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A ballpoint pen (also eponymously known in British English as a biro and pronounced bye-row in Britain but sometimes bee-row elsewhere), is a modern writing instrument. more...

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A ballpoint pen has an internal chamber filled with a viscous ink that is dispensed at the tip during use by the rolling action of a small metal sphere (0.7 mm to 1.2 mm in diameter); the ink dries almost immediately after contact with paper. Inexpensive, reliable and maintenance-free, the ballpoint has almost completely replaced the fountain pen.

History

The manufacture of economical, reliable ballpoint pens resulted from a combination of experimentation, modern chemistry and the precision manufacturing capabilities of 20th century technology. Many patents worldwide are testaments to failed attempts to make these pens commercially viable and widely available. It has even been argued that a design by Galileo Galilei (during the 17th century), was that of a ballpoint pen.

The first patent on a ballpoint pen was issued on 30 October, 1888, to John J Loud. The pen had a rotating small steel ball, held in place by a socket. Although the pen, which proved to be too coarse for letter writing, could be used to mark rough surfaces, especially leather, it was not commercially exploited.

In the period between 1900 and 1940, there was intense interest in improving writing instruments, particularly alternatives or improvements to the fountain pen. Slavoljub Eduard Penkala invented a solid-ink fountain pen in 1907, a German inventor called Baum took out a ballpoint patent in 1910, and yet another ballpoint pen device was patented by Van Vechten Riesburg in 1916. In these inventions, the ink was placed in a thin tube, whose end was blocked by a tiny ball, held so that it could not slip into the tube or fall out of the pen. The ink clung to the ball, which spun as the pen was drawn across the paper. These proto-ballpoints did not deliver the ink evenly. If the ball socket was too tight, the ink did not reach the paper. If it was too loose, ink flowed past the tip, leaking or making smears. Many inventors applied their minds and skills to remedying these faults, but without commercial success. (

László Bíró, a newspaper editor, was frustrated by the amount of time that he wasted in filling up fountain pens and cleaning up smudged pages, and the sharp tip of his fountain pen often tore his pages of newsprint. Bíró had noticed that the type of ink used in newspaper printing dried quickly, leaving the paper dry and smudge free. He decided to create a pen using the same type of ink. Since, when tried, this viscous ink would not flow into a regular fountain pen nib, Bíró—with the help of his brother George, a chemist—began to work on designing new types of pens. Bíró fitted this pen with a tiny ball in its tip that was free to turn in a socket. As the pen moved along the paper, the ball rotated, picking up ink from the ink cartridge and leaving it on the paper. Bíró filed a British patent on 15 June, 1938.

Read more at Wikipedia.org