Wednesday, February 12, 2025

EOTO Reaction #1: The Ball Point Pen

We all use ballpoint pens daily and don't think twice about using them. But there was a time when there was no ballpoint pen. One of my classmates did a deep dive into the ballpoint pen to teach the whole class its history.

The idea of this pen originally came to mind over 130 years ago in 1888 by a lawyer named John J Loud. John J Loud aspired to have a pen that could write on wood and leather. But he did not want this device to look anyway. He wanted the pen to have a revolving steel ball and a socket to hold it in place. While Loud had high hopes, his patent could not take off because the ink was not distributing evenly.

In the 1930's a Hungarian journalist, Laszlo Biro, noticed that every time he used a fountain pen the ink would smudge. Frustrated with the result Laszlo teamed up with his brother Gyorgy who was a chemist at the time. Gyorgy created an ink that would not smudge and spread easily.

With the quick-drying ink, the days of drippy and splotchy letters were over. This new pen created a continual line of ink never seen before. The pen was patented in the early 1940's. Marcel Bich bought the patent in the 50's. Marcel started the company Bic that we all know, love, and use today. This was a cool fact that my classmate shared as I have a lot of Bic products.

The ballpoint pen changed the world of communication for the better. It was the first pen that did not leave a total mess on a piece of paper and could also write on other surfaces as well. The ballpoint pen allowed people to write whenever they wanted as it was very hard and inconvenient to carry around ink and a feather. I'm glad I got to learn about a device that is still used today and relevant in our daily lives.