Wooden Communication

Isabelle Tearse

isabelle.tearse@students.dominican.edu

1 December 2015

Professor J. Daniel May

Big History, FYE 1001, Section 9

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A pencil is an instrument used for marking, writing, or drawing. A pencil

consists of a thin rod of a substance, usually graphite, that leaves a mark on some surface,

usually paper ( Pencils). For this assignment, I choose a to analyze a pencil and how it

has changed over time. I want to become a teacher and in classrooms pencils are

necessary for any form of communication. They are used to write or draw pictures.

Pencils also help people to express themselves and their thoughts and feelings. This essay

will be discussing how a pencil relates to all the different thresholds in big history as well

as the future.

The first threshold is most commonly referred to as the Big Bang, which occurred

13.8 billion years ago. This event occurred because a singularity, a zone that is

immensely dense, hot, and small, began to expand to and cause an explosion known as

the Big Bang. During this expansion, the elements helium and hydrogen were created.

Inside of hydrogen, there is a proton that can be found in all tangible objects. Looking at

this threshold through the lens of how it related to a pencil, the connection can be made

that pencils are made out of wood, which comes from trees, which contain hydrogen that

is present in the water.

In the second threshold, stars are born in nebulae when fusion occurs light is

produced. The stars then begin to consume all hydrogen used in their nuclear fusion, and

once all of the hydrogens is used the center of the star will begin to shrink. When this

occurs the star becomes increasingly hotter causing another nuclear reaction to occur

which forms new heavier elements such as carbon and oxygen (Christian). In relation to

the creation of a pencil, the creation of oxygen and carbon is significant. The so-called
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lead of a pencil contains large amounts of carbon, which connects a simple wood

pencil to the second threshold and the creation of stars.

In the third threshold, the previously created stars die. When the stars lack the

hydrogen in their core, they no longer have energy pouring out from their center. This

lack of energy causes them to collapse in on itself because of the significant amount of

gravity contained in its core. As the outer layer of the star falls in on itself and slam into

each other creating a large explosion, signifying the death of the star. With this explosion,

new elements, such as tin are created (Christian). Mental bands on pencils holding the

eraser in place are made of tin, therefore wooden pencils can be connected to the third

threshold.

The fourth threshold is where the planets begin to form. The new chemicals that

begin to form start to condense into giant balls of mass because of gravity. These balls of

mass contained much heavier and more complex elements. Some of these planets and

satellites became known as the Earth and the Moon. Chemical differentiation occurred

within the Earth, which formed its iron core. In this threshold, oxygen is also formed

along with the creation of the sun (Christian). Both of these relates closely to the

formation of a pencil because the formation of the earth was the first step towards the

creation of life that would be necessary to produce the wood found in pencils.

The fifth thresholds discuss the formation of the first organisms on the earth. In

the fifth threshold, molecules combined together inside of cells, which were able to

reproduce. By being able to reproduce, these cells had a way of copying themselves.

However, no process is perfect so through this replication of cells mutations began to

form causing an increase in new life forms. This specifically is associated with the
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formation of a pencil because these preliminary organisms formed such as photosynthetic

bacteria. This relates to pencils since photosynthetic bacteria help to separate the oxygen

from the other elements it was bonded to since the 80% of the atmosphere was comprised

of carbon dioxide (Christian). Oxygen is important because it is necessary for

photosynthesis to occur and for trees to grow, thus producing wood used in pencils.

Additionally, towards the end of this threshold animals began to emerge and evolve.

Animals began to do scent marking to leave a trace of them behind. This is related to

pencils because pencils also leave a mark. This helps animal marking helps to show

communication between to things when they are not together much like writing and

pencils do.

Threshold six was when Homo sapiens began to emerge. In this threshold, Homo

sapiens begin to manipulate different elements such as making stone tools or learning

how to control fire and use it to their advantage. With this new manipulation of the

elements around them, came an increased complexity with their neurological capacity.

Additionally, there were some new emergent properties during this time. The biggest was

the advancement in their collective learning. They developed the ability to share

information rapidly, clearly and precisely that in turn lead to a collective understanding

throughout the entire community. This gave way to long-term change in Homo sapiens.

This specifically relates to the sixth threshold because in the sixth threshold human forms

were evolving and becoming more and more complex (Christian). With this, they began

to make more and more tools. Some of these tools were carved out of wood. These

wooden tools would eventually evolve into other more advanced tools and some would

evolve into writing utensils such as the pencil. Additionally, during the evolution of
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Homo sapiens in this time, they began to put down symbolic expressions such as cave

drawing, which is similar to how pencils can also be used to create symbolic expressions.

During the seventh threshold, there was another increase in collective learning.

During this threshold agriculture emerged and humans began to manipulate the

environment around them to farm and grow particular foods. This increase in population

size let to an increase in social complexity and, therefore, caused the collective learning

of the community to be accelerated. This relates to the emergence of a pencil because

during the seventh threshold there was a significant increase in the popularity of writing

and record keeping which involved writing utensils. The Babylonians in Mesopotamia

would use clay tablets to write on. Sharp styluses were pressed into this clay to help

create the marking that would later be preserved the clay as it dried (Nocks). These were

easily erased and revisable much like how pencil markings can be erased. For important

things, they would bake these clay tablets so that the etchings would become permanent.

Papyrus, an expensive paper that Egyptians used to write on, was used to record and

preserve their most valued information such as literature; the poetry of writing that would

later be sealed inside tombs (Egyptian Writing). In this threshold, the use of writing to

transcribe treasured works of literature, however, this was all done by hand, which made

these works of literature much more valuable.

The eight thresholds involved the industrial revolution and the introduction of

fossil fuels to the environment. During this time, there was also an exponential growth in

the human population and therefore, a significant growth in collective learning and in the

improvement of the way of living. With this, there came significant advancements in

writing tools and this was when the pencil we know today was formed. Currently, pencils
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are commonly found in the United States and around the world. According to the Writing

Instrument Manufacturers Association in 2006, in the United States alone, 3.7 billion

basic wood-encased pencils were produced and sold (Pencils). Additionally during this

current time scientists now had to modernize writing tools even further since they had to

figure out what writing tool would work up in space.

The future for a pencil is one that can be hard to predict. It is possible that the

concept of wooden pencils may be forgotten as we move into a more technological

society. Nowadays people are not taking notes with pencil and paper, and instead they are

doing it on their laptops or with styluses on tablets. Additionally, people now a day tend

to not send handwritten letters since it is much quicker and faster to send an email or a

text message. Therefore, the future for a pencil does not look bright and it could be said

that a pencil may be replaced by a tablet stylus or even forgotten altogether.

Overall, pencils are very important and have taken a very long time to evolve into what

they are known as today. By looking at this writing utensil through the lens of each

threshold, much insight can be gained about pencils and how they have many different

components and are connected to many other things out there that you would not

normally associate with pencils such as oxygen, water, or even the sun. Where will

pencils go in the future? Will they even be remembered? Writing is an essential part of

learning and communication that can only be done properly with the use of a pencil.

What will happen when pencils are no longer made and go extinct?
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Bibliography

Christian, D., Brown, C., and Benjamin, C. Big History: Between Nothing and

Everything. McGraw-Hill: New York, 2014. Print.

"Egyptian Writing Materials and Publishing." Arts and Humanities Through the Eras. Ed.

Edward I. Bleiberg, et al. Vol. 1: Ancient Egypt 2675-332 B.C.E. Detroit: Gale,

2005. 118-121. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 1 Dec.

2015.<http://ezproxy.dominican.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id

=GALE%7CCX3427400071&v=2.1&u=dom10178&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asi

d=ba95c7cf187d1069316edf16ed1b1b94>.

Nocks, Lisa. "The Development of Writing Materials: 2000 B.C. to A.D. 699." Science

and Its Times. Ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 1: 2,000 B.C. to A.D. 699.

Detroit: Gale, 2001. 383-387. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 1 Dec.

2015.<http://ezproxy.dominican.edu/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id

=GALE%7CCX3408500387&v=2.1&u=dom10178&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asi

d=404e0368aa2d3a58154dfbee29de899c>.

"Pencils." Encyclopedia of Products & Industries - Manufacturing. Ed. Patricia J.

Bungert and Arsen J. Darnay. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 2008. 759-766. Gale Virtual

Reference Library. Web. 1 Dec. 2015.

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821ba8dcad42226992f0e4d67e762d>.