22 Magnificent Facts About Paper

Paper is one of the most valuable gifts to humans and is well known. We write and print on paper, keep office records on paper, Students do their tasks on paper. We are very much dependent on paper. Paper is used in almost every aspect that human is involved in these modern times. We can’t think to do any task without the use of paper. So here are 22 interesting facts about the paper that might baffle you.

1. Paper is an important invention that helped humanity in many ways. Paper helped the human race in a number of ways, such as communication, Storing Data, Literate people and even helped in the development of science and technology.
2. The first paper in history was made of the papyrus plant. This type of paper was discovered in the tombs and temples of Ancient Egypt dating back to 2700 B.C. The amazing thing about papyrus paper is that it is extremely strong, durable, and elastic, produced naturally.
3. The word paper is derived from the name of the reedy plant papyrus, which grows abundantly along Egypt’s Nile River.
4. The earliest papermaking technique was described in China during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE) and is credited to the court official Cai Lun. In the eighth century, Chinese papermaking moved to the Islamic world, where pulp mills and paper mills were utilised to make paper and money.
5. During the Tang dynasty (618–907), the first banknote-type instrument was used in China in the 7th century. To avoid using the heavy bulk of copper coinage in large commercial transactions, merchants would issue what are now known as promissory notes in the form of receipts of deposit to wholesalers.
6. In 1056, the first recorded paper mill in the Iberian Peninsula was in Xàtiva. Papermaking first appeared in Europe in 1085 in Toledo and was well established in Xàtiva, Spain by 1150. Mills were established in Fabriano, Italy, during the 13th century and in Treviso and other northern Italian towns by 1340.
7. According to much research, the Japanese devised origami, the art of folding paper, about a thousand years ago, but its origins could be in China. It’s also possible that the folding method was used on other materials before the paper was produced, so the origins of recreational folding could be traced back to fabric or leather.
8. There are two steps to making paper: Cellulose fibres are collected and processed to pulp from a variety of sources. The pulp is mixed with water and fed into a paper machine, where it is flattened, dried, and cut into sheets and rolls.
9. To produce paper from trees, the wood must be transformed into pulp. This pulp is created out of a combination of wood fibres and chemicals. The pulp is then sprayed onto mesh screens. This produces a mat of pulp, which is then dried out and goes through numerous procedures to remove the water.
10. In 1390, the first permanent paper mill was established in Nuremberg, Germany. Many work processes in European paper milling have improved rapidly since the 14th century.
11. Germany became the first country to publish a Newspaper. The first Newspaper was named “Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien” (Collection of all Distinguished and Commemorable News) and was started by Johann Carolus in the year 1609.
12. In 1690, the first paper mill in America was established near Philadelphia. William Rittenhouse established the first paper mill in the United States in 1690 on the banks of the Monoshone Creek near Germantown, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia.
13. The industrial revolution of the 19th century reduced the cost of producing paper.
14. The most common paper size is A4, which measures 210mm x 297mm (8.27 inches x 11.7 inches). The A0 size of paper is the largest sheet in the A-series and measures 841 x 1188 mm.
15. On National Toilet Paper Day (August 26, 2011), the world’s most giant toilet paper roll was unveiled at P&G’s headquarters in Cincinnati. The toilet paper measured 2.97 m (9 ft 8.9 in) in diameter.
16. There are many different types of paper on the market that are tailored to specific applications or industries. The seven most common types of paper are Repro paper, Coated paper, Tissue paper, Newsprint paper, cardboard, Paperboard and Fine Art paper.
17. The World record for most Gigantic paper ball was 9 feet 7 inches tall, 32.2 feet in diameter, and weighed 426 pounds. The ball was made without using any adhesive, glue, or tape in accordance with Guinness World Records criteria.
18. The largest sheet of handmade paper measured 14.95 m x 10 m (49 ft 0.5 in x 32 ft 10 in) and was created on August 7 2015, by students at Colegio Salesiano Don Bosco de Ypacara in Ypacara, Paraguay. Around 250 students worked together to create the massive sheet of paper out of recycled Newspaper.
19. Britney Gallivan, a California high school student, holds the current world paper-folding record, having folded a 1.2km-long piece of tissue paper 12 times in 2002.
20. The largest Newspaper measures 3.6 m (11 ft 9 in) X 2.565 m (8 ft 4 in) and is a giant replica of El Mercurio de Valparaiso, which was unveiled on December 3, 2015, in Valparaiso, Chile. This massive Newspaper was made from the same materials as a regular-sized newspaper, but it was 81 times larger.
21. If you would fold a piece of paper 45 times, it would be thick enough to reach the moon. So a piece of paper folded 42 times will be 4 x 10^10 cm. The distance to the moon is about 380,000 km, or about 4 x 10^10 cm indeed. Similarly, if you fold a paper sheet 50 times, it will reach the sun and folding it 103 times, it will roughly be the size of the universe.
22. Cold press paper has a lot of teeth, which means it has a lot of tiny bumps and grooves that hold water and colour. The rougher a paper feels, the more tooth it has.