Interesting facts about a simple pencil. Interesting facts about the pencil

2014-11-21
The pencil was invented by Hymen Lipman. We take the pencil for granted, although many things could be different without this humble object.

In 2008, The Independent reported that there had been a 700 percent increase in pencil sales in London, at the height of the Sudoku craze.

The pencil is almost 450 years old. The first description of a pencil appeared in 1565 in a book published by Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner.

The material inside the pencil is graphite, large deposit this material was discovered in Borrowdale, Cumbria after strong storm in the 1560s. The storm uprooted many trees. Under the roots of one of them they found material that was initially mistaken for lead.

Pure graphite is brittle, but mixing with clay makes the rod much more stable. This property was discovered by Nicolas-Jacques Comte in 1795. Changing the amount of clay changes the hardness of the pencil, for example, a hard pencil is marked H or T ("Hard") and a soft pencil is marked B or M ("Soft"). A standard pencil is marked HB or TM.

Many famous writers felt more inspired with a pencil in hand. Famous fans of the pencil included John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway.

It is believed that on average you can write 45,000 words with a pencil. In 2007, a group of volunteers decided to see how long it would take a pencil to write. They managed to rewrite “To Kill a Mockingbird” - containing 100,388 words

One tree can produce up to two and a half thousand pencils.

The pencils, created by Graf von Faber-Castell, cost about 7,500 British pounds each. Only ninety-nine of them were created. The pencil is made of three diamonds and 18-karat white gold.

A very common mineral in nature, a very stable modification of carbon. Graphite occurs in the form of flakes of black or gray with a metallic sheen, various in shape and size. Graphite feels greasy to the touch.

It is used in metallurgy, for the manufacture of melting crucibles and boats, pipes, evaporators, crystallizers, covers for thermocouples, as a non-stick “powder” and lubricant for casting molds. It is also used to make electrodes and heating elements. Graphite is used in nuclear technology, rocket technology, and chemical engineering. Graphite is a very soft and slippery mineral, widely used as a lubricant and also for making pencil leads. Due to the flat structure of graphite, electrons move freely in its layers, which is associated with its high electrical and thermal conductivity.

How are cryptocrystalline graphite and diamond related?

Net carbon in natural conditions forms two different shapes crystalline materials: diamond, in which the carbon atoms are connected by one type of bond, and graphite with two different types connections between atoms. However, diamond deposits are rare compared to silicon deposits. The fact is that diamond is a high-energy form of carbon. A cryptocrystalline graphite, in turn, is the lowest energy form. This is why graphite is completely unsuitable for electrical devices. By the way, artificial diamond was first obtained by treating graphite in the presence of a catalyst at high pressure and high temperature. This method is now the standard industrial method for producing diamonds.

Since the 13th century, artists have used thin silver wire for painting. This tool was called a “silver pencil” and required high level mastery, since it is impossible to erase what he has written. His other characteristic feature was that over time, the gray strokes made with a silver pencil turned brown. There was also a “lead pencil”, which left a discreet but clear mark and was often used for preparatory sketches of portraits. Drawings made with silver and lead pencil are characterized by a fine line style. For example, Durer used similar pencils.

The so-called Italian pencil, which appeared in the 14th century, is also known. It was a rod of clayey black shale. Then they began to make it from burnt bone powder, held together with vegetable glue. This tool allowed you to create an intense and rich line. Interestingly, artists even now sometimes use silver, lead and Italian pencils when they need to achieve a certain effect.

Graphite pencils have been known since the 16th century. A powerful storm that passed through England in the area of ​​Cumberland uprooted trees, and then local shepherds discovered in the exposed soil under the upturned roots a certain dark mass, which they considered to be coal, which, however, could not be set on fire. Due to its color similar to that of lead, the deposit was mistaken for deposits of this metal, but also for making bullets new material turned out to be unsuitable. Then, after various tests, they realized that this mass leaves good marks on objects and took advantage of this to mark their sheep. Later they began to produce thin sticks with pointed ends from it and used them for drawing. These sticks were soft, stained your hands, and were only suitable for drawing, not writing.

In the 17th century, graphite was usually sold on the streets. To make it more convenient and the stick not to be so soft, artists clamped these graphite “pencils” between pieces of wood or twigs, wrapped them in paper or tied them with twine.

The first document mentioning a wooden pencil dates back to 1683. In Germany, the production of graphite pencils began in Stein near Nuremberg in 1719. The Germans, mixing graphite with sulfur and glue, got a different rod High Quality, but at a lower price. In 1758, the carpenter Caspar Faber also settled in Stein and began his production of pencils in 1761. What was the beginning of the history of Faber-Castell.

In 1789, scientist Karl Wilhelm Scheele proved that graphite is a carbon material. He also gave the current name to the material - graphite (from the ancient Greek γράφω - I write). Since graphite is late XVIII century was used for strategic purposes, for example for the production of crucibles for cannonballs, the English Parliament introduced a strict ban on the export of precious graphite from Cumberland. Graphite prices rose sharply in continental Europe, as at that time only Cumberland graphite was considered exceptional for writing. In 1790, Viennese master Joseph Hardmuth mixed graphite dust with clay and water and fired the mixture in a kiln. Depending on the amount of clay in the mixture, he was able to obtain a material of varying hardness. In the same year, Joseph Hardmuth founded the Koh-i-Noor Hardtmuth pencil company, named after the Kohinoor diamond (Persian: کوہ نور‎ - “Mountain of Light”). His grandson Friedrich von Hardmuth improved the mixture recipe and in 1889 was able to produce rods with 17 different degrees of hardness.

Independently of Hartmut, in 1795 the French scientist and inventor Nicolas Jacques Conte obtained a rod from graphite dust using a similar method. Hartmut and Conte are equally the progenitors of the modern pencil lead. Before mid-19th century, this technology became widespread throughout Europe, which led to the emergence of such famous Nuremberg pencil factories as Staedtler, Faber-Castell, Lyra and Schwan-Stabilo. The hexagonal shape of the pencil body was proposed in 1851 by Count Lothar von Faber-Castell, owner of the Faber-Castell factory, noticing that round pencils often rolled off inclined surfaces for writing. This form is still produced by various manufacturers.

Modern leads use polymers, which make it possible to achieve the desired combination of strength and elasticity, making it possible to produce very thin leads for mechanical pencils (up to 0.3 mm).

Almost ²/3 of the material that makes up a simple pencil goes to waste when sharpening it. This prompted the American Alonso Townsend Cross to create a mechanical pencil in 1869. The graphite rod was placed in a metal tube and could be extended to the appropriate length as needed.

Did you know that:

Released in the past special kind graphite pencils - copying (commonly called "chemical"). To obtain indelible marks, water-soluble dyes (eosin, rhodamine or auramine) were added to the carbon pencil core.

The famous French caricaturist Emmanuel Poiret (1858-1909), born in Russia, came up with the aristocratic-sounding French-style pseudonym Caran d’Ache, which he used to sign his works. Later, this version of the French transcription of the Russian word “pencil”, derived from the Turkic “kara dash” (black stone), was chosen as the name and logo of the Swiss brand CARAN d'ACHE, founded in Geneva in 1924, producing exclusive writing instruments and accessories .

A pencil with hardness HB and length 17.5 cm can:
draw a line 56 km long (2010; for comparison: in 1994 - 51.5 km, in 1998 - 54.7 km, in 2005 - 55.1 km, in 2008 - 55.8 km);
write about 45,000 words;
be sharpened 17 times.

Before breaking, the average pointed tip of a pencil resists a pressure of 255 atmospheres or 264 kg per cm².

More than 14 billion pencils are produced in the world every year - from this amount you can lay out a chain that will circle our planet 62 times.

Bernard Lassimon, a French mathematician, received the first patent (French patent No. 2444) for pencil sharpeners in 1828.

NASA invested several million dollars in developing a pen that could write in space, and Russian cosmonauts used simple pencils.

Derived from Turkish "punishment"– black and "dash"- stone.
At first, so-called silver pencils were used, which were drawing sticks made from a mixture of lead and zinc. Then graphite pencils were used, which were intended primarily for drawing rather than writing. ABOUT wooden pencil mentioned only in the 17th century.
The modern pencil was invented in the 18th century by the talented French scientist and inventor Nicolas Jacques Conte.

The most expensive pencil in the world

Count Anton Wolfgang von Faber-Castell heads family business for the production of writing instruments, founded in 1761 by Casper Faber in Germany.
In 1839, Baron Lothar von Faber released the world's first collection of writing instruments under the Faber-Castell brand, and in 2008, Faber-Castell officially became the manufacturer of the world's most expensive pencils.
The limited edition Graf von Faber-Castell Perfect Pencil included pencils made from 240-year-old wood and 18-karat gold. The upper end of the pencil was decorated with three diamonds.

The Graf von Faber-Castell Perfect Pencil collection includes only 99 handmade pencils, each of which cost a record 9 thousand euros.

Longest pencil

Several companies competed to create the world's longest pencil.
The world's first longest pencil was manufactured by Cumberland Pencil (UK) in May 2001. Its length is 7 meters 91 centimeters and it weighs 446 kg and 36 grams.

And in November 2002, the 2001 record was broken - the longest pencil at that time was made by Faber-Castell (Selangor, Malaysia). Pencil length - 19.75 meters, diameter 80 centimeters; The diameter of the stylus is 15 centimeters.

In August 2007, enthusiast Ashrita Furman from the USA created the world's largest pencil, 23 meters long. The weight of the giant was about 10 tons. The creation of the pencil took 8 thousand boards, inside it was a graphite rod with a diameter of 25 cm. At the end of the pencil, the creator installed an eraser weighing 90 kg.

The only drawback of these monsters was that they were simply impossible to use. The most large pencil which writes has length
“only” 40 cm. This is an enlarged copy of a well-known stationery item. You can use it in the same way as a regular pencil.

Golden pencil

designer Daisung Kim decided to expand the range stationery items luxury. Not long ago he presented an exclusive pencil “24K pencil”, which he made by hand.

The pencil has a unique surface - it is coated with a thin layer of 999.96 pure gold. And even the box of this difficult pencil is made in the form of a gold bar. The cost of the product is not yet known, but it will not be cheap.

Chocolate pencil dessert

Japanese designers have distinguished themselves again - they created pencils from chocolate.
The company did this project together with confectioner Tsujiguchi Hironobu, who owns many famous confectionery shops. And they came out with a package of pencils made from real chocolate in different shades.

You can probably try drawing with them... but they are better suited for something else. Chocolate pencils will be extremely useful for making desserts: by sharpening the pencil with the included sharpener, you get beautiful shavings with which to sprinkle the cake. Pencils are made from different varieties chocolate and will suit all lovers of sweets.

Unusual pencils

Flexible pencil
This pencil will calm any capricious child and relieve stress from an adult.

Pencil clothespin
Creative pencil by Yuta Watanabe. has an undeniable advantage - it does not need to be sharpened. Simply replace the lead

Graphite sculptures
Sculptor Agelio Batle sees these pencils as sculptures, but they are also fully functional, just like a regular pencil.

Bijouterie
Now you will always have a pencil with you, in the form of these earrings.

"Mustachioed" pencils
Set of 5 pencils with famous mustaches (Salvador, Zorro, Bert, Django, Clark).

"Egg" pencil
Cool pencil from Nicolas Chen, made from eggshells.

The largest set of colored pencils

The collection produced by the Felissimo company can rightfully be considered the largest set of colored pencils in the world. She produces packs of colored pencils of 500 pieces - and that's 500 shades! Moreover, each pencil in the package has its own own story and even a name.

The price is interesting because a small set of 25 pencils of the same tone is produced per month and costs $33. It will take 20 months to complete the entire collection and you can buy a set of pencils for $660. Other distinctive feature— stands and mounts are specially produced for pencils so that they can be conveniently organized and stored.

Carbon is an incredible element. Arrange the carbon atoms in one direction, and they become soft, more pliable than graphite.

Reset the location, and presto! — atoms form diamond, one of the hardest materials in the world.

Carbon is also a key component for most life on Earth; the pigment that made the first drawings; and the basis for technological marvels such as graphene, which is a material stronger than steel and more flexible than rubber. [Cm. Periodic Table of Elements].

Carbon occurs naturally as carbon-12, which makes up almost 99% of the carbon in the universe; carbon-13, which is about 1%, and carbon-14, which is a small amount of total carbon, and this is very important in dating organic objects.

Carbon is unique in its properties because it forms a number of components higher than the total addition of all other elements combined with each other.

Physical and Chemical properties carbon depend on the crystal structure of the element.

• Atomic number (number of protons in the nucleus): 6
• Atomic symbol (on the periodic table of elements): c
• Atomic mass (average atomic mass): 12.0107
• Density: 2.2670 grams per cubic centimeter
• Phases at room temperature: Solid
• Melting point: 6.422 degrees F (3.550 degrees C)
• Boiling Point: 6.872 F (3.800 s) (sublimation)
• Number of isotopes: 15 total; two stable isotopes, which contain atoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons.
• The most common isotopes are: carbon-12 (6 protons, 6 neutrons and 6 electrons) and carbon-13 (6 protons, 7 neutrons and 6 electrons)
• Vanderwaals radius 0.091 nm
• Ionic radius 0.26 nm (-4) ; 0.015 nm (+4)
• Isotopes 3
• Electronic shells [He] with 2S 2 2P 2
• First ionization energy 1086.1 kJ.mol -1
• Second ionization energy 2351.9 kJ.mol -1
• Third ionization energy 4618.8 kJ.mol -1

Carbon: from stars to life

The sixth most abundant element in the universe, carbon is formed inside stars in a reaction called the triple alpha process, according to the Center for Astrophysics.

In the old stars that burned most of its hydrogen, the remaining helium is retained. Each helium nucleus has two protons and two neutrons. At very high temperatures - more than 100,000,000 Kelv. (179.999.540.6 F) - Helium nuclei begin to fuse, first as pairs into unstable 4-proton beryllium nuclei, and eventually, as enough beryllium nuclei appear, into beryllium and helium. Final result: atoms with six protons and six neutrons - carbon.

Carbon is a template manufacturer. It can bond with itself to form long, elastic chains called polymers. It can also bond with four other atoms due to its arrangement of electrons. Atoms are arranged as a nucleus surrounded by an electron cloud, with electrons moving around at different distances from the nucleus. Chemists think of these distances as shells and determine the properties of atoms by what's in each shell, according to the University of California Davis.

Carbon has two electron shells, the first containing two electrons and the second holding four of a possible eight spaces. When atoms are bonded, they share electrons in their outer shell. Carbon has four empty spaces in its outer shell, which allows it to bond with four other atoms. (It can also bind stably to fewer atoms by forming double and triple bonds.)

In other words, carbon has options. And he uses them: About 10 million carbon compounds have been discovered, and scientists estimate that carbon is the keystone for 95 percent of known compounds. Carbon's incredible ability to bond with many other elements is the main reason it is critical to almost all life.

Carbon in organisms

The discovery of carbon is history. The element was known prehistoric people in the form of charcoal. According to World Association coal, carbon-like coal is still the main source of fuel worldwide, providing about 30 percent of the world's energy. Coal is also a key component in steel production, and graphite, another form of carbon, is a common industrial lubricant.

Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon used by archaeologists for modern organisms and remains. Carbon-14 occurs naturally in the atmosphere. According to Colorado State University, plants take it in through their respiration, in which they convert sugars produced during photosynthesis into energy, which they use to grow and maintain other processes. Living organisms incorporate carbon-14 into their bodies by eating plants or other plant-eating animals. According to the University of Arizona, carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years, meaning that after that time, half of the carbon-14 in the sample will decay.

Because organisms stop taking in carbon-14 after death, scientists can use the half-life of carbon-14 as a kind of clock to measure how much time has passed since the organism died. This method works on once living organisms, including objects made of wood or other plant material.

Carbon gets its name from Latin word carbo, which means coal.

• Diamonds and graphite are among the hardest and softest natural materials, known, respectively. The only difference between them is their crystal structure.
• According to the Earth Encyclopedia, carbon makes up 0.032 percent of the Earth's lithosphere (crust and outer mantle). A rough estimate of the weight of the lithosphere by La Salle University geologist David Smith is 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (or 3*10^23) pounds, making the approximate weight of carbon in the lithosphere 10,560,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (or 1.05 6*10 ^22) lbs.
• Carbon dioxide (a carbon atom plus two oxygen atoms) makes up about 0.04 percent of Earth's atmosphere, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—an increase from pre-industrial times due to the burning of fossil fuels.
• Carbon monoxide (a carbon atom plus one oxygen atom) is the odor gas produced when fossil fuels are burned. Carbon monoxide kills by binding to hemoglobin, an oxygen-containing compound in the blood. Carbon dioxide binds to hemoglobin 210 times stronger than oxygen and binds to hemoglobin, effectively displacing oxygen.
• Diamond, the brightest version of carbon, forms under great pressure deep in the Earth's crust. The largest diamond in gemstone The only diamond ever found was the Cullinan diamond, which was discovered in 1905. The rough diamond was 3,106.75 carats. The largest stone cut from a diamond, at 530.2 carats, is one of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom and is known as the Great Star of Africa.
• The tattoos of Ötzi the Iceman, a 5,300-year-old corpse found in the Alps, were made of carbon, according to a 2009 study in the journal Archaeological Science. Small incisions were made in the skin and charcoal was rubbed in, possibly as part of an acupuncture treatment.

New carbon molecules

Carbon molecules are an element that has been studied for a long time, but this does not mean that it can no longer be found. In fact, the same element that our prehistoric ancestors burned as charcoal could be the key to the next generation of technological materials.

In 1985, Rick Smalley and Robert Curl of Rice University in Texas and their colleagues discovered new uniform carbon. By vaporizing graphite using lasers, scientists created a mysterious new molecule from pure carbon, according to the American Chemical Society. This molecule turned out to be a spherical sphere consisting of 60 carbon atoms. The new carbon molecule is now better known as a "buckyball". The researchers who discovered it won Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996. Buckyballs have been found to inhibit the spread of HIV, according to a study published in 2009 in the Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling; medical researchers are working to attach drugs, molecule to molecule, to buckyballs to deliver drugs directly to sites of infection or tumor in the body; this includes research from Columbia University.

Since then, other new pure carbon molecules called fullerenes have been discovered, including elliptical and carbon nanotubes with amazing conducting properties. Carbon chemistry is still quite hot. Researchers in Japan and the US are working to figure out how to bond carbon atoms together using palladium atoms to produce complex new carbon molecules.

Speaking in simple language Graphene is a thin layer of pure carbon; it is a single, densely packed layer of carbon atoms that are held together in a hexagonal hexagonal lattice. In more complex conditions, it is an allotrope of carbon in the structure of the plane of SP2 atoms with a bond length of 0.142 nm in the molecule. Layers of graphene stacked on top of each other form graphite, with an interplanar distance of 0.335 nm.

This is the finest connection known to man, one atom thick, lightweight material known (about 0.77 milligrams per square meter), the strongest compound discovered (from 100 to 300 times stronger than steel and with a stiffness strength of 150,000,000 ps), the best conductor of heat, at room temperature (in (4.84±0.44) × 10^ 3 k (5.30±0.48) × 10^3 W m−1 K−1) and also the best conductor of electricity (studies have shown electron mobility at values ​​of more than 15,000 cm2 V−1 s−1). Other well-known properties of graphene are its unique light absorption levels of πα ≈ 2.3% white light, and its potential suitability for use in spin transport.

With this in mind, you might be surprised to know that carbon is the second most abundant material in the human body and the fourth most abundant element in the universe (by mass), after hydrogen, helium and oxygen. This makes carbon the chemical basis for all known life forms on earth, so graphene may well be an environmentally friendly, sustainable solution for an almost limitless number of applications. Since the discovery (or more accurately, mechanical production) of graphene, advances across various scientific disciplines have exploded, with enormous advances especially in the fields of electronics and biotechnology.

A carbon nanotube (CNT) is a tiny, straw-like structure made of carbon atoms. These tubes are extremely useful in a wide range of electronic, magnetic and mechanical technologies. The diameters of these tubes are so small that they are measured in nanometers. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter—about 10,000 times smaller than a human hair.

Carbon nanotubes are at least 100 times stronger than steel, but only one-sixth as heavy, so they can add strength to almost any material. They are also better than copper at conducting electricity and heat.

Nanotechnology is being used to turn sea water into drinking water. In a new study, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have developed a carbon nanotube process that can remove salt from seawater much more efficiently than traditional technologies.

In the nanotube study, the scientists mimicked the way biological membranes are structured: essentially a matrix with pores within the membrane. They used especially small nanotubes—more than 50,000 times thinner than a human hair. These tiny nanotubes provide very high water flow, but are so narrow that only one water molecule can pass through the tube. And most importantly, the salt ions are too large to fit into the tube.

The researchers believe the new discovery has important implications for the next generation of both water purification processes and high-flux membrane technologies.