From centuries, pencils have recorded our thoughts and dreams. They have been used to create masterpieces in art as well as literature. Famous novelists, Ernest Hemmingway and John Steinbeck used pencils to write their books. Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner using a pencil. Children all over the world have used the humble pencil to learn great facts and bring their imaginations of life on paper. There is more than fourteen billion pencil produced in the world every year. There are enough pencils to circle the globe sixty two times! Yet no one ever gives a thought to this humble device. Let’s take a closer look at this remarkable tool.

The Latin word for pencil is penillus. This word means painters brush. Early pencils were actually fine brushes that resemble the pencils we know today.

Grinding graphite and clay into a stiff doughy consistency makes up a pencil. This gooey stuff is then passed through a small hole in a tungsten carbide die. The finished product is then cut into seven-inch lengths. These leads are then dried and put in a kiln to be fired. Once they come out of the kiln they are infused with a lubricant to make them write smoother. The different gradients in pencils are dependent upon how much clay is added to the mixture initially. The wood used to encase the graphite core must be soft enough to sharpen easily, yet also be stable enough not to bend. The most popular wood for this purpose is the Red Cedar. When the wood is first milled it is seven inches long and around two inches in diameter. Then six half circle grooves are cut into one side to allow the graphite lead to be inserted. After that, two grooves are glued together with the graphite encased between them. Once the glue has cured a special machine cuts the pencil into the correct shape, it is then painted and the grade is printed on the side. In total, 125 steps have gone into the making of each pencil. It would cost someone around $50.00 in labor and materials to make one 10-cent pencil.

Today, most of the pencils have an eraser. However, 16 years ago they did not. The reason for this is believed to be because teachers thought that children would make more mistakes. After all, with an eraser you can easily rub out a mistake.

Did you know pencils couldn’t be used in space? In the 1970s, a story was circulated that NASA was spending vast amounts of money to develop an instrument that will write in space. This task is not as easy as you may think. The typical pen uses gravity in order to work. In space, there is no gravity. The end of the story is that someone should send NASA a pencil.

Although this may be funny but it is not true. Pencils cannot be used in space. When you write with pencil, fine particles of graphite dust comes free from the lead. Due to the lack of gravity in space, this dust would then float around the cabin and becoming a health risk when it is inhaled by the astronauts.