The Writing Machine (Final Draft)

The Writing Machine

Due to its ubiquity, ballpoint pens are the most widely used writing machines to date.

The Writing Machine

How does a Ballpoint Pen work? One way of explaining it is to describe its components: the ink cartridge, the ball, and the socket. Another way is to describe the process of writing.

How Ballpoint Pens Work (HowStuffWorks.com)

How Ballpoint Pens Work

by Melissa Russell-Ausley

Ballpoint Design

The key to a ballpoint pen is, of course, the ball. This ball acts as a buffer between the material you're writing on and the quick-drying ink inside the pen. The ball rotates freely and rolls out the ink as it is continuously fed from the ink reservoir (usually a narrow plastic tube filled with ink).

The ball is kept in place -- between the ink reservoir and the paper -- by a socket; and while it is in tight, it still has enough room to roll around as you write. As the pen moves across the paper, the ball turns and gravity forces the ink down the reservoir and onto the ball, where it is transferred onto the paper. It's this rolling mechanism that allows the ink to flow onto the top of the ball and roll onto the paper you're writing on, while at the same time sealing the ink from the air so it does not dry in the reservoir.

Rizal (his characters)

The Many-Sided Personality

Filipinos and foreigners alike have paid tribute to Jose Rizal claiming that his place of honor in history is secure. It was his Austrian bosom friend, Professor Ferdinand Blumentritt, rector of the Imperial Atheneum of Leitmeritz, who said "Rizal was the greatest product of the Philippines and his coming to the world was like the appearance of a rare comet, whose rare brilliance appears only every other century." Another German friend, Dr. Adolf B. Meyer, director of the Dresden