What was the most important consequence of
the printing press?
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The printing press was important as it helped spread knowledge quickly and it made knowledge easily accessed
by everyone. Since more people are getting easier access to knowledge, it gives more people a chance to discover
something, or make something based on the knowledge of the previous scientists. Document 8 shows that, within
only 50 years of the printing press being made, ¾ of the 20 million books that were printed were classical or
medieval, these books had already existed, but this time, it was more available to anyone who could read. Also, as
Latin and Greek became more well known, publishers started to print books in those languages as well, thus
expanding the reach of those ancient ideas even further. The evidence suggested that the printing was very
popular amongst many people, and that classical and medieval were the majority of them. This proves that the
printing press made it easier for people to be able to read medieval and classical books, since those books would
not be affordable due to the fact that it was ancient, and since not many people published those books anymore
(until the printing press came, of course). Document 1 shows how the printing press also helped with spreading
the bible, we can see how on the first picture, the man who is writing down the bible looks very unhappy from
writing for too long. But, on the 2nd photo, the people printing the books look quite happy and having fun in
their job. The printing press also lowered the cost of books and made it easier to produce.This shows that the
printing press might have helped Christianity spread quickly since it allowed mass production of the bible and it
allowed more people to have access to the bible. More people had access to the bible mainly because it was
cheaper and wasn’t as hard to make due to the fact that it wasn’t written by hand anymore.Therefore, the
printing press was very important, since it gave people a chance to discover, and to create knowledge, and
because it helped spread Christianity.
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The thermometer was less important than the printing press because they were inaccurate and
it wasn’t daily used. At the time the thermometer was invented, it took an even longer amount
of time for it to be modified and ready for use. According to Livescience, “Thermometers were
extremely inaccurate and scientists during this time period did not use this to make
conclusions or any discoveries.” This is logical to say that this invention was considered useless
until another scientist modified it. This would also mean that the changes and impacts that this
invention made were probably not large and was not as life-changing in comparison to the
Printing Press, which was already ready to use and fully functional at the time when it was
made. ASAP science states that, when the thermometer was first made, it didn’t really help
scientists in their daily work as much as it did now, a lot of scientists did not really find the
first generation thermometers really that helpful since it was still very inaccurate. The early
thermometers could only do limited things, it could only measure if the temperature could go
up or down in big amounts, but if the temperature changed slightly, they wouldn’t be able to
notice it since it wasn’t accurate enough yet. In 1654, the Duke of Tuscany improved on the
thermometer, it was better, but it still lacked a standardized scale. While the printing press, as
stated above, was already functional and ready to use. Also, in document 2, we can see the
impact of the printing press in only 31 years, in 1471, there were only 15 printing presses in
Europe, but in 1500, we can see that it has expanded its reach to many many other places, a lot
of the printing presses were around Germany and Italy, there were some printing presses in
Spain and France too. The appearance of the printing press in many places means that there
was a huge demand for books in many areas, the huge demand was probably due to the fact
that books have never been so cheap before, so when the printing press came out, it was quite
major news for many less wealthy people. In conclusion, the printing press was more
important, since it was more useful, and it was already ready to use when it was made.