Why is it difficult to make ball point pens?
Why is a ballpoint pen harder to build than a nuclear bomb? At present, there are only three countries in the world that can make it, without the United States
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There is an old Chinese saying that "a good memory is not as good as a bad pen". Although with the development of the information age and the widespread use of mobile phones and computers, pens are still necessary in people's daily life. Nowadays, there are various kinds of pen arithmetic, but none of these pens dare to compete with the ball pen.
Ballpoint pen has a very long history. The name of ballpoint pen first appeared in 1888. An American journalist named John Lauder designed a kind of ball point pen, but he did not make it into commercial use. It was not until 1895 that this kind of pen began to appear on the market.
In 1943, Biro and his brother Georg produced the first commercial pen, the Biro ballpoint pen. The British government bought the patent. These ballpoint pens began to be widely used among air force crew members, because the traditional ink would overflow, so ballpoint pens need not worry.
Moreover, the ballpoint pen is very strong and can adapt to the environment of World War II. Ballpoint pen was used in fascist countries and allies. In 1945, the United States put ballpoint pen into production, and Milton Renault improved the ballpoint pen. However, the first launch of the Renault ballpoint pen was very expensive, nearly $10.
However, the French Marcel Bishi has developed a process for manufacturing ballpoint pens, which greatly reduces the cost of ballpoint pens. In the comparison of prices, from the original 10 US dollars to 10 cents, nearly several million ballpoint pens are sold to the market every day.
After World War II, American businessmen used Japan's atomic bomb to open up a market for Chinese ballpoint pens, which were named "ballpoint pens". In fact, they were not comparable at all. However, they were so impressed by the atomic bomb that ballpoint pens were very popular. In 1948, China produced the first domestic ballpoint pen, and its name was still ball pen.
After China, Japan also began to produce ballpoint pens. Japan is also one of the countries with the largest sales volume of ballpoint pens. It consumes 400 million pens a year. However, Japan is in the period of post-war economic recovery. They can't afford the expensive ballpoint pens, so the Japanese made them themselves.
When making ballpoint pens, they found that ink would often leak out from the gap. Although there was only a little waste, it was "fatal" for Japan. Japan specially produced a kind of short ball point pen core and ball point pen. The service life was half of the original, but the price was also sharply reduced by half. This new type of ball point pen began to sell well in Japan.
Although China has produced ball point pens, a large number of steel for the pen head has to be imported. The importing countries are mainly from Switzerland and Japan. In order to solve the "import dependence" dilemma, they have invested 60 million yuan in research. In 2011, China no longer needs to import, and ballpoint pens are officially made in China.
To sum up, there are not only three countries that can make ballpoint pens, but only three are willing to make them. One is Switzerland, the other is Japan, and the other is China. Switzerland's precision instruments are recognized all over the world. Japan is vigorously developing industry, while China is improving its "import dependence".
As for the public opinion that once spread more difficult than the atomic bomb, it is also because of the influence of the "ballpen" played by American businessmen.