A Reliable Low Tech Word Processor
Although I frequently talk about the latest high tech developments, I sometimes write Science Shorts using a very reliable low-tech word processor called a pencil! Far from being made obsolete by the computer, as many as three billion pencils are produced in North America every year. Each is capable of processing around fifty thousand words.
The humble pencil can be precisely tailored to the job we want it to do. Pencils are produced using a twenty point scale, going from 10H at the hard end, to 8B at the soft end.
The black core of the pencil has not been made of lead since the sixteenth century. It’s made by mixing fine particles of carbon in the form of graphite with a kind of clay used for making bone china, and water. The resulting putty-like substance is forced through a small hole to produce a lead of an appropriate diameter. After drying, the graphite-clay mixture is baked in a kiln at high temperature.
The different blackness and hardness of pencils are produced by mixing the graphite and clay in different proportions. The more clay, the higher the H number, so that 6H is harder than 4H. Since graphite has a flaky layered structure, it easily flakes off when pressed against paper, leaving black marks which we form into words.
So next time you have to process words, don’t forget about the inexpensive, reliable pencil.
Because we always talk about the lead in pencils, most of us have been unaware that lead hasn’t been used for centuries. For example, when was the last time that you referred to a carbon pencil ? Or buying new graphite tubes for your mechanical pencil?
The graphite-clay mix is news to us. So this stuff is putty that turns hard, brittle and flaky when exposed to heat. Otherwise it is soft and malleable. Subjecting it to heat changes its character. It is still composed of the same ingredients, but something has happened to it in the process.
Sometimes we experience changes as a result of trials by fire. Our personalities can become hard and bitter. We can become resentful and critical. Perhaps though we become resilient, finding more strength than we knew we had - only because we had never been called upon to use it.
It is interesting to note that the same process of heat which hardens the graphite-clay mix melts candles and ice cubes. The experience of being put to the test will not produce uniform results. In large measure it is due to the nature of the material, not the nature of the fire.
However, humans are not mere chemical compounds. We do have capacities such as will and choice, and can respond to emotional, social and intellectual input. These afford us some options in our response to life’s crises, but at the same time make us more accountable for our actions and reactions. No one likes trials but few of us enjoy the luxury of being free from them. If you’re struggling, be encouraged. If you’re free from struggle, be thankful.
Life’s trials bring us to the point of seeing ourselves in new ways. Sometimes they reveal strength of character, but more frequently our weakness are exposed - to ourselves and to others. It is difficult to maintain the lofty values we espouse in more tranquil moments.
We wrestle with new questions in new ways. We often lack understanding about the whys and the purposes of our situation. Yet to have no answer, no way to integrate this experience in our story, is difficult. We long for unity and coherence in our life and this event just doesn’t make sense at this point.
A situation such as this often produces a crisis of faith regarding the way we’ve always seen and understood the world and our experience in it. When we get to this place, where do we turn to for help and for answers? Is there an overarching belief we have in the laws of the universe? in the randomness of life? in fundamental faithfulness of God?
Dr. David Humphreys and Debbie Hughes
© August 2004
