January 18 – Happy Birthday, Joseph Dixon

nPostednon January 18, 2015

nI’mnsure you already know that the “lead” in a pencil isn’t made ofnlead. Right? After all, lead is a well known poison, so it would benpretty silly to hand rods of poison out to five- and six-year-oldnkids!

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nInstead,nthe “lead” in pencils is made of graphite. And today’s famousnbirthday is the fellow who pioneered the industrial uses of graphitenand the manufacture of pencils!

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nWhatnis graphite?

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Graphitenis a lot like diamonds. Graphite is grayish black, and diamonds arentypically clear and colorless. Graphite is dull, and diamonds sparklenbrilliantly (when they are cut). Graphite is cheap, and diamonds arenpricey.

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nSonwhy do I say that graphite is like diamonds? It’s because they arenboth made almost entirely of carbon atoms.

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nGraphitenis a natural form of carbon that has flat, hexagonal-shapednparticles. Graphite powder mixed with a clay binder is used to makenpencil cores that can make marks on paper or other surface. However,ngraphite is so soft it must be encased in something harder—likenwood. Still, graphite makes a great pencil:

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nThen marks can be easily erased by rubbing with several different items.

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nThen marks are resistant to moisture, most chemicals, UV radiation, andn aging.

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nWhynare pencil cores called leads, even though they aren’t made ofnlead? Apparently, people used to think that graphite was a form ofnlead, not of carbon!

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nNow…aboutntoday’s birthday boy…

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JosephnDixon, born on this date in 1799, was an inventor who invented anmirror for a camera (which eventually evolved into the modernnviewfinder), a double-crank steam engine, and a counterfeit-beatingnprinting method. He began a business connected with a graphite mine,nand he discovered that graphite could be used as a stove polish, asnan additive in lubricants in such things as brake linings, and as ancrucible in which metals could be melted.

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nButnDixon is best known for manufacturing the first wood-and-graphitenpencil in the U.S.

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nDixonnintroduced his graphite-encased-in-wood pencil in 1829. But it justndidn’t take off. People wrote with quill pens and ink, and pencilsnwere an innovation that most people didn’t feel the need for. n

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nButnthen the Civil War started. Suddenly people needed writingninstruments that were more portable. Less likely to spill. Somethingndry and clean.

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n…Somethingnlike a pencil!

nSuddenlynthe demand for pencils jumped. Dixon led the way to mass productionnof pencils, and by 1872 the Dixon company was making 86,000 pencils anday!

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nNowadaysnDixon Ticonderoga (which is what Dixon’s company is now called)nmanufactures about 1,500,000,000 pencils a year!!!!

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You’venprobably used one of those billions of pencils Ticonderoga hasnmanufactured. Most of the pencils the company manufactures are thenNo. 2 pencils used by standardized test-takers around the world.nAnd…speaking of “around the world,” the one billion No. 2npencils the Ticonderoga company makes in just one year, placednpoint-to-eraser, would circle the Earth five times!!

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nBynthe way…

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n…Whennyou hear the word inventor, do you think about more famousninventors like Alexander Graham Bell (telephone), Samuel Morsen(telegraph), and Robert Fulton (steam engine)? Well, those are threenof the men that Dixon hung out with!

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nCelebratenDixon with pencils!

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nOnen of my daughters used to have a pencil collection. It can be fun ton slowly collect one of every sort of pencil you can find. Hint:n they’re not all plain yellow!

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nAnothern one of my daughters is a fine artist who makes drawings using justn graphite pencils and paper. Work on your pencil drawing techniques. Heren is a great video to get you started with creating 3-D forms. Heren is an instructional video about drawing trees – but there are an million videos available about drawing a million different things!

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