20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils - Page 2 - New England Patriots Forums

***Terry Glenn is a cowgirl*** · 03-27-2008, 09:57 PM

11 Henry David Thoreau—American, but a confident scribbler all the same—used pencils to write Walden. And he probably got them free. His father owned a pencil-making business near Boston, where Henry allegedly designed his own pencils before becoming a semi-recluse.

***Terry Glenn is a cowgirl*** · 03-27-2008, 09:59 PM

12 In 1861, Eberhard Faber built the first American mass-production pencil factory in New York City.

***Terry Glenn is a cowgirl*** · 03-27-2008, 09:59 PM

13 Pencils were among the basic equipment issued to Union soldiers during the Civil War.

***Terry Glenn is a cowgirl*** · 03-27-2008, 10:00 PM

14 The mechanical pencil was patented in 1822. The company founded by its British developers prospered until 1941, when the factory was bombed, presumably by pencil-hating Nazis.

***Terry Glenn is a cowgirl*** · 03-27-2008, 10:01 PM

15 Je suis un crayon rouge. After the 1917 Soviet revolution, American entrepreneur Armand Hammer was awarded a monopoly for pencil manufacturing in the USSR.

***Terry Glenn is a cowgirl*** · 03-27-2008, 10:02 PM

16 More than half of all pencils come from China. In 2004, factories there turned out 10 billion pencils, enough to circle the earth more than 40 times.

***Terry Glenn is a cowgirl*** · 03-27-2008, 10:03 PM

17 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 menace of floating bits of graphite.

***Terry Glenn is a cowgirl*** · 03-27-2008, 10:03 PM

18 Those concerns inspired Paul Fisher to develop the pressurized Fisher Space Pen in 1965. After the Apollo 1 fire, NASA banned pencils in favor of his pen on manned spaceflights.

***Terry Glenn is a cowgirl*** · 03-27-2008, 10:04 PM

19 The world’s largest pencil is a Castell 9000, on display at the manufacturer’s plant near Kuala Lumpur. Made of Malaysian wood and polymer, it stands 65 feet high.

***Terry Glenn is a cowgirl*** · 03-27-2008, 10:06 PM

20 At the other extreme, engineers at the University of California at Santa Barbara have used an atomic force microscope as a kind of pencil to draw lines 50 nanometers (two millionths of an inch) wide. Just because they could.

03-27-2008, 09:57 PM	#11
*Terry Glenn is a cowgirl* Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 7,883	Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils 11 Henry David Thoreau—American, but a confident scribbler all the same—used pencils to write Walden. And he probably got them free. His father owned a pencil-making business near Boston, where Henry allegedly designed his own pencils before becoming a semi-recluse.

03-27-2008, 09:59 PM	#12
*Terry Glenn is a cowgirl* Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 7,883	Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils 12 In 1861, Eberhard Faber built the first American mass-production pencil factory in New York City.

03-27-2008, 09:59 PM	#13
*Terry Glenn is a cowgirl* Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 7,883	Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils 13 Pencils were among the basic equipment issued to Union soldiers during the Civil War.

03-27-2008, 10:00 PM	#14
*Terry Glenn is a cowgirl* Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 7,883	Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils 14 The mechanical pencil was patented in 1822. The company founded by its British developers prospered until 1941, when the factory was bombed, presumably by pencil-hating Nazis.

03-27-2008, 10:01 PM	#15
*Terry Glenn is a cowgirl* Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 7,883	Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils 15 Je suis un crayon rouge. After the 1917 Soviet revolution, American entrepreneur Armand Hammer was awarded a monopoly for pencil manufacturing in the USSR.

03-27-2008, 10:02 PM	#16
*Terry Glenn is a cowgirl* Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 7,883	Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils 16 More than half of all pencils come from China. In 2004, factories there turned out 10 billion pencils, enough to circle the earth more than 40 times.

03-27-2008, 10:03 PM	#17
*Terry Glenn is a cowgirl* Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 7,883	Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils 17 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 menace of floating bits of graphite.

03-27-2008, 10:04 PM	#19
*Terry Glenn is a cowgirl* Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 7,883	Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils 19 The world’s largest pencil is a Castell 9000, on display at the manufacturer’s plant near Kuala Lumpur. Made of Malaysian wood and polymer, it stands 65 feet high.

03-27-2008, 10:06 PM	#20
*Terry Glenn is a cowgirl* Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 7,883	Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Pencils 20 At the other extreme, engineers at the University of California at Santa Barbara have used an atomic force microscope as a kind of pencil to draw lines 50 nanometers (two millionths of an inch) wide. Just because they could.

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