Paperclip
A paper clip is a device which holds several sheets of
paper together by means of
pressure: it leaves the paper intact and can be easily removed.
Encyclopedia
A
paper clip is a device which holds several sheets of
paper together by means of
pressure: it leaves the paper intact and can be easily removed.
Shape and composition
It is usually a thin wire bent into a looped shape that takes advantage of the flexibility and strength of the materials of its construction to compress and therefore hold together two or more pieces of
paper.
History
The first patents for paper clips dates from the middle of the last half of the
19th century. The most common type of
wire paper clip was never patented, but it was probably in production in
Britain as early as 1890 by "The Gem Manufacturing Company". A machine for making Gem-type paper clips was patented in 1899 by William Middlebrook of
Waterbury,
Connecticut. They are still sometimes called "Gem clips", and in Swedish, the word for any paper clip is "gem".
Byzantines are thought to have originally invented a paper clip which was fashioned from brass. However, this proved too costly to produce in large numbers, and was only used for binding highly valued imperial documents.
A
Norwegian, Johan Vaaler, patented what some people have regarded as a less functional version, but experts generally regarded the Norwegian as far superior to anything previously conceived. It was never manufactured because British entrepreneurs marketed a less practical, but more commercially viable product. Most literature usually credits him with the invention of the Gem-type clip. Awareness that a Norwegian had invented some kind of paper clip resurrected the notion that the paper clip was always a Norwegian invention. This contributed to the widespread use of paper clips as a symbol of resistance to the
German occupiers and local
Nazi authorities during
World War II. People wore them in their lapels to denote solidarity and unity when other signs of resistance were forbidden, such as buttons showing the exiled
King Haakon VII of Norway. A giant paper clip was erected near
Oslo in honour of Vaaler.
The world's largest paper clip, measuring in at 6 metres, was constructed in 1998 in Amherst, Nova Scotia. It took 6 months and over one ton of steel to forge. It was purchased in 2001 by weatlhy venture capitalist, Maggie Ledwell, and can now be viewed in Florida, Massachusetts.
Despite hundreds of variations, the original design is still the most popular. Its qualities of easy use, gripping without tearing, and storing without tangling have been difficult to improve on.
Recent innovations include multi-colored plastic-coated paper clips and spring-fastened
binder clips.
Other uses
Paper clips can be bent into a crude but effective
lockpick. A paper clip is also a useful accessory in computing: the metal wire can be unfolded with a little force. Several devices call for a very thin rod to push a recessed button which the user might only rarely need. This is seen on most
CD-ROM drives as an "emergency eject" should the power fail; also on early disk drives . Some
Palm PDAs advise the use of a paper clip to reset the device. The track ball can be removed from early Logitech pointing devices using a paperclip as the key to the bezel. One or more paperclips can make a loopback device for a RS232 interface . A paperclip could be installed in a
Commodore 1541 disk-drive as a flexible head-stop. Paperclips have been used to replace fuses.
Paperclips in pop culture
In
Microsoft Office, the default form of the infamous
Office Assistant is an
anthropomorphic version of a paper clip called Clippit.
In July 2005, a man named Kyle MacDonald started the "
one red paperclip" website. Here he started with a red paperclip and traded it for various objects until he eventually acquired a house in July 2006.
A common misunderstanding is that a paperclip placed on a harddrive or disk of any kind could be destructive. Even if the clip in itself might be magnetic, the currency would simply not be enough to destroy data.
Other paper-fastening devices
Bibliography
- Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Useful things ; ISBN 0-679-74039-2
See also
External links
Patents- -- Paper clip -- E. P. Bugge
