The ballpoint pen was invented for a long time by different people in different countries. The American John Laud found the correct principle of action, the first workable model was made by the Hungarian Laszlo Biro, and a completely perfect design was created by Japanese engineers.
The history of a ballpoint pen is not as simple as it might seem, and is much older than officially documented.
Background
The idea of a ballpoint pen operating on paste-based oil-based inks can be traced back to
.Holland XVII century! The sailors of the then "mistress of the seas" needed unbreakable, non-spillable writing instruments, which could be used in a storm during rolling. The Netherlands was almost the firstborn of the European industrial revolution.
However, the level of development of the then mechanical engineering and chemical technology did not allow the creation of a device suitable for the needs of practice. Like a marine chronometer to accurately determine longitude. Hans Christian Huygens himself worked in vain over it, but a true idea in principle was realized only in the 19th century.
At the same time, when the accuracy of metal processing reached an acceptable value, and chemists could precisely develop substances of complex composition, the principle of the operation of a ballpoint pen was patented. The exact name, date, and country is October 30, 1888, John Laud, USA.
Laud correctly formulated the main highlight of the "ball": the forces of viscous friction and surface tension in a thick liquid will not allow the ball to press against the upper neck of its hole when pressed with a hand, wedge and block the ink flow. Laud also determined the physicochemical requirements for the ink: they must be thixotropic, that is, they must be liquefied by mechanical stress - friction, pressure. The ballpoint pen will never dry out when filled with thixotropic ink.
A good example of a thixotropic substance is pine rosin. If a finger is pressed along its piece, then roughness is felt at first, as if you were driving along a solid body. But then the finger begins to slide, like paraffin or soap, although the piece has not yet warmed up to soften.
Start
Further, the efforts of the inventors went more towards improving the composition of the ink. The first workable design suitable for mass production was created in 1938 by the Hungarian journalist living in Argentina, László József Bíró. In Argentina, ballpoint pens are still called "biroms." However, its priority is disputed by the Anglo-Saxons, referring to the US patent dated June 10, 1943, issued to Milton Reynolds.
Reynolds did not seem to know about Biro's pen, and developed a similar design and ink on his own. He worked for the needs of the US Air Force and England. Their bomber armada flew at high altitudes, there were no pressurized cabins then, the pilots spent many hours in oxygen masks. Conventional pens flowed at reduced atmospheric pressure, and using pencils was inconvenient.
In fact, there is no reason for a patent dispute, Biro invented the "ball". But the fact that Biro's priority was disputed on the grounds that he was a citizen of Nazi Hungary and lived in formally neutral, but secretly and actively helping Hitler Argentina, looks unsightly. Of course, no one denies or belittles the crimes of Nazism, but the technique is not at all to blame for them.
Further, the “ball" was simplified and cheapened by Marcel Bich in France in 1953. He proposed to make a core - an ampoule with ink - with thickened walls, and use it as a pen case. So there appeared widespread still disposable cheap BIC pens, only the name of the inventor is already written in English transcription.
For a long time, ballpoint pens were forbidden to be used in primary schools. They still wrote poorly, often clogged with villi from the paper, and the kids, who immediately began to write with "balls", forever broke their handwriting.
Modernity
The last point in the improvement of the ballpoint pen was put by the specialists of the Japanese company Ohto Co in 1963. They started the rolled hole in which the ball was placed, not in round cross-section, but in the form of three converging channels. The design of the writing unit of a modern ballpoint pen is shown in the figure. Such a pen can write on almost any ink holding material, and will not become clogged, even if it draws a large tuft of cotton wool.
Unfortunately, the names of the inventors are unknown: according to Japanese corporate rules, all intellectual property developed in the company belongs to the company. A true inventor, under the threat of severe punishment, cannot claim authorship even in private conversation.
Enhancements
In 1984, another Japanese company, Sakura Color Products Corp., replaced oil inks with synthetic gel, while at the same time increasing the ball diameter to 0.7 mm. So there was a rollerball pen, the sister of the "ball". Rollerball can be written literally without pressure even on glass, polished metal and wet packing cardboard, and the ink trail is sharper than from the "ball".
With the beginning of space flights, astronauts faced a problem: pens, including ballpoint pens, did not write in zero gravity, and graphite pencils gave shavings and conductive dust. Soviet cosmonauts used wax pencils for a long time, American astronauts, up to flights to the moon, used special mechanical ones, $ 100 apiece at the then exchange rate.
However, back in 1967, entrepreneur Paul Fisher offered NASA his Zero Gravity Pen, or Space Pen (weightless pen or space pen). The ball in it was made of tungsten carbide (in our country it is known as the winner). The entire writing unit was made with precision precision. The ampoule with ink (cartridge) is sealed, it contains nitrogen under a pressure of 2.4 atm. Inks with pronounced thixotropy, they are separated from the gas by a viscous movable stopper.
The development of the pen model AG7 Space Pen - one of the legends of NASA, a reason for his accusations and jokes about him. AG7 cost … $ 1, 000, 000! Although already a prototype of Fisher, no complaints of the astronauts have caused. Currently available models are on sale from $ 6 to $ 100. They write on anything in the temperature range from –30 to +120 degrees Celsius in air, in vacuum and under water. Guaranteed service life - 120 years.
