Cai Lun and the Invention of Paper

A Han court official named Cai Lun refined a recipe — tree bark, rags, and old fishing nets pulped and pressed into thin sheets — that gave the world cheap, light, abundant paper. It replaced clumsy bamboo strips and costly silk, and over the next thousand years it spread west along the Silk Road to the Islamic world and finally to Europe, where it would make the printing press possible. Every information revolution needs a cheap surface to write on; paper was the quiet one beneath all the others.