History - Inventions and discoveries - Ballpoint pens - Writing instruments - Hungary - History of inventions
Which Hungarian inventor developed the modern ballpoint pen?
Correct!
László József Bíró worked as a journalist and was bothered by the fact that the ink from fountain pens smeared easily. Together with his brother György Bíró, a chemist, he developed a more viscous ink and a writing mechanism with a small, freely rotating ball at the tip. As you write, this ball rotates and absorbs ink from the reservoir, which it then transfers evenly onto the paper. This exact principle is also described in Bíró patents from the 1940s. As early as 1931, László József Bíró presented an early ballpoint pen at a trade fair in Budapest. In 1938 patent applications followed in several countries, and after moving to Argentina he continued to develop the ballpoint pen. However, the idea of a ball tip was not entirely new: John Jacob Loud had already patented a corresponding pen in the USA in 1888. However, this was more suitable for marking leather and was unsuitable for normal writing on paper. That's why László József Bíró is considered the developer of the modern, practical ballpoint pen.
László József Bíró is considered the developer of the modern, practical ballpoint pen.
