• Thermal Paper
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• Colored Thermal Paper

When we think of basic discoveries or inventions that changed the course of human history, we often think of fire or the wheel, but one of the most important discoveries is often overlooked. That discovery is paper. Without the ability to record knowledge and wisdom and pass it to the next generations or to distant communities, all other endeavors become limited.

Without paper, we would have oral histories and fables to pass along knowledge from the elders who learned it from their ancestors in turn. Long and complicated histories can be passed along this way, but as with any often told story, details tend to become blurred and changed over the generations. Heroes become more and more superhuman with every retelling. Natural disasters become more catastrophic, and mundane teachings are transformed into supernatural happenings. It is only through writing that we can recall historic events as they were originally recorded.

For the world of science and mathematics, there is nothing without writing. The results of experiments, or even observations of nature must be remembered and passed along orally. Did the experimenter try this or was it that? Without writing, the best that can be done is to lay out stones that align with the sun to let shadows mark the days and months. Commerce becomes more difficult as well, since records of inventory and calculations of profit become nearly impossible.

I’m not saying that civilizations could not exist at all without writing, clearly they could and some still do today. There are tribes in South America, Africa, and other places around the world that exist and even prosper without writing. Technological advancement, however, is entirely dependent upon writing and the ability for one to learn not only the sum of the knowledge of one’s parent, but of other people’s parents, and not only the knowledge contained in one’s own village, but from every village around the world.

Today, paper is everywhere. We write on it, type on it, and print out lifelike photographs with our color printers. Tiny inkless thermal printers reside in gasoline pumps and print out records of how much gasoline we pumped on their thermal paper rolls, so we can keep expense records to help calculate our budgets and expense reports. We’ve even created electronic paper that recreates letters and words in response to coded electrical impulses sent though a matrix of microscopic transistors. All of it is due to the invention, thousands of years ago, of simple paper.

An easily made, durable, and highly transportable medium for recording the sum total of human knowledge. Whether it’s papyrus, bond paper, or chemically enhanced thermal paper, it may be the single most important invention in the history of humanity because it has made nearly all the other technologies we have invented possible. Not only possible to create but possible for all the world to share in those discoveries as written records travelled the globe.