In ancient times, many effective fire-making methods were summarized in practice, such as drilling wood for fire, using concave lens to obtain sunlight heat source and so on. These methods have improved the quality of life and promoted the development of society.
In ancient times, people didn't know there was fire or how to use it. At night, it was dark everywhere, wild animals roared one after another, and people crowded together, cold and scared. Because there is no fire, people can only eat raw food, often get sick and have a short life.
On a thunderstorm day, lightning struck the trees in a large forest, and the trees burned, and the whole forest quickly became a raging fire. After the thunderstorm stopped, people found that the burnt wild animals not far away gave off bursts of fragrance, so they gathered by the fire to share the burnt meat.
People felt the value of fire. A young man took off a branch, lit the fire and kept it. Every day, people take turns watching the fire to keep it from going out. But one day, the man on duty fell asleep, and the branches of the torch burned out and went out. People fall into darkness and cold again, which is very painful.
One night, a young man met a man of God in his dream, and the man of God told him that he could get the fire back when he went to the Ming Dynasty. The young man woke up, remembered what the Great God said in his dream, and decided to go to Suiming to find a fire.
There is a big tree called Xiangmu in Xiangzhou. This tree is really huge, and its branches extend over 10 kilometers. And there are beautiful firelights everywhere under the big tree, which makes the air as bright as day.
In this splendid and beautiful firelight, the people of the Ming Dynasty worked hard, enjoyed themselves and lived in this firelight.
The young man climbed mountains, rivers and forests, and went through hardships, and finally came to the Ming Dynasty. He found several big birds pecking at insects on the flint tree with their short hard beaks. As soon as they pecked, bright sparks shone on the trees. When the young man saw this scene, his mind flashed and he had an idea.
He immediately broke some branches of flint wood and drilled big branches with small branches. The branches really shone with fire. The young man is not discouraged. He found all kinds of branches and patiently rubbed them with different branches. Finally, smoke came out of the branches, and then it caught fire. Young people returned to their hometown, bringing people an eternal fire and bringing back the way of drilling wood for fire.
From then on, people no longer have to live in cold and fear. People were impressed by the young man's courage and wisdom, elected him as the leader, and called him "the man who made the fire", which means "the man who made the fire".
The invention of artificial fire ended the era of human eating hair and drinking blood and opened a new era of human civilization. Therefore, Suiren has always been respected and worshipped by people, and he is regarded as the head of Huang San and the "ancestor of fire".
It is a legend that people in ancient China used heat sources.
According to historical data, the methods of ignition can be divided into heating by friction, focusing with concave spherical mirror, and igniting with chemical drugs. These three means of developing and utilizing heat sources have accompanied human production and life for thousands of years.
Firemaking by friction and percussion began in the middle and late Paleolithic period. At that time, the method of striking stones to produce sparks was already known, and later friction, sawing and pressing were invented. In ancient books, the so-called "Suiren's drilling wood for fire", "Fuxi sitting in meditation for a cow, using the wrong wood for fire" and "burning when wood rubs against wood" are not false, but only reflect the wisdom of ancient ancestors to obtain heat sources through Chinese celebrities.
After the use of iron, people also hit hard flint with an iron sickle, generating sparks and igniting flammable materials. These are all converted from mechanical energy to heat energy, which is of course laborious and inconvenient.
Regarding the use of concave spherical mirrors to gather the fire of the sun, concave spherical mirrors were called "flints" in ancient times and were divided into golden flints and wooden flints. The golden elephant takes the fire of the sun, and the wooden elephant takes the fire of the wood.
Fuxiang is an instrument used by the ancients to make a fire in the sun. It is a metal cup with a pointed bottom, which is placed in the sun to make the light gather at the tip of the cup bottom. Put moxa, velvet and the like at the bottom of the cup first, so that it can be lit when it meets light. Therefore, the husband's embarrassment is the golden embarrassment. In addition, "Kao Gong Ji" also recorded the method of taking fire with Suk Kim as the mirror and concave facing the sun. It can be seen that our country had the technology of using optical principle to make a fire 4000 years ago.
In the Han dynasty, golden coffins were still used to make fires. At that time, it was also called "Yang Nian", that is, a bronze mirror was used to take the fire of the sun, and moxa was also used to light the fire. In the Song Dynasty, it was also popular to make a fire by pressing gold. In fact, this is today's convex mirror.
If we hold this glass mirror and face the sun, the mirror will converge like beans, and then put it under flammable materials, and we can get a fire in an instant. There was no glass in ancient times, so a gold mirror was used. Modern solar cookers are developed from this truth. It used to be embarrassing for the ancients to go out. Because the flint at that time was a pointed cup, the volume was very small, and everyone was girded for use. However, using Xiang Yang to make a fire has a disadvantage, that is, you can't make a fire on cloudy days or at night.
For example, in ancient times, people always carried firearms with them when marching or hunting. In the Book of Rites, there are records of "Pei Zuo Jin Xiang" and "You Pei Mu Xiang", indicating that gold incense is used to make a fire on sunny days, and wood is used to make a fire on cloudy days. It is a pioneer of mankind to concentrate solar energy with optical instruments.
In addition to ancient records, archaeological relics also have this proof. Archaeologists once unearthed a concave mirror with a diameter of 7.5 cm in the tomb of Guo Guo in Shangcunling, Shan County, Henan Province, with a high nose button on the back, which can be worn on a rope.
It is worth noting that a small oblate copper pot was unearthed together with this concave mirror, and both sides of the mouth and lid of the pot were perforated to tie the rope. This is probably to match Ai Rong and concave mirror. This can be said to be a special instrument for human beings to use solar heat energy in the early days, which has a history of more than 2500 years.
Concave mirror's specific use of fire, the Eastern Han Confucian scholar Xu Shen's words are more detailed:
It must be done when the sun rises to a considerable height and the light is sufficient; The ignition material is dry wormwood; The focal length of concave mirror used is only "more than one inch", and the light gathering ability should be very good; When the temperature of wormwood rises to a certain extent, it is only burnt at first. In order to make wormwood burn and invent fire, it is necessary to provide enough oxygen for combustion through artificial methods.
Since the Warring States Period, there has been a saying of "igniting with beads". It may be that a round transparent body gathers the sun to ignite, and its efficiency is equal to focusing with a convex lens. However, it is not widely used.
China used chemical drugs to ignite earlier. In the Northern and Southern Dynasties, "candle making" was invented in the Northern Zhou Dynasty. It is made of molted hemp stalks into small pieces, five or six inches long, and its head is coated with sulfur, which burns when it meets fire. In the south, hair wax is made of pine or Chinese fir.
According to Tao, a scholar in Yuan Dynasty, this kind of "lighting candles" is actually to coat a small piece of pine with sulfur that melts for one minute. Is the use of sulfur with a very low ignition point, which can be burned into an open flame when it meets an open flame.
Since the invention of "hair candle" in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, it has been specially manufactured as a commodity supply. Later, the materials used in different places were slightly different, and there were also different names such as "hair candle", "sperm", "lamp slave", "fire inch" and "taking lamp".
This kind of thing has been used for a long time, and it was not until19th century that the matches directly ignited by friction, which were invented in Europe, were introduced to China, that they gradually replaced the traditional matches.