Talk:Johannes Gutenberg/Archive 1

message: This page archives discussions upto the end of Oct 2006. mukerjee (talk) 05:17, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I was just wondering, I see Johann everywhere, except here it is written Johannes, is that as correct?
:His given name was Johannes, which was then shortened to Johann. Johannes is the Biblical form and Johann the German form. It's the same as Bill Clinton being born a William. This isn't worth mentioning in the article, though, as Johannes can be shortened in various ways (Hans, Hannes etc) and it didn't only happen in this case. Saintswithin 20:28, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Johann or Johannes

message: As far as I know Gutenberg made his invention while he was living in Strasbourg.
If that is correct then he probably never moved from Germany (whatever that would be
in 1430) to France, but just some 100 miles south along the river Rhine from one city of
the Holy Roman Empire to another one. 129.101.86.246 07:17, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "had moved from his native Germany to France"

message: What bothers me about the article: With the invention of printing more than one person seems to have been concerned. Why should it be Gutenberg himself, not one of his fellows, who invented printing? Perhaps they propelled him because history needs great men and heroes? Caesarion 2 July 2005 10:01 (UTC)
:The title of this article, and its subject, is Johann Gutenberg. Other individuals "invented" printing too. For information about just who invented printing with moveable type, read Printing Press. "Why should it be Gutenberg himself, not one of his fellows...?" because this article is about Gutenburg.
:Arbo 19:07, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gutenberg the only inventor 

message: Although it's been edited somewhat, big chunks of this entry have been plagiarized from elsewhere. (For evidence, put in the phrase "Reproduction of Gutenberg-era Press on display at the Printing History Museum in Lyon, France" into Google and look at the 41 (!) entries that use the same words.) For god's sake, at least put in the illustration that phrase refers to!
I don't have time right now, but the entire entry needs to be truly researched and rewritten.
: All are mirrors of this article. Rich Farmbrough 13:41, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  This whole thing is plagiarized 

message: Don't know if it's worth mentioning (& can't source if it is...), but his Bible was written in Latin, N (as might expect) German.  Trekphiler 08:19, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lingua 

message: Removed this sentence:
"His initial efforts enabled him to mass-produce indulgences -- printed slips of paper sold by the Catholic Church to remit temporal punishments in purgatory for sins committed in this life, for those wealthy enough to afford indulgences. This, in part, led to Martin Luther's critical response to indulgences."
because:
* I can find no authoritative source for this tale.  If there is one, it should be cited.
* More curiously, I can also find no authoritative reference to or pictures of these printed indulgence certificates.
* Luther was set off partly by circumstances involving Johannes Tetzel in 1517.  By that time, Gutenberg had been dead for nearly 50 years.
* Indulgences are not slips of paper, they were never sold by the Catholic Church (although I have seen reports that fradulent "indulgences" were sold by grifters), and the definition of indulgence is not quite right anyway.
If a source or example is found, this can be replaced (with corrections please).
-- Mpa 04:57, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indulgences 

message: I don't under the use of "word spacing" in the article:
"The Gutenberg Bible lacks many print features that modern readers are accustomed to, such as pagination, word spacing, indentations, and paragraph breaks."
However, both the text shown and the ones at the link above it show space between words.  Is there some other meaning to the expression "word spacing"?  Or, is this a reference to the way the Bible and other texts were hand written?
Monty 00:43, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Word spacing? 

message: I'm not sure that the reference below to Chinese characters necessarily follows:
"The Koreans and Chinese knew about movable metal types at the time, but because of the complexity of the Chinese writing system, movable type printing wasn’t as widely used as in Renaissance Europe."
First, it's not clear that there was less use of printing in China or in Korea at the time that moveable type became widespread in Europe, ie after 1460 CE.  It's also important to remember that "China and Korea" together were much larger than all of Europe of the same period.
Second, even if it is so, "the complexity of the writing system" may not have been a "cause" of less use.  Other factors would include demand, paper, and government regulation, to name just three.
The sentence above might be better re-written as follows:
"Although movable metal type was widely used in China and Korea before Gutenberg developed his printing press, it was his press, or versions thereof created in Europe, that caught on and became the model for later mass produced printing."
Monty 00:58, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There probably wasn't 'less use of printing' in China or Korea at the time; the start of the paragraph distinguishes between block printing and movable type as methods for printing Chinese, and is simply stating that block printing was better at the time for representing Chinese characters. It's not saying that printing in general was a scarce method in China, just movable type. It's probably wrong to say metal type was 'widely used' unless you have a source. I'm not in doubt that it was used, though. Also, you probably shouldn't oppose Chinese metal type tech with European in the same sentence in reference to what caught on, as it suggests they were somehow competing, which is impossible as they were invented and continued to develop in isolation from each other. - Moogsi 19:19, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sequitar? 

message: i started out by correcting the romanization for 채윤의, then couldn't find any google results for that name, then found references to Chae Yun, a chinese, & i got really confused & returned to the existing version (with romanization corrected), even though it looks obviously wrong.
from quick googling, i gather the following: wood-block printing was used in Korea and China during Three Kingdoms of Korea and Tang Dynasty respectively. the oldest extant printed material is Korea's 무구정광대다라니경(無垢淨光大陀羅尼經), printed sometime before 751. china's diamond sutra of 868 is the oldest extant self-dated printed book. in 1234, Korea's Goryeo dynasty records say a bronze printing press was used to print 고금상정예문(古今詳定禮文). Jikji is the oldest extant metal-type printed book.
the previous version may have been a confused reference to Chae Yun (not sure of chinese romanization) (蔡倫), a chinese, invented the paper in 105.
so somebody, please update with reliable references. thanks. Appleby 17:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  iron press? 

message: The Korean information does not match with the rest of the article.  The top of the article states 1447.  The Chae Yun-eui information states 1450.  I deleted the 1450 date for intneral consistency reasons.  
Also what is this stuff about Chinese wine making equipment?  Are we talking crushed grapes?  Chinese wine?  really?  Naerhu 08:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Korean 

message: Jossi likes to quote Rosarivo's inference that Gutenberg used the golden ratio in his page layout, but doesn't like me to refer to that as a hypothesis.  By saying that Rosarivo describes or discovered the use of the golden ratio, he implicity endorses the existence of the golden ratio in Gutenberg's works.  This seems to me to be going too far, especially since it wasn't until 1509 that the Divine Proportion was published, popularizing this previously obscure number as something special; it is very unlikely that Gutenberg would have known of it.  I have no trouble with crediting Rosarivo with this hypothesis, but I think we ought to call it that, not pretend that he proved the existence of the golden ratio in Gutenberg's works (the quoted dimensions that Jossi has published on other pages are not remotely consistent with it, by the way, being closer to 1.4:1). Jossi says that if I call it a hypothesis, that's a POV (presumably he means not NPOV), and that if I say why it's unlikely, that's original research and shouldn't be allowed to influence the article.  Is that the way it should work here?  Any opinions? Dicklyon 06:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Rosarivo's work was assessed by the Guntenberg museum and published, as per the sources provided by them. His study of the Gutenberg bibles is unparalleled. We should not insert our own opinions such as Dicklyon's such as "it is very unlikely that Gutenberg would have known of it", unless there is a reputable source that describes it in that manner. Wikipedia contains many references to scholar's work, and there is not need to add judgments such as "theorized", "hypothesized", or other. The term "described" is useful and does not assert that he proved anything. Let the scholar's stand on its own value, and let readers draw their own conclusions about this or other scholar's assertions. Rosarivo's body of work (which I am now researching and actively editing) can be read at Raul Rosarivo.  I will attempt a different wording, if the current wording could be construed as an assertion of fact (which it isn't) ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Jossi, thanks for your perspective.  Note, however, that although I have an opinion as to the validity of Rosarivo's hypothesis, I am not proposing putting my opinion in the article.  It is a fine hypothesis, worthy of further investigation.  I encourage you to find another wording as you suggested you might, to avoid the connotation that the existence of the golden ratio in Gutenberg is accepted as true (this is not quite an assertion of fact, but rather an implication of acceptance; subtle POV error, but worth fixing). Dicklyon 19:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Hope it works for you. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:11, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, much better, thanks. Dicklyon 20:21, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Alternatively, we could follow your quote from Rosarivo by a quote from Livio, stating that the golden ratio was obscure and known only to mathematicians before the 1509 book.  That is, rather than just leave Rosarivo's hypothesis as such, we could present the opposing evidence, if you prefer that approach. Dicklyon 19:46, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Does Livio refers to Gutenberg's lack of knowledge of the golden ratio? If so, by all means, please add that. Otherwise don't. If it was obscure, as Livio claims, it still does not preclude that Gutenberg may have known about it. Fortunately we have the policy of WP:NOR which reads that "articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of: published arguments, concepts, data, ideas, or statements — that serves to advance a position." ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:11, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And I was not intending to try to support such a POV unless you insisted on supporting the other.  Thanks for taking care of it the right way. Dicklyon 20:21, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Golden section