The Positive And Negative Invention Of Gunpowder

Scientists in China during the Song Dynasty experimenting to find an elixir to grant immortality instead invented one the most deadly weapon: gunpowder. Gunpowder is the most negative invention not by creation, but by use. It is the basis for every weapon since invention and has more attributed deaths than the atomic bomb. Gunpowder has created more problems than it has solved. I concede not all uses of gunpowder are malicious. Fireworks are a prime example of how it can be used as an enjoyable and harmless medium. Gunpowder has also made it easier to hunt and kill animals to sustain life. But the proper uses never create negative impacts. The misuse and abuse of gunpowder have lead to it being the most negative invention ever. Gunpowder has always been an extremely volatile substance. When invented, the scientists kept notes on how it started fires, burned several of them, and even burned their research center to the ground. Even the most innocent use, fireworks, has resulted in thousands of deaths when factories malfunction and ignite, or worse, explode.

The most common use of gunpowder also lends to it's name: weaponry. It changed war methods from typically close, hand-to-hand combat to impersonal battles fought over distances. In the most primitive form, it was saturated on tips of arrows to shoot fire at distant enemies. Thus, it facilitated the advancement of modern warfare as it's uses were discovered, from projectile cannons to single-shot muskets, handheld guns, and finally machine guns. War casualties soared with guns, which illuminated the newfound ease of taking lives, which clearly is a negative