
Where Theory Meets Chalk, Dust Flies - sohkamyung
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/23/science/mathematicians-blackboard-photographs-jessica-wynne.html
======
spodek
When I finished my PhD in physics, my father asked me what I might want as a
gift.

My first company got its first investment so I knew I was leaving academia.
The world outside academia had white boards, which felt unnatural and the
markers always running out of ink. A piece of chalk, you knew exactly how much
was left -- a physical bar chart.

I asked him for a blackboard. I still have it and use it, though not daily.
It's about 4 feet by 6 feet. The only thing that compares and that drew me
away from it to any degree is mindmapping software. I use Freeplane
[https://www.freeplane.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page](https://www.freeplane.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page),
but it doesn't replace the blackboard.

Nothing like a blackboard.

~~~
tzs
> My first company got its first investment so I knew I was leaving academia.
> The world outside academia had white boards, which felt unnatural and the
> markers always running out of ink. A piece of chalk, you knew exactly how
> much was left -- a physical bar chart.

I wonder if you could make a whiteboard marker holder that can tell you how
much is left in the marker by noting the changes in weight as the ink is used?

BTW, apparently you can get refillable markers. That could help a lot. Keep
two of each other color, starting with both full. When one runs out, switch to
the other, and sometime before that runs out, refill the first.

At my last office, I asked if I could have a blackboard instead of a
whiteboard, but my boss said that chalk dusk is bad for computers and rejected
my request.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Markers I use at home have exchangeable "marker fluid" cartridges built from
transparent plastic, so I can tell roughly how dry is the marker by checking
whether there is some fluid sloshing around. It's an uncommon model, though,
and I think the company making it stopped producing the variant with
exchangeable cartridges.

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clircle
I had a chalk board in my office for 6 years during a phd. Glad I work with a
whiteboard now; hated getting chalk dust on my clothing and computer gadgets.
I admit chalk feels better than dry erase, but the dust....

~~~
XJ6
Perhaps it's because I've never worked with chalk daily but chalk never felt
better than whiteboards to me, just thinking about a chalkboard makes my teeth
hurt.

~~~
jacobolus
You need a better chalkboard and/or better chalk.

Nice Japanese chalk on a piece of slate sanded to the appropriate roughness is
silky smooth.

~~~
bsder
> Nice Japanese chalk

Is this still available? I heard the company went out of business.

~~~
evanb
They were closing due to the old age of the owner/operator, but he sold the
method and apparatus to a company in South Korea who makes it in plentiful
quantities now. Hagoromo.

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jpindar
When I was in college, we found a pile of old blackboards behind a classroom
building that was being renovated. Of course we had to rescue a couple of them
and put them in the common rooms in our dorm.

Mostly they were filled with random graphitti, but we also often put up
mathematical brainteasers and it was interesting to see people's attempts at
solutions.

They stayed there til the end of the semester, I was sad to find them gone
upon returning next year.

------
bluenose69
This summer, my university took out the blackboard in the room where I teach,
replacing it with a horrible whiteboard. Although only a few weeks old, it
already cannot be erased properly, as far as I can tell.

I have my own markers and eraser to avoid the "tragedy of the commons" with
dried-out markers. I recommend this scheme to anybody, because it avoids the
frustration of going through one pen after another, in search for one that
writes without skipping.

But, even with a good marker, I find it quite difficult to get a constant-
thickness line, especially for quick markings on the board. So, almost
everything I write gets erased at first, getting only a bit better as I
reorient the pen. This is quite annoying for students.

And I can barely write mathematical symbols with those damned markers.

Also, the shiny whiteboard reflects the overhead lights, which means that it's
hard for my students to see what I'm writing.

On the educational front: nothing gained, quite a bit lost.

On the cost front: pens burn up money faster than chalk, and whiteboards need
to be replaced every few years, because something happens to make them
difficult to erase.

I suspect that chalk causes no health problems. But volatile fluids, and
whatever that ink is made from? I worry a bit about those.

One of the things I saw in many student evaluations of my teaching was how
much they liked the blackboard. (A lot of profs show slides, which is a
disaster, in my view, for mathematical subjects.)

The only good thing I can see about whiteboards relates to faculty
replacement. It encourages people like me to take an early retirement and get
the hell out of the place.

~~~
sliken
If you want erasable forever, get a glass white board.

Many of the popular brands have two identical white boards, one slightly
cheaper and differing by a digit in the product code. The more expensive one
is the one that can be erased more easily.

------
bschne
Just saw something similar by photographer Alejandro Guijarro recently, see
the "Momentum" project:

[https://www.alejandroguijarro.com/works](https://www.alejandroguijarro.com/works)

------
TrackerFF
My university professors had a real thing for blackboards, even going out of
their way to make a point to freshmen that in their department, blackboards
would be the ruling medium of sharing ideas.

When our faculty got moved to a brand new building, it turned out that there
where no old-school blackboards installed, only new digital ones. The math
department were the only ones to screw down their trusty old boards, and bring
them to the new building.

I thinks it's cute and all, but I simply can't go back to the old ways. Give
me digital board, and I'll take that, any day of the week.

(Being a guitar player, it all reminds me of the analog / tube snobs that
refuse to touch digital modelers)

~~~
whatshisface
Don't digital boards have that awful input lag that leaves your mark trailing
well behind your finger?

~~~
nuthje
The modern ones don't anymore, we have a couple of Microsoft Surfaces at the
office and they're quite snappy.

~~~
extra88
But they're so expensive and small compared to a blackboard. Another commenter
got a 4 foot x 6 foot blackboard, it was probably a few hundred dollars (plus
the cost of chalk) and will last for decades. A 50' Microsoft Surface Hub,
that's ~2 1/3 foot x ~3 1/2 foot, is ~$9,000 and will be lucky if it lasts 10
years.

There are cheaper large touchscreens but they won't use capacitive sensing
which is what makes the Microsoft Surface "snappy."

~~~
inimino
Also not so good in a blackout.

------
cm2012
I had bad eyesight when I was younger but didn't realize it. Whiteboards were
so much easier to read for me.

I also, unrelatedlely, hated getting my hands dried out with chalk. So
whiteboards won in every measure.

------
connorgreenwell
When I was still studying photography, my mentor was working on something
similar: [http://www.gregorytdavis.com/index.php/project/chalk-is-
temp...](http://www.gregorytdavis.com/index.php/project/chalk-is-temporary/)

------
AcerbicZero
A company I worked at replaced all their main white boards with MS SurfaceHub
things. At first, they sucked, but after a few weeks once we worked out most
of the drama they were actually pretty useful. Honestly if that place was run
slightly better and someone competent had been in charge from the get go it
would have been a flawless transition.

I don't see the point of going from blackboard to whiteboard, and I suspect
not every topic would be better on a Hub vs a blackboard. That said, for a
corporate environment, the Hub worked surprisingly well, as it's somewhat
better than a regular whiteboard and you can skip the part of a meeting where
everyone tries to take a picture of the whiteboard with their cell phones.

------
nathell
I've had a $10 LCD sketchboard (think Etch-a-Sketch) for a few weeks now, and
I like it a lot. I find myself jotting stuff on it surprisingly often. It's
responsive and has a tactile feel not unlike that of writing on a blackboard.
And the ImageMagick Whiteboard script [1] works well with photos of it, making
for nicely digitized notes in black-and-white.

[1]:
[http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/whiteboard/index.php](http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/whiteboard/index.php)

~~~
mlevental
which one do you use? boogie board? I'd love one of these that could image
itself.

~~~
flarg
I switched from Boogie to Rocketbook and it's a better user experience.

~~~
shantly
I received a Rocketbook as a gift and never managed to figure out what to do
with it. I have a cheap document scanning app on my phone that's very fast and
can share the results out to pretty much anywhere with a couple quick presses,
and doesn't feel kinda non-native (janky, confidence-reducing) like the
Rocketbook app is (or was, haven't tried it in like 8 or 9 months). The
workflow of that app + any piece of paper lying around is nearly identical to
that of the Rocketbook, but doesn't require both special paper and a special
pen. I can even scan several pages in a row and make them one PDF, which is
pretty close to what you can do with the Rocketbook (when it works).

I feel bad because I know it cost a little money, but I never managed to come
up with a reason to use it beyond a few test scans the first day. Within a
couple weeks I'd misplaced the pen anyway, still don't know where it ran off
to, but I don't miss it. I just have no idea what it does for me over normal
paper + scanner app. Circling the place to send it takes almost as long as
"tap share, tap where to send it" on my scanner app, and is less flexible, and
failed to work often enough that I didn't think I could trust it. Scans are at
least as fast and for whatever reason come out much higher-quality on the non-
Rocketbook app. The scanner app sends straight to whatever service I'm
connecting to, no reliance on some 3rd party server for any of its
functionality.

Contrary opinion provided in case anyone's looking at this for product
recommendations.

------
6gvONxR4sf7o
>Most mathematicians, if asked, would say that in their work they are
accessing some Platonic world of ideals that exists independently of our own.
Some argue that math is a human construct, a product of our own minds, with
which scientists model the apparent rules of reality.

Is anyone aware of a source for this? I always figured the majority were
mathematical formalists (like me) and was surprised to see this statement.

I was also happy to see multi-colored chalk getting solid representation up
there :D

~~~
__MatrixMan__
I don't have a source, looked briefly, but if the teachers at my University
(UCCS) are a representative sample, then indeed most of them are platonists.

~~~
JackFr
I forget which book I read it in (maybe the Mathematical Experience) it
depends when you ask them. Monday thru Friday, they're platonists. On the
weekends they're formalists.

------
ebg13
"ceci est un point NOIR -->" ... "<\-- BLANC" is hilarious, because it is of
course wrong in an inverted medium.

~~~
whatshisface
|

Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

~~~
mikorym
Not sure who downvoted or why, but one could point out that in French it's
only the kind you smoke.

~~~
ebg13
> _Not sure who downvoted or why_

I don't know (wasn't me), but, if I had to guess, I would say probably because
it's a throwaway joke and has no relation to the article.

------
nyc111
Years and years ago I took two semesters of physics at Columbia and I was
impressed by the real slate chalkboards in classrooms. Ever since than I wish
to buy real slate to use at home. Occasionally, I see them sold at ebay
salvaged from schhols. But I wonder if there are manufacturers who sell new
slate boards? Anyone know?

------
daedalus6174
These are mostly blackboards from elite institutions. I’d like to see a more
diverse set of blackboards.

~~~
fthem
just look at the genesis of the project:

    
    
        Ms. Wynne was drawn to math through her summer 
        neighbors on Cape Cod, Amie Wilkinson and Benson 
        Farb, who both teach at the University of Chicago
    

also, Amie Wilkinson seems to pursue publicity wherever she can get it
(quanta, AMS, NY Times, ...). as in every other field, success in math depends
on self-promotion and networking!

------
mitchtbaum
It's all about the topologs.

([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos))

------
Hitton
Although blackboards usage has it's charm, its long term use can have negative
side-effects on one's health ending with symptoms not dissimilar to ones
manifesting in coal miners.

[https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/jim.2017.2.issue-4/j...](https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/jim.2017.2.issue-4/jim-2017-0089/jim-2017-0089.pdf)

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alistairSH
Does the page do anything for anybody else? I see one chalkboard with swirls,
but it won't scroll.

~~~
have_faith
It's because of the paywall.

~~~
alistairSH
Weird, there is no paywall message or anything to indicate that's the problem.
Usually, there's a dialog/popover or similar.

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bbnet1
Love this one. More than the logical thinking, math is an art form.

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wtf77
paywall...

~~~
FabHK
Strangely enough, I could read this one in private browsing mode, as I
habitually use, whereas usually NYT blocks access when using private browsing.

~~~
ISL
I can't.

"Log in or create a free New York Times account to continue reading in private
mode."

In fact, I have created a free NYT account, but if I were to log in, my
browsing surely wouldn't be private. It is a conundrum.

~~~
FabHK
Yes, rather annoying. "We will track you, unless you log in, in which case we
track you."

