1This is the BIC Cristal, possibly the most successful product ever made.
2No matter where you are in the world
3you'll find this pen in homes, offices, schools and pretty much everywhere else.
4This iconic design has reached every corner of the earth
5and at some point in your life you've almost certainly used this pen.
6Since its release in 1950,
7more than 100 billion of these pens have been sold worldwide
8blowing the next bestselling products out of the water.
9Amazingly, the design has remained basically unchanged for over 70 years
10and it still continues to dominate the world.
11With 14 million being sold every day
12the impact this pen had on the world was monumental.
13Pen prices dropped and literacy rates shot up.
14But what made this pen so successful?
15We modeled every last detail to show you the incredible story behind this pen
16and how its clever use of physics made it the most perfect design.
17But to really understand how revolutionary this pen was,
18we need to go back in time.
19In the past, pens were expensive and difficult to use.
20Traditional quills were messy and had to be constantly dipped in ink.
21Because of this, writing was seen as more of an art form,
22limited to those who could use a pen.
23Then the fountain pen was invented,
24which had a metallic nib and could store the ink inside the pen's reservoir.
25Although this was an improvement,
26the nib was scratchy and couldn't control the flow of ink.
27On top of this, they were still super expensive
28costing around $150 in today's money.
29At the time only around 20% of the world could read and write,
30and this wasn't making it any easier.
31But at the end of the 19th century a breakthrough was made.
32American inventor John Loud came up with a mechanism that fed the ink onto the page
33using a small ball instead of a thin nib.
34This would, in theory, spread the ink more evenly and stop it from blotching.
35He had just invented the ballpoint pen.
36While this design worked well on tougher surfaces, it was too rough on paper
37and so his pen never sold.
38Decades went by and many new designs were made
39but none of them could master the ballpoint pen.
40If the ball was too tight in its socket the ink would clog up and it wouldn't reach the paper.
41If it was too loose the ink would leak out and smear all over the page.
42Getting this right was extremely difficult
43since the tiny ball was difficult to make with any kind of accuracy.
44Then came Laszlo Biro a man with a name you might recognize.
45He realized that the solution was in the ink.
46Most pens at the time used thin, water-based ink
47which was leaky, slow drying and would seep through the fibers of the paper.
48It also relied on gravity to feed the ink into the ball
49which, depending on the angle of the pen, gave really poor results.
50He started experimenting with oil-based inks which were thicker,
51dried almost instantly and sat on top of the paper instead of seeping through.
52This turned out to be a stroke of genius
53and it unlocked a unique physical effect that caused the ink to be mysteriously pulled onto the ball
54without gravity or any external forces.
55This is called capillary action
56and it's what allows water to climb tree roots and nutrients to flow around our body.
57We can see this effect in action by placing a thin tube into some water and watching it climb.
58But what's happening here?
59The attraction between the liquid and the walls of the tube
60is stronger than the attraction that binds the liquid particles together
61and so the particles at the top get pulled up by the side of the tube
62until the weight of the water eventually cancels out the force.
63In Biro's pen this effect was happening upside down.
64The ink was being pulled through the ultra thin walls of the tip
65and onto the ball, ensuring that it was constantly covered in ink.
66Biro quickly patented his design and sent it over to the patent office.
67In order to master the ballpoint pen
68Biro came up with a new design that would pull the ink onto the ball without gravity or moving parts,
69producing a consistent and smooth line on the page.
70Biro mastered his design and his pen became a hit in South America
71but there was still one huge problem.
72The cheapest pen he offered cost an incredible $190 in today's money
73and so although the design was great, he never achieved mass market success.
74At this point, literacy rates had only hit around 33%
75and pens remained a luxury item.
76But just a few years later,
77French manufacturer Marcel Bich discovered Biro's pen and saw a huge opportunity.
78He bought the patents for 2 million dollars
79and began designing a new and improved version
80that could be mass-produced for a much cheaper price.
81With the help of state-of-the-art Swiss watchmaking machines,
82he developed a method for mass-producing tiny stainless steel balls to within a fraction of a millimeter.
83Instead of using metal for the rest of the pen
84he bought machines that could mold plastic,
85something that had only been around for a few years at this point.
86This was the end result.
87Although it may just look like a pen,
88it's hard to overstate just how perfect this design turned out to be.
89There were no moving parts, springs or complex materials,
90yet every element had multiple purposes.
91Let's take a closer look.
92The pen had a hexagonal barrel like a pencil
93which stopped it from rolling off tables and made it easier to grip.
94It was made from polystyrene which was strong, cheap and transparent,
95allowing the ink level to be seen at all times.
96There was a tiny hole on the barrel which allowed air to enter and replace ink as it left the pen.
97The ink inside the cartridge was a special recipe
98that maximized the capillary effect while still producing a good quality line.
99The ink flowed into the tip of the pen which contained the stainless steel ball.
100The ball was machined so accurately
101and could move just enough to spin and deposit ink onto the page.
102When the pen wasn't being used the ball would create a seal,
103stopping ink from leaking out of the bottom.
104If the pen was turned upside down
105the capillary action and the surface tension of the ink would stop it from falling out the back of the pen.
106The lid which also doubled as a clip was made from polypropylene
107which absorbed impacts and stopped the pen from cracking.
108The pen was so perfectly simple
109and solved every problem that plagued previous pens.
110Most of all it was cheap,
111hitting the market in 1950 at just $2.
112It was an instant success,
113selling around 10,000 units daily in France during its first year.
114Marcel realized how English-speaking countries were pronouncing his name
115so he dropped the H and the BIC name was born.
116Marcel understood the importance of economies of scale
117and he quickly expanded to other continents setting up factories all over the world.
118By 1953 he was already selling 40 million pens per year
119and the BIC Cristal took over the world.
120Now anyone in the world who wanted to write or draw could do so and it was easy.
121The world had secretly been begging for this product
122and it came at the perfect time.
123Over the next 50 years, 100 billion of these pens were sold
124and literacy rates went from 35 to almost 90%.
125It's almost impossible to imagine life without this pen
126and the fact that its design has remained almost exactly the same since day one shows just how perfect it was.