How This Pen Changed The World
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This is the BIC Cristal, possibly the most successful product ever made.
No matter where you are in the world
you'll find this pen in homes, offices, schools and pretty much everywhere else.
This iconic design has reached every corner of the earth
and at some point in your life you've almost certainly used this pen.
Since its release in 1950,
more than 100 billion of these pens have been sold worldwide
blowing the next bestselling products out of the water.
Amazingly, the design has remained basically unchanged for over 70 years
and it still continues to dominate the world.
With 14 million being sold every day
the impact this pen had on the world was monumental.
Pen prices dropped and literacy rates shot up.
But what made this pen so successful?
We modeled every last detail to show you the incredible story behind this pen
and how its clever use of physics made it the most perfect design.
But to really understand how revolutionary this pen was,
we need to go back in time.
In the past, pens were expensive and difficult to use.
Traditional quills were messy and had to be constantly dipped in ink.
Because of this, writing was seen as more of an art form,
limited to those who could use a pen.
Then the fountain pen was invented,
which had a metallic nib and could store the ink inside the pen's reservoir.
Although this was an improvement,
the nib was scratchy and couldn't control the flow of ink.
On top of this, they were still super expensive
costing around $150 in today's money.
At the time only around 20% of the world could read and write,
and this wasn't making it any easier.
But at the end of the 19th century a breakthrough was made.
American inventor John Loud came up with a mechanism that fed the ink onto the page
using a small ball instead of a thin nib.
This would, in theory, spread the ink more evenly and stop it from blotching.
He had just invented the ballpoint pen.
While this design worked well on tougher surfaces, it was too rough on paper
and so his pen never sold.
Decades went by and many new designs were made
but none of them could master the ballpoint pen.
If the ball was too tight in its socket the ink would clog up and it wouldn't reach the paper.
If it was too loose the ink would leak out and smear all over the page.
Getting this right was extremely difficult
since the tiny ball was difficult to make with any kind of accuracy.
Then came Laszlo Biro a man with a name you might recognize.
He realized that the solution was in the ink.
Most pens at the time used thin, water-based ink
which was leaky, slow drying and would seep through the fibers of the paper.
It also relied on gravity to feed the ink into the ball
which, depending on the angle of the pen, gave really poor results.
He started experimenting with oil-based inks which were thicker,
dried almost instantly and sat on top of the paper instead of seeping through.
This turned out to be a stroke of genius
and it unlocked a unique physical effect that caused the ink to be mysteriously pulled onto the ball
without gravity or any external forces.
This is called capillary action
and it's what allows water to climb tree roots and nutrients to flow around our body.
We can see this effect in action by placing a thin tube into some water and watching it climb.
But what's happening here?
The attraction between the liquid and the walls of the tube
is stronger than the attraction that binds the liquid particles together
and so the particles at the top get pulled up by the side of the tube
until the weight of the water eventually cancels out the force.
In Biro's pen this effect was happening upside down.
The ink was being pulled through the ultra thin walls of the tip
and onto the ball, ensuring that it was constantly covered in ink.
Biro quickly patented his design and sent it over to the patent office.
In order to master the ballpoint pen
Biro came up with a new design that would pull the ink onto the ball without gravity or moving parts,
producing a consistent and smooth line on the page.
Biro mastered his design and his pen became a hit in South America
but there was still one huge problem.
The cheapest pen he offered cost an incredible $190 in today's money
and so although the design was great, he never achieved mass market success.
At this point, literacy rates had only hit around 33%
and pens remained a luxury item.
But just a few years later,
French manufacturer Marcel Bich discovered Biro's pen and saw a huge opportunity.
He bought the patents for 2 million dollars
and began designing a new and improved version
that could be mass-produced for a much cheaper price.
With the help of state-of-the-art Swiss watchmaking machines,
he developed a method for mass-producing tiny stainless steel balls to within a fraction of a millimeter.
Instead of using metal for the rest of the pen
he bought machines that could mold plastic,
something that had only been around for a few years at this point.
This was the end result.
Although it may just look like a pen,
it's hard to overstate just how perfect this design turned out to be.
There were no moving parts, springs or complex materials,
yet every element had multiple purposes.
Let's take a closer look.
The pen had a hexagonal barrel like a pencil
which stopped it from rolling off tables and made it easier to grip.
It was made from polystyrene which was strong, cheap and transparent,
allowing the ink level to be seen at all times.
There was a tiny hole on the barrel which allowed air to enter and replace ink as it left the pen.
The ink inside the cartridge was a special recipe
that maximized the capillary effect while still producing a good quality line.
The ink flowed into the tip of the pen which contained the stainless steel ball.
The ball was machined so accurately
and could move just enough to spin and deposit ink onto the page.
When the pen wasn't being used the ball would create a seal,
stopping ink from leaking out of the bottom.
If the pen was turned upside down
the capillary action and the surface tension of the ink would stop it from falling out the back of the pen.
The lid which also doubled as a clip was made from polypropylene
which absorbed impacts and stopped the pen from cracking.
The pen was so perfectly simple
and solved every problem that plagued previous pens.
Most of all it was cheap,
hitting the market in 1950 at just $2.
It was an instant success,
selling around 10,000 units daily in France during its first year.
Marcel realized how English-speaking countries were pronouncing his name
so he dropped the H and the BIC name was born.
Marcel understood the importance of economies of scale
and he quickly expanded to other continents setting up factories all over the world.
By 1953 he was already selling 40 million pens per year
and the BIC Cristal took over the world.
Now anyone in the world who wanted to write or draw could do so and it was easy.
The world had secretly been begging for this product
and it came at the perfect time.
Over the next 50 years, 100 billion of these pens were sold
and literacy rates went from 35 to almost 90%.
It's almost impossible to imagine life without this pen
and the fact that its design has remained almost exactly the same since day one shows just how perfect it was.
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