Lesson 12 毕昇发明活字印刷 Bi Sheng Creates Movable-Type Printing

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原文：
滕殷罗毕
故事：
       造纸术、印刷术、指南针和火药是古代中国的四大发明。其中印刷术发明的时间大约是在公元7世纪初，最早的形式是雕版印刷，就是把汉字或图画刻在一整块木板上。在唐代，这种印刷术非常盛行，现在仍有一些木版水印画采用这样的方法制作。

       可是雕版印刷术有很多缺点，一个是不容易存放，再一个就是刻错了字不容易修改。到了公元11世纪，中国出现了一位平民发明家毕昇(sheng)。他的发明，开始了印刷史上的革命。
       毕昇生活在北宋时期（960— 1127)，他是—家印书作坊 (zuo fang)的工人。他刻字整齐又漂亮，还特别喜欢动脑筋。有一次，作坊里要赶印一本书，可是有个工人刻错了—个字，不好修改，这一个整版就没用了。浪费了东西不说，还耽误了时间。毕昇想，有什么办法可以避免这种浪费呢？
       —天，他看见两个儿子在玩游戏，他们用泥捏了锅碗瓢盆、桌椅板凳、猪马牛羊等家畜和各种人物，把它们随意地摆来摆去。这个游戏启发了毕昇，他想，木板上的字要是也变成活动的，错了可以换，不就可以避免浪费了吗？于是，他开始试着刻木头活字，但是效果不是很好。
       不久，毕昇去制陶厂看一个朋友，看到工匠们正在制作陶器，这又启发了他。他用胶泥做成一个个四方块，然后刻上字，再放到窑（yao)里烧，就得到了一个个胶泥活字，并把它们按音韵的顺序排放在木格子里。每到印书的时候，他把需要的字一行一行地排在铁板上，再设法加以固定，一个活字版就做好了。
       可是，这种活版也有毛病，印刷次数多了，字块就松动，印出来的效果不太好。一些人开始嘲笑毕昇。毕昇没有退却，他开始进一步研究让这些活字固定下来的方法。他先在铁板上放一些松脂、蜡、纸灰等粘（zhan)合材料，然后把活字排好，再把铁板加热，趁热用平板把放在铁框里的活字压平。等铁板冷却后，平整的活字就固定在铁框里了。印刷完后，再把铁板烤热，松香和蜡熔化了，就可以把活字一个个再拆下来保存好，以后可以再用。
可惜的是，毕昇的这项重大发明在当时并没有引起重视，也没有得到推广。他死后，他制作的活字被科学家沈括的祖上收藏了。后来，沈括在他写的书里详细记录了这项发明，才使活字印刷术流传下来。
       公元13世纪末，也就是中国的元朝时期，另一位中国农学家、发明家王祯（zhen)发明了转轮排字架和转轮排字法，并用它排印了一些书籍。这以后，活字印刷才进入实用阶段。
       毕昇发明的胶泥活字首先传到朝鲜，后来又从朝鲜传到日本、越南、菲律宾等国。15世纪，活字印刷技术传到欧洲，德国的谷登堡加以改进，用金属活字印刷了《谷登堡圣经》，这是欧洲第一部活字印刷品。金属活字印刷术在以后的几个世纪内传遍全世界，并且也传回了活字印刷术的故乡中国。

Bi Sheng Creates Movable-Type Printing
       Papermaking，printing, compass and powder were the four great inventions of ancient China. Among them, printing was invented at about the beginning of the 7th century, and the earliest form was engraved printing, Such as carving words or pictures on a wood block. In the Tang Dynasty, this kind of printing was very popular. To date, some xylography still adopts this method.
       However, engraved printing had some shortcomings, e.g. it is hard to preserve, and mistakes couldn’t be modified easily. In the 11th century, a civilian inventor Bi Sheng appeared in China, and his invention initiated a revolution in the history of printing.
       Bi Sheng was a worker in a book-printing workshop in the North-ern Song period (960—1127). The words carved by him were beautiful and in perfect order, in addition, he was keen on using his head. One time, the workshop needed to print a book urgently; however, a worker carved a wrong word, casing the whole printing plate became useless, which wasted not only material but also time. Then Bi Sheng was trying to find a method to avoid this kind of waste.
       One day, his two sons were playing a game. He saw they made boilers, bowls, tables, chairs, pigs, cattle, and all kinds of characters with mud, then they put them in various orders. The game enlightened Bi Sheng, and he thought, if the words on wood plates became movable, they could be changed in case they were carved incorrectly, thus the waste of wood plates would be avoided. So, he started to carve movable words, but the effect wasn’t desirable.
       Before long, when Bi Sheng visited a friend working in a pottery workshop, he saw that the workers were manufacturing pottery, which enlightened him too. After coming back, Bi Sheng made many square modules with viscous mud, and carved words on them. After baking the modules in kilns, Bi Sheng acquired many movable words. Then he put them into a wooden lattice in alphabetic order. When printing a book, Bi Sheng would place needed words in lines on the iron plate, and managed to fix them, thus a moving words plate was manufactured.
       However, this kind of moving plate has a shortcoming, after printing many times, the word modules would become flexible, which affected the printing effect. Regardless of other5s laughing, Bi Sheng didn't give up, and he started to find new methods to better fix the word modules. And he finally made it. First of all, he put some viscous materials such as turpentine and waxes onto an iron plate, then he arranged word modules on it. After that, he heated up the iron plate and flattened the movable word modules with a flat board. When the iron plate cooled down, the flat movable words modules would be fixed onto the iron plate. When the printing was finished, the word modules could be unloaded easily by heating the iron plate again.
       Unfortunately, the great invention of Bi Sheng didn't attract much attention at that time and it wasn't promoted. After Bi Sheng passed away, the movable word modules manufactured by Bi Sheng were collected by an ancestor of scientist Shen Kuo. Afterwards, Shen Kuo recorded the invention in detail in his book, which allowed movable words printing to be passed down.
       During Yuan Dynasty at the end of the 13th century, another Chinese agriculturalist and inventor Wang Zhen invented rotating-wheel typesetting frame and rotating-wheel typesetting method, and printed some books with it. Ever since, movable words printing was put into use.
       Movable word modules made with viscous mud invented by Bi Sheng were first transmitted to Korea, then to Japan, Vietnam and Philippines etc. In the 15th century, movable word printing was transmitted to Europe; and German Gutenberg improved the technique and printed Gutenberg Bible with metal movable word printing, which was the first presswork printed with movable word printing technique in Europe. During the following several centuries, metal movable words printing was transmitted throughout the world, including China, the hometown of movable words printing.

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