This is the story of where graphite comes from and how the pencil lead was invented.
Here are some other unusual pencil facts that might interest you:
Thomas Edison, the famous American inventor had his pencils
specially made by Eagle Pencil to a special length, thickness, and with a softer
graphite than was normally available.
John Steinbeck, the great 20th Century American
novelist, was an obsessive pencil user and is said to have used as many as 60 a
day. His novel East of Eden took more than 300 pencils to write.
Roald Dahl, the creative genius behind children’s books
like Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory, used only pencils with yellow casing to
write his books. He had 6 sharpened pencils ready at the beginning of each day
and only when all 6 pencils became unusable did he resharpen them.
The average pencil holds enough graphite to
draw a line about 35 miles (56 km) long or to write roughly 45,000 words.
Edward Nairne is said to have developed the first rubber eraser to erase pencil marks. Until then, writers removed mistakes with
bread crumbs!
Pencils can
write in zero gravity and so were used on early American and Russian space
missions—even though NASA engineers worried about the flammability of wood
pencils in a pure-oxygen atmosphere, not to mention the problem of floating bits
of graphite.
In 2007, Ashrita Furman presented the world's largest pencil – 76 feet
(23 m) long, 18,000 pounds (8,200 kg) (with over 4,500 pounds (2,000 kg) for
the graphite centre). It cost over $20,000 to make. Click here to see a video about it.
Click here to see gorgeous photos from a New York Times photo essay of one of the oldest American pencil factories (since 1889) the General Pencil Factory in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Omg, I never thought that in NASA they use pencils in their space missions, I don't how they could erase Carbon because, in some pencils, the erasers are TERRIBLE! they are so hard and it's imposible to erase!
ReplyDeleteWow and the largest pencil of the world, It's carzy, I hope that the rubber is not an rosa hard ''stone''.
it´s very interseting to know how pencils are made but I think I prefer mechanical pencils, I don't need to sharpen my mechanical pencil haha.
I think it´s very interesting to see how the carbon atom has appeared in the starts of our universe and to learn that over millions of years
ReplyDeletethose atoms have rearranged and depending on temperature and pressure, have become coal, oil or graphite..I never imagined that!
It´s also awesome to learn how leads are manufactured and it has also surprised me to know that before eraser was developed, pencil marks were erased with bread crumbs!!!
For me, it´s incredible to think that in zero gravity a pencil can be used and a pen might not.
In conclusion, I liked the full article very much.
Alejandro de Miguel Pareja