Determining How Far a Pencil Can Draw a Line Using Long Sheets of Paper and a Working Treadmill

President Chay (Chay Denne) wanted to find out how far three different pencils and one ballpoint pen could draw. He put long sheets of paper onto a working treadmill and drew lines for as far as the writing implement allowed. The test subjects included an inexpensive No. 2 pencil, an expensive No. 2 pencil, a mechanical pencil, and a ballpoint pen.

I’m literally just going to spin this belt, probably half a mile per hour, slow as a treadmill can go and we’re going to just measure each lap. I have a counter on my phone …it’s just going to count how many laps the pencil has drawn. Each lap is approximately eight and a half feet but we’re going to figure out how far a pencil can draw.

He found that the standard No. 2 pencil went the farthest at 3.8 miles but with a light color. The expensive pencil was darker but only went 1.7 miles. The mechanical pencil only reached 1.48 miles due to the brittleness of the graphite inside. The pen went only 0.4 miles as the ink started to flow outside the pen as the treadmill was moving.

Denne also conducted a similar experiment using two Sharpies of different sizes.

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via The Awesomer