Birth of the ballpoint pen

One late night in 1888, American journalist John Lauder held a pen in his hand to conceive his own article that should be handed over to his boss tomorrow. As John wrote his letter, the sharp tip of the pen scratched his manuscript paper. John had to write again. When he wrote again, the pen ran out of water, so John had to refill the ink. When I was writing again, something suddenly happened again. The water output of the pen was too large, leaving a large area on the manuscript paper.

After these accidents one after another, John's enthusiasm for writing was completely extinguished. John threw away his heavy pen and got ready for bed. On the bed, John thought that if he could invent a pen to overcome the problems of fountain pens, wouldn’t that be a great favor to people who need to write frequently like himself! John thought hard all night and still couldn't find a good solution.

Later, John Lauder tried to make a tool that could write on rough surfaces (such as wood, thick wrapping paper) that ordinary pens could not use. One day John Lauder saw straws on the dining table and a little metal ball that knew when to put it. John had an idea. So John Lauder took the in inventing a pen similar to the current ballpoint pen, which is the prototype of the current ballpoint pen.

The structure of this pen is that one end of a tube is equipped with a small metal ball that can rotate freely, and then the ink used for printing is injected into the tube. When writing, the small metal ball will also move on the paper, and the viscous ink in the tube will gradually seep out from the gap between the ball and the tube, leaving ink marks on the paper.