5 ms·

That page numbers in books were only invented 50 years after the printing press is a fun snippet from the article

by trebligdivad 8mo ago

swalsh 8mo ago
Many times obvious things are only obvious once you see them. Like roller suitcases.
- bookofjoe 8mo ago
  See also: the wheel
ssivark 8mo ago
The early printing press was probably focused on short few page documents (an increasing scale), and it wouldn't be surprising if page numbers were a solution to help printers not mix up pages.
- adrian_b 8mo ago
  Your hypothesis does not match history, because the early printing was focused on things that had a potentially large market, which at that time meant books like The Bible, with a lot of pages. The parent article mentions that binding the pages of the first bibles in the correct order, in the absence of page numbers, was an extremely tedious work. That is why page numbers have invented many years later, exactly as you say, "to help printers not mix up pages".
- observationist 8mo ago
  The Gutenberg Bible was one of the first mass produced books - no page numbers on early copies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible#/media/File:Gutenberg_Bible,_Lenox_Copy,_New_York_Public_Library,_2009._Pic_01.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible#/media/File:Gu... Hindsight is 20/20 , lol. There are so many obvious, effective constructs and functions in modern English, we kinda miss the absolute janky mess of hacking and tradition and arbitrary rules and facepalm moments that went in to the last 1500+ years of development, let alone the tens of thousands of years prior.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
- mmooss 8mo ago
  > it wouldn't be surprising if page numbers were a solution to help printers not mix up pages. It's an interesting idea. Remember they printed large sheets containing many 'pages', I think even in different orientations, which were then folded and the ends cut to produce a nice orderly codex for the reader. They were printing in a different order than the one you read in. I do think they numbered the large sheets or similar, and you can find old books that retain that number, but I don't recall what it is called.
observationist 8mo ago
Sometime after 685 AD, they invented spaces between words. All text - in Latin to that point, mostly - was written in scriptio continua. All sorts of ambiguity and hilarity would ensue; to be a good writer, you needed to ensure that words didn't bleed together and form incorrect meanings in unintended combinations. If you lost your place when reading, you'd have to know generally where you were in a scroll, and restart from a place you remembered. Kinda crazy to think how difficult it would be to cross reference things and do collaborative research with no spaces or pages.
- datsci_est_2015 8mo ago
  Also kind of crazy how long “but that’s the way we’ve always done it” can remain the dominant system, despite a revolutionary change being so trivially achievable. This required absolutely no technological advancement, literally just putting a little more space between letters to reduce ambiguity.
  - Ekaros 8mo ago
    English is good example. It has not been fixed for long while. Even if there would be so many better ways to write certain words.
    - HappMacDonald 8mo ago
      I feel like Mathematical notation is also a great example (since Math is ultimately a separate language: the language of measurement) It's been built up over centuries where new innovations and shifts in perspective often create new kinds of notation, but those most frequently just get tacked onto whatever else is already standard and the new notations almost never actually supplant the old. AFAICT we haven't really had a big shift in fundamental mathematical notation in Europe (and its colonies) since Roman Numerals (CXXIII) gave way to Arabic (123) numerals four hundred years ago. 8I
      - duskwuff 8mo ago
BurningFrog 8mo ago
I can see how it wculd take that long to realize it would be nice to have a way to tell people which page to look at in their exact copy of a book.

That page numbers in books were only invented 50 years after the printing press is a fun snippet from the article

swalsh 8mo ago

Many times obvious things are only obvious once you see them. Like roller suitcases.

bookofjoe 8mo ago
See also: the wheel

ssivark 8mo ago

The early printing press was probably focused on short few page documents (an increasing scale), and it wouldn't be surprising if page numbers were a solution to help printers not mix up pages.

adrian_b 8mo ago
Your hypothesis does not match history, because the early printing was focused on things that had a potentially large market, which at that time meant books like The Bible, with a lot of pages. The parent article mentions that binding the pages of the first bibles in the correct order, in the absence of page numbers, was an extremely tedious work. That is why page numbers have invented many years later, exactly as you say, "to help printers not mix up pages".
observationist 8mo ago
The Gutenberg Bible was one of the first mass produced books - no page numbers on early copies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible#/media/File:Gutenberg_Bible,_Lenox_Copy,_New_York_Public_Library,_2009._Pic_01.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible#/media/File:Gu... Hindsight is 20/20 , lol. There are so many obvious, effective constructs and functions in modern English, we kinda miss the absolute janky mess of hacking and tradition and arbitrary rules and facepalm moments that went in to the last 1500+ years of development, let alone the tens of thousands of years prior.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
mmooss 8mo ago
> it wouldn't be surprising if page numbers were a solution to help printers not mix up pages. It's an interesting idea. Remember they printed large sheets containing many 'pages', I think even in different orientations, which were then folded and the ends cut to produce a nice orderly codex for the reader. They were printing in a different order than the one you read in. I do think they numbered the large sheets or similar, and you can find old books that retain that number, but I don't recall what it is called.

observationist 8mo ago

Sometime after 685 AD, they invented spaces between words. All text - in Latin to that point, mostly - was written in scriptio continua. All sorts of ambiguity and hilarity would ensue; to be a good writer, you needed to ensure that words didn't bleed together and form incorrect meanings in unintended combinations. If you lost your place when reading, you'd have to know generally where you were in a scroll, and restart from a place you remembered. Kinda crazy to think how difficult it would be to cross reference things and do collaborative research with no spaces or pages.

datsci_est_2015 8mo ago
Also kind of crazy how long “but that’s the way we’ve always done it” can remain the dominant system, despite a revolutionary change being so trivially achievable. This required absolutely no technological advancement, literally just putting a little more space between letters to reduce ambiguity.
- Ekaros 8mo ago
  English is good example. It has not been fixed for long while. Even if there would be so many better ways to write certain words.
  - HappMacDonald 8mo ago
    I feel like Mathematical notation is also a great example (since Math is ultimately a separate language: the language of measurement) It's been built up over centuries where new innovations and shifts in perspective often create new kinds of notation, but those most frequently just get tacked onto whatever else is already standard and the new notations almost never actually supplant the old. AFAICT we haven't really had a big shift in fundamental mathematical notation in Europe (and its colonies) since Roman Numerals (CXXIII) gave way to Arabic (123) numerals four hundred years ago. 8I
    - duskwuff 8mo ago

BurningFrog 8mo ago

I can see how it wculd take that long to realize it would be nice to have a way to tell people which page to look at in their exact copy of a book.