This metal alloy changed history forever. It suddenly made information (and data) much more accessible in the 14th century. This is perhaps the most important invention of Gutenberg that made possible inexpensive, mass book printing and publishing. This inexpensive access to information would have profound (and not entirely well understood) impacts on other areas of human endeavor, as we’ll see in future posts. (What could people in the 14th century suddenly do with cheaper data and information that they couldn’t do before?)
Gutenberg was a metalsmith by profession, and developed a special alloy of lead, tin, and antimony so well-suited for printing it is the primary alloy used in similar applications today. He developed a special mould called a matrix for mass producing these metal typographic letters, which would enable cheap book publishing in all languages with an alphabet. (This metal alloy caused religious wars in some countries. In others, perhaps eying the religious wars that followed Gutenberg inventions, banned book printing, with disastrous results. In addition to Sagan’s concept of civilizational capabilities being defined by access to energy and information, there are mathematical models on the relevant importance of free speech, balancing against other social needs. Book banning would seem to be a step backwards under most of these civilizational models.)
Gutenberg also made numerous other inventions around printing, most notably the printing press itself, which he is most famous for. However, printing technologies already existing in some form since the time of the Babylonians as we wrote about in our last blog post.
Metal typography already existed in Korea prior to Gutenberg. It was combination of many new inventions, most notably his new metal alloy and mass duplication of typographic letters, that drastically brought down the price of book publishing in countries that used his inventions.It is amazing how one simple metal alloy can completely change the course of history. Still no conquistadors. We promised conquistadors and Carl Sagan. Stay tuned….
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Photo credit: Wikimedia/Willi Heidelbach/CC-BY-2.5. A version of this article originally appeared as a photo post on our Instagram feed