Miniature hot-air balloons
Joseph Needham’s immense encyclopedia, “Science and Civilization in China” (Cambridge, 1954), reminds us every day of how the Chinese are a people of brilliant inventors and also great scientists. And this, for 3000 years! For example, did you know the famous first physical Law of Motion of the great Newton, already explained in a 2400 year old Chinese book ?
Here, the invention of miniature Hot-air Balloons in the second century BC.
By the second century BC, the Chinese were making miniature hot-air balloons using eggshells A book written at that time, The Ten Thousand Infallible Arts of the Prince of Huai-Nan, mentions this pastime:
« Eggs can be made to fly in the air by the aid of burning tinder. ».
An ancient commentary added to the text explains further:
« Take an egg and remove the contents from the shell, then ignite a little mugwort tinder inside the hole so as to cause a strong air current. The egg will of itself rise in the air and fly away ».
Mugwort (Ariemisia vulgaris) is a very common weed, the long, dried stalks of which were used in China as tinder for lighting fires, and powdered as a flammable element in incense sticks.
Few references are found in Chinese writings to the use of the hot-air balloon principle. Perhaps it was for a long time not thought worthy of much attention, but by medieval times the military possibilities were being exploited.There are several references in European chronicles to the use of hot-air balloons, shaped like dragons, either for signaling or as standards by the Mongol Army at the Battle of Liegnitz in 1241.
The principle was in all probability obtained from the Chinese; the Mongol Dynasty finally established full sway over all of China only nineteen years after this.
Needham has pointed out that paper was available in China so many centuries before anywhere else (from the second century BC) that the development of the classical globular lanterns would have encouraged experimentation. When their upper openings were too small and the source of light and heat unusually strong, they must sometimes have shown a tendency to rise and float free of support.
A vivid eyewitness description of the use of hot-air balloons in the form of paper lanterns is provided by Peter Goullart, who lived between 1939 and 1949 the Liqiang region of Yunnan Province in the south of China:
« July, which was the critical month before the rainy season, had several festivals. With the rice already planted, the people did not have much to do and the evenings were devoted by the younger set to dancing and to flying the ‘koummingten’, the lighted balloons. During the day one could see the young eCn.. pasting together the oiled sheets of rough paper to form the structure of a balloon. These balloons were then dried in the sun and were ready for use in the evening. Crowds gathered to watch. A bunch of burning ‘mingze’ was tied underneath; the balloon swelled and quickly rose into the air to the shouts of excited spectators. The higher it rose the more good luck it promised to its owner. Some went up very high indeed and floated in the sky like red stars for several minutes. At the end they burst into flames and fell, sometimes causing fires by setting light to straw in unwatched farm-houses. Sometimes there were as many as twenty of these balloons floating through the dark sky. Balloon flying lasted for about a couple of weeks and it was great fun ! ».
