Name: The Printing Press Revolutionized the Spread of Information
Uploaded: undefined
Duration: undefined

NOVA

The European printing revolution began in Germany in 1448 when goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg began casting letters in metal.

The Printing Press Revolutionized the Spread of Information

Printing Press Revolutionized the Spread of Information

Carlisle Companies

Viking

NOVA Science Trust Logo

The European printing revolution began in Germany in 1448 when goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg began casting letters in metal.

Tech & Engineering

The Printing Press Revolutionized the Spread of InformationPublished: October 8, 2020Narrator: The printing revolution began in the German town of Mainz, in 1448, when Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith by trade, began casting the letters of the Latin alphabet in metal.Joost Depuydt: Gutenberg was looking for a way to produce multiple copies of the same text in a much faster way than scribes could copy texts in the manuscript period.Narrator: Gutenberg’s idea was to speed up the process of putting words on a page by replacing the scribe with a machine. The secret of Gutenberg’s printing press was his ability to mass produce multiple copies in metal of each individual letter. And in this he had a hidden advantage, the nature of the Latin alphabet.Brody Neuenschwander: The letters of the Latin alphabet are really very simple shapes, and when you write them in the way they would have been written at the time printing was invented, all the letters are very clearly separate. This is a modular way of writing, and, in fact, if I want to make little blocks of metal with them, no problem, because I’m already, I’m already there, basically. The design has already happened. These simple block-like letters can become blocks of metal and can be printed.

United States

Northern Mariana Islands

Puerto Rico

American Samoa

Guam

U.S. Virgin Islands

U.S. Minor Outlying Islands

US & Territories

Colossal explosions shake a remote corner of the Siberian tundra, leaving behind massive craters. In Alaska, a huge lake erupts with bubbles of inflammable gas. Scientists are discovering that these mystifying phenomena add up to a ticking time bomb, as long-frozen permafrost melts and releases vast amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. What are the implications of these dramatic developments in the Arctic? Scientists and local communities alike are struggling to grasp the scale of the methane threat and what it means for our climate future. (Premiered February 2, 2022)

In the Arctic, enormous releases of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, threaten the climate.

Arctic Sinkholes

The top half of Jupiter in blue and green against a night sky

A composite image of Jupiter using images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Judy Schmidt.

Explore the cosmos, delve into ancient history, and follow an extreme rescue with NOVA’s most-watched documentaries released in 2022.

NOVA’s most popular science documentaries of 2022

Four bright orange loops brand off of a dark blue blob

A transmission electron micrograph of HIV-1 virus particles (orange) replicating from the plasma membrane of an infected H9 T cell. Credit: NIAID, Flickr

Scientists have cured a handful of people of HIV by piggybacking on treatments they received for blood cancer. But does that bring a widespread cure any closer?

The Printing Press Revolutionized the Spread of Information

Support Provided By

Explore More

A to Z: How Writing Changed the World

How Egyptian Hieroglyphs Influenced Modern Alphabets

Aboriginal Elder Sings Ancient Creation Song

Transcript

Credits

Support Provided By

Explore More

A to Z: How Writing Changed the World

How Egyptian Hieroglyphs Influenced Modern Alphabets

Aboriginal Elder Sings Ancient Creation Song