The most important invention in history given a coin

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Hungarian Inventors and Engineers:
László József Bíró: Inventor of the Ball Point Pen


His annoyance at the time wasted and mess made by fountain pens caused László Bíro, a newspaper editor in Hungary, to find a better way.

 

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I greatly disagree that the ball point pen is the most important invention in history.

 

Trying to single out one event or invention as the "most important" one in history will never work. But when that Bíró coin (well, collector coin) was issued, I got it too. Not so much because of the design, but mostly because the ballpoint pen is one of those things that almost everybody uses while not too many know about its "background" ...

Christian

 

Maybe you weren't here before computers.

 

Perhaps, but it can be an enlightening and fun exercise. I really can't think of anything that had a greater impact on human intellectual development than the ball point pen, with the possible exception of movable type.

Ruben

 

I'm going with either the IPAD or the DVR...it's a toss up

 

Thermos bottle.

 

I thought the wheel was pretty important.
Doug probably does too since he helped draw the plans....

 

I think they should put the guy who invented toilet paper on a GOLD coin !

The guy who invented Beer on a diamond encrusted platinum one !

 

Nice comeback-


And maybe I would count numerous things that the pen is made from before the pen itself-

Plastic
Steel
Springs
Metal Spheres (bearings)
Screw mechanics
Ink
Pigmintation (other colors of ink)
Mass production devices
The actual writing of ANY alphabet that a pen does

If any or all of these were used in any part of the design for any type of the ball point pen they are better inventions than the pen itself.

 

Ever try to do calculus without a ballpoint pen, or balance a check book, or send a post card, to write a news article, take notes for class, or to express just about any difficult and complex idea at all without the contant 24/7 reliability of the cheap, ever flowing, easy to carry, ball point pen. I can still remember as a child the Bic commercials with Peggy Flemming using a ball point with ice skates, and then using it to write with.

You remove the ball point pen and you might have well degraded human production 80% prior to the computer, and maybe even still.

Just my opinion

Ruben

 

Well you are very much entitled to it same as I . Oh and yes I did calculus with out it ,I used a pencil. (Another great invention.) & 80% over just 60 years is a bit high for degradation IMO

 

To my judgment, Leonhard Paul Euler produced the most admirable works in all the history.

I still prefer my quills.

 

I believe Democritus did a lot of high math without a ballpoint pen, calculator or even a math teacher ? And Socrates by all logic, didn't use one either.


Just sayin'

 

So, not harnessing of fire, the axe or knife, concrete, sextant, saw, penicillin. You are going with something to either stop us from having to use a pencil, or get or fingers dirty with a quill.

Reminds me of the comedian talking about how we have pills to prevent heart attacks, prevent strokes, prevent certain kinds of cancers, none of those are called "the pill". Invent something to prevent having to use something that is inconvenient, like the birth control pill....now that it THE PILL.

 

Do you know how impiortant the ball point pen is? I'll tell you.

When NASA wanted to put Man on the Moon, something we sadly can not do today, they ran test flights and in the process had discovered to their horror that bvall point pens would not work reliably in zero gravity space! As a result, they put out a contract to solve this problem with 10's of millions of dollars investing into a new invention to over come this problem. Finally Paper Mate Pens came up with the "Power Point" pen, which amazingly works upside down and in zero gravity!

After supplying NASA astronauts with reliable pen, and with Patents in hand, they then went out and marketed these wonders to the American public and made millions of dollars, putting hundreds of thousands of people to work and nearly creating a new industry.

[video=youtube;JQCx_tP5Xe8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQCx_tP5Xe8[/video]

[video=youtube;mS07qS4NcVo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=mS07qS4NcVo[/video]

Now when the Soviet Union faced the same problem. They were perplexed at the American solution. They couldn't spend hundreds of millions of dollars on their space program so they solved this problem in a unique way....they sent up pencils.

Ruben

 

Just saying...nothing on the scale of a common engineer today...Just saying.

 

OK - not papermate...
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/613/1

 

http://www.spacepen.com/

 

Did they cut off the erasers to make the writing permanent?