far that China's right to rule in its own territory was limited. This began the period referred to by the Chinese as the time of unequal treaties - a time of unprecedented degradation for China. The humiliation the Central Kingdom suffered is still remembered and strongly affects important aspects of its foreign policy. Meanwhile, the opium trade continued to thrive.

The British and French again defeated China in a second opium war in 1856. By the terms of the Treaty of Tientsin (1858) the Chinese opened new ports to trading and allowed foreigners with passports to travel in the interior. Christians gained the right to spread their faith and hold property, thus opening up another means of western penetration. The United States and Russia gained the same privileges in separate treaties.

The Silk Route

The Legend…

It is well known that silk is discovered in China as one of the best materials for clothing - it has a look and feeling of richness that no other materials can match. However, very few people know when or where or how it is discovered. Actually, it could date back to the 30th Century BC when Huang Di (Yellow Emperor) came into power. There are many legends about the discovery of silk; some of them are both romantic and mysterious.

Legend has it that once there lived a father with his daughter, they had a magic horse, which could not only fly in the sky but also understand human language. One day, the father went out on business and did not come back for quite some time. The daughter made him a promise: If the horse could find her father, she would marry him. Finally her father came back with the horse, but he was shocked at his daughter's promise.

Unwilling to let his daughter marry a horse, he killed the innocent horse. And then miracle happened! The horse's skin carried the girl flying away. They flew and flew, at last, they stopped on a tree, and the moment the girl touched the tree, she turned into a silkworm. Everyday, she spit long and thin silks. The silks just represented her feeling of missing him.

The History

The ancient Silk Road contributed greatly to the cultural exchange between China and the West. From the second century BC to the fifteenth century AD, splendid civilizations among China, India, Greece, Persia and Rome were exchanged along this famous trade route, making the route a great "Cultural Bridge" between Asia and Europe.

The Silk Road is the most well known trading route of ancient Chinese civilization. Trade in silk grew under the Han Dynasty (202 BC - AD 220) in the first and second centuries AD

Originally, the Chinese trade silk internally, within the empire. Caravans from the empire's interior would carry silk to the western edges of the region. Often small Central Asian tribes would attack these caravans hoping to capture the traders' valuable commodities. As a result, the Han Dynasty extended its military defenses further into Central Asia from 135 to 90 BC in order to protect these caravans.

The 7000 mile route spanned China, Central Asia, Northern India, and the Parthian and Roman Empires. It connected the Yellow River Valley to the Mediterranean Sea and passed through places such as Chinese cities Kansu and Sinkiang and present-day countries Iran, Iraq and Syria.

By 760 AD, during the T'ang Dynasty, trade along the Silk Road had declined. It revived tremendously under the Sung Dynasty in the eleventh and twelfth centuries when China became largely dependent on its silk trade. In addition, trade to Central and Western Asia as well as Europe recovered for a period of time from 1276-1368 under the Yuan Dynasty when the Mongols controlled China. The Chinese traded silk for medicines, perfumes, and slaves in addition to precious stones. As overland trade became increasingly dangerous, and overseas trade became more popular, trade along the Silk Road declined. While the Chinese did maintain a silk-fur trade with the Russians north of the original Silk Route, by the end of the fourteenth century, trade and travel along the road had decreased.

Timeline of Inventions

Here is a timeline of inventions in China. What's interesting about this timeline is that it also shows when these inventions were developed/received in the Western World.

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/readings/inventions_timeline.htm

China Trade

Chinese Dynasty

TIME LINE OF CHINESE DYNASTIES:

http://www.monarchknights.com/teacherwebpages/jeffbernstein/APTimelines.htm

3 MAJOR CHINESE DYNASTIES:

THE TANG DYNASTY (618-907)

The Tang Dynasty was established by Li Yuan in 618 with its capital at Chang'an (Xi'an). Agriculture, handicrafts and commerce flourished; technologies for textile manufacturing and dyeing, pottery and porcelain production, smelting and shipbuilding were further developed. Woodblock printings of dictionaries and almanacs and Buddhist scriptures were in circulation. The Grand Canal also helped the flow of merchandise. The capital became a cultural, international trade, and commercial center. During the Tang Dynasty cultural relations were established with many countries, including Japan, Korea, India, Persia and Arabia. By the 660s, China's influence had firmly taken root in the Tarim basin and Ili River valley in today's Xijiang in the West, even extending to many city-states in Central Asia.

During the Tang dynasty, Buddhism declined, and Confucianism became more popular. Even though Buddhism was at its peak during the early Tang dynasty, many of the Tang officials were of the Confucian discipline and regarded Buddhism as a disruptive force in China. So, in 845, the Tang emperor started a full-scale persecution of Buddhists. More than 4600 monestaries and 40,000 temples and shrines were destroyed. Other religious groups were also brought under government control. Social and economic growth kept the Tang dynasty together during the years of disunion. Handicraft guilds and the use of paper money all started in the late Tang dynasty.

THE SONG DYNASTY (960-1279)

In 960 a new power, Song (960-1279), reunified most of China Proper. The Song period is divided into two phases: Northern Song (960-1127) and Southern Song (1127-1279). The division was caused by the forced abandonment of north China in 1127 by the Song court, which could not push back the nomadic invaders.

The founders of the Song dynasty built an effective centralized bureaucracy staffed with civilian scholar-officials. Regional military governors and their supporters were replaced by centrally appointed officials. This system of civilian rule led to a greater concentration of power in the emperor and his palace bureaucracy than had been achieved in the previous dynasties.

The Song dynasty is notable for the development of cities not only for administrative purposes but also as centers of trade, industry, and maritime commerce. The landed scholar-officials, referred to as the gentry, lived in the provincial centers alongside the shopkeepers, artisans, and merchants. A new group of wealthy commoners--the mercantile class--arose as printing and education spread, private trade grew, and a market economy began to link the coastal provinces and the interior. Landholding and government employment were no longer the only means of gaining wealth and prestige.

Culturally, the Song refined many of the developments of the previous centuries, including refining the Tang ideal of the universal man, which combined the qualities of a scholar, poet, painter, and statesman. They also developed in historical writings, painting, calligraphy, and hard-glazed porcelain. Song intellectuals sought answers to all philosophical and political questions in the Confucian Classics. This renewed interest in the Confucian ideals and society of ancient times coincided with the decline of Buddhism, which the Chinese regarded as foreign and offering few practical guidelines for the solution of political and other mundane problems.

While the Song was a time of great advances, politically and militarily, the northern half of China was conquered by barbarians, forcing the dynasty to abandon a northern capital in the early 1100's. Then a hundred and fifty years later, the Mongols, fresh from conquering everything between Manchuria and Austria, invaded and occupied China.

THE QING DYNASTY (1644-1912)

The Qing also known as the Manchu Dynasty was the last ruling dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912. The Dynasty was founded not by the Han who form the majority of the Chinese population, but the Manchus, who are today an ethnic minority of China. It was the second time all of China was ruled by foreigners--the first time being when the Yuan Dynasty was controlled by the Mongols. During its reign the Qing Dynasty became highly integrated with Chinese culture. The dynasty reached its height in the 18th century, during which both territory and population were increased. The population estimate was believed to reach 384,000,000 at its height. However, its military power weakened thereafter and faced with massive rebellions and defeat in wars. The Qing Dynasty declined after the mid-19th century and was overthrown following the Xinhai Revolution, when the Empress Dowager Longyu abdicated on behalf of the last emperor, Puyi, on February 12, 1912.

The Qing instituted changes in the dress of the Chinese. They required the Chinese men to shave their heads and wear queues. They also required them to wear Manchu clothes rather than the clothing style of the Ming Dynasty. The Qing did not require the Chinese women to change their dress, yet they did forbid them to bind their feet. This proved impossible to enforce and in 1668 the ruling was withdrawn. A custom the Qing did not attempt to change was the preference for agriculture over trade. The Qing favored an isolationist policy.