A ballpoint pen is a writing instrument that uses the rotation of steel balls to write ink onto paper. After World War II, ballpoint pens were introduced to China. Smart businessmen advertised "atom pens" in a big way, taking advantage of the aftereffects of the atomic bomb that exploded in Japan not long ago to expand sales. In fact, "ballpoint pen" has nothing to do with atoms, it just has a similar pronunciation.
Judging from the available information, the first time the name ballpoint pen appeared was in 1888. At that time, an American named John Lauder designed a pen tip that used roller balls. pen, but he failed to make it into a commercial product that was easy for people to use.
In 1895, a commercial non-writing ballpoint pen was also sold on the British market, but it failed to become popular due to its narrow use. In 1916, someone in Germany also designed and produced a new type of ballpoint pen. Its structure was relatively close to today's ballpoint pens, but its performance was poor and it failed to attract widespread attention.
In 1936, Biro in Hungary was responsible for text proofreading in a news printing factory. When correcting proofs with a pen, blurring often occurred. For this reason, Biro began to wonder whether he could trial-produce an other type of printing press. writing instrument instead of a pen. After a period of experimentation, he filled a steel round tube with quick-drying ink and installed a steel ball on one end as a pen tip. Then, he conducted writing experiments on various writing materials and found that they could leave indelible marks, and the ink in the pen tube was not easy to spill. The experiment was successful. In 1940, he improved his invention and applied for a patent on July 10, 1943. It was put into the market in 1945.
Ballpoint pens are different from fountain pens in that they use dry-thick ink, and the ink is brought out and transferred to the paper by the freely rotating steel ball on the pen head, so it does not leak or be affected by the weather. , and the writing time is longer, eliminating the trouble of frequent filling of ink. It quickly became popular around the world. Currently, Japan alone consumes 400 million ballpoint pens a year.