Mad about Science: Writing tools

By Brenden Bobby
Reader Columnist

One of my favorite phrases in my job is: “It isn’t science until it’s written down.” The written word is something truly unique to humankind, as far as we are aware. The ability to code information and store it in a physical medium for later use is the basis of our entire civilization. By creating a physical copy of information, we don’t need to store it in our brains.

A great example is a treasure map. Writing down directions to buried treasure means the person who buried it doesn’t need to actively remember exactly where they need to go, they just need to remember where they put the map. This takes up far less space in our brain than trying to remember landmarks and the exact number of steps it takes to get to the buried booty.

The history of tools for writing is prehistoric. The earliest writing tools were likely just hominid hands and fingers during the Neolithic Age. Hollowed out bones and reeds were also used to create depictions of animals and people in prehistoric cave paintings, the earliest of which date back 45,500 years ago in the Leang Tedongnge cave in Indonesia. It’s believed that artists of the time may have blown paint through the reeds like an airbrush.

It’s likely that the development of writing tools was a response to the media in which writers were placing their information. The development of papyrus in Mesopotamia and Egypt about 5,000 years ago meant that scribes of that age needed a new tool in order to record their thoughts. Reeds dipped in pigments were likely one of the first tools used, as they could be easily found and manipulated and even cut to an angle to support writing in cuneiform. 

The stylus was another tool developed for writing around this time. It was essentially a shaped stick that could be dipped in ink, or simply used to press into papyrus. By the time the Romans adopted the stylus, they had begun making it out of lead to give it more weight for pressing into papyrus or vellum. The term “pencil lead” is actually derived from the Roman stylus, rather than the pencils we use today.

Virtually every writing tool throughout history has been an evolution of either hollowed reeds or the solid stylus.

The quill pen’s first recorded usage was in the sixth century C.E. An evolution of the reed, it was a simple, yet elegant tool for the job. Bird feathers are hollow, which makes for a perfect ink reservoir. So how did the ink not simply spill from the quill?

Early quills were likely dipped in ink repeatedly so that only the end was wet. Later on, metal nibs were developed that would facilitate the capillary action of the ink and modulate the amount of fluid that would actually flow from the pen. 

In the briefest of explanations, capillary action is explained by liquid molecules’ tendency to stick with other liquid molecules, even in a situation where it seems to defy gravity. In the case of a pen, the ink would stick inside of the reservoir until the nib contacted paper and pulled out the ink.

If you want a cool visual of capillary action at play, get a water-washable marker, a paper towel and a jar of water. Make a horizontal line on the paper towel at least an inch above the water line, then set the bottom edge of the towel into the water — be sure not to submerge your line. Now give it about five minutes and watch how the water moves through the paper towel, pulling the ink with it.

Capillary action is the primary reason why ink pens don’t work in microgravity. Despite the story we’ve all heard about the Russians in the space race using pencils while NASA tried to develop a zero-gravity pen, graphite is not a great option for the microgravity environment, either.

Graphite, which is essentially just natural carbon, is very brittle and prone to breaking off into tiny dusty particles. This is the desired result for marking paper, as the pencil tip transfers this material over to the paper. However, in an enclosed environment with very little gravity, these tiny particles get everywhere, and are prone to clogging air filters or ending up in astronaut’s ears, eyes and noses.

Have you ever wondered how they get the graphite into pencils? It was a process pioneered in the 1700s, but perfected by 1812. The pencil is actually two separate halves. The graphite is inlaid into one half, and then both sides are glued together around it. Colored pencils are manufactured in a similar way, with the interior colors being very long and flexible coils of material that are laid into the halves. Often, the pencil is coated in paint to match the color and to seal the exterior and mask the process of it initially being three separate pieces.

What kinds of writing tools have yet to be invented? The stylus has made a comeback for the digital age with phones and tablets, it leaves one to wonder what may come next.

Stay curious, 7B.