Johannes Gutenberg
1448
Before the 1400s, written works were either copied by hand or carved page by page into blocks, dipped in ink, and pressed upon paper. Both techniques were slow and labor intensive. As a result, there were few books in the world, and of those that existed, there were relatively few copies. In 1448, a German engraver named Johannes Gutenberg revolutionized printing with a simple idea: moveable type. Gutenberg designed a printing press in which individual cast-metal letters and symbols could be arranged and rearranged in nearly endless combinations. With his invention, Gutenberg lit the fuse for an explosion of idea sharing and innovation.
Our Thoughts?
How many people over the years had worked in print shops and simply accepted the slow, cumbersome process? Johannes Gutenberg?s real innovation was that he simply noticed that the process could be changed. Creativity researchers refer to this trait as ?sensitivity.? Creative people, they say, are those who are sensitive to opportunities for innovation.
ThinkWorks products encourage sensitivity and attention to detail by calling attention to patterns of knowledge. While playing with ThinkBlocks, your child will think about parts and wholes, identity and other, viewer and viewed, cause and effect. These simple patterns underlie all thought. When your child learns to think in terms of them, he or she will feel confident finding and attacking problems, large and small.
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