Chinese Inventions and Discoveries

The inventions the Chinese made ranged from voyages, to games at home. Several inventions helped to guide the sailors who were out at sea, and benefited traders.
In the 3rd century, the Chinese created the first magnetic compass. They were pieces of a magnetic mineral called lodestone. If you were to put a piece of lodestone on a piece of wood, and float it in a bowl of water, the lodestone with turn until it is pointing in the North, South direction. They soon found that they could easily replace the lodestone with a steel needle. Inorder for the steel needle to work though, you would have to rub the lodestone and the needle together to make the needle magnetic. During the Song dynasty, Chinese inventors eventually created a compass for voyages, to help the sailors. The compass is still important even today.
To make travel on lakes, and up rivers the paddlewheel boat was invented. These boats made travel across lakes and up and down rivers much faster. Another invention, the canal lock, was invented to keep boats from being seriously damaged. The canal locks could raise a boat up to 100ft above sea level. The segmental arch bridge was also created. These bridges were broader and flatter. They took less materials to build and were stronger. All these inventions spread around the world.
The Chinese discovered different ways for disease prevention. If some one died from an infectious disease, they would burn a chemical that gave off a poisonous smoke. They believed that the smoke would destro whatever caused the death. Another way to preventing disease was discovered by a Chinese monk. The monk suggested boiling the clothes of the sick in hot water, to get rid of the germs. The Chinese decided to use a persons own imune system to fight off the sickness, such as smallpox. To prevent people from getting sick from smallpox, Chinese physicians took a scab from a sick person and turned it into a powder. They then took the powder and put it into the nose of the person they wanted to protect against the disease. Sometimes this would actually cause the person to catch this disease. The knowledge they gained from this helped us create vaccines for many diseases.
More inventions such as gunpowder, the seismometer, porcelain, printing, paper money, mechanical clock, spinning wheel, fireworks, and paper were created and some have been improved.