– Argentina
Say
you live back in the time when writing means that you have to dip a
quill into ink, carefully carry it over your paper to the spot on the
page you left off, hoping you don't drip, and then you begin to
scratch your quill across the paper, writing the next little bit--
but then the fragile quill catches a bit on the paper—or breaks a
bit because it's at the end of its life—and BLOT! That page is done
for!
Or
maybe you live in the time when fountain pens have been invented, and
there are little canisters of ink right inside your pen! No dipping
necessary! Even better, the tip of the pen is metal! It'll never
break, and it the texture of the paper is no match for metal, and so
you never drip or blot!
Hooray!
But
then you realize that you just smeared the last word you wrote as you
moved your hand back to the beginning of the next line.
And...the
page is ruined! Sigh.
A
man named Laszlo Jozsef Biro noticed that newspaper ink was
quick-drying and non-smearing. That's the kind of ink people
should have in their pens, he thought.
But
newspaper ink was too thick. It gummed up fountain pens rather than
flowing out to make smooth lines.
Biro
worked with his brother Georg, a chemist, to make a new kind of pen
tip: a ball that would turn in a socket, and that would pick up ink
from a cartridge as it rolled and then transfer it onto the paper as
it rolled some more.
And
so the world got its first ballpoint pen!
From
Hungary to Argentina...
Today
Argentinians honor all people, everywhere, who invent things, but
Inventors' Day is set on the birthday of Laszlo Biro, who was
born on this day in 1899 in Budapest, Hungary. He patented his
invention of the ballpoint pen in Paris in 1938, and in 1943 he and
his brother moved to Argentina, where they filed another patent and
formed a pen-manufacturing company.
Do
you have some invention ideas?
Check
out some invention websites on the internet...
- Creativity Pool is a place to share ideas and get ideas. Warning: this is a place where somebody else might grab your idea and create the invention. So don't share ideas if you intend to carry them out!
- Invention Idea -dot-org teaches the steps to funding your invention idea.
- About-dot-com offers 11 practical lessons on turning an invention into money.
No comments:
Post a Comment